Epicurus, Happiness, Moderation with Food

The philosopher Epicurus had many interesting ideas about how to achieve happiness in life. Some of these ideas were about our relationship with food and drink. Epicurus recommended that anyone who wanted to be happy should learn to be extremely moderate in what they ate and drank. He emphasized sticking to foods that were simple, nourishing, and inexpensive, and to eat an amount that would sate hunger and maintain health.

There were at least three reasons for this. (1) When you are hooked on specific or highly flavorful foods, not having access to them causes emotional pain. (2) The happiness produced by indulging in food and drink is fairly superficial. (3) Eating unhealthily makes the body unhealthy, and this leads to pain in the body. Thus immoderate habits with food and drink will lead to unhappiness.

I think it’s interesting how little attention we seem to give this.