Thursday, July 16, 2009

Meaning of Life and Dietary Choices









NY Times' Roger Cohen has a very interesting and well-written piece on life, health/longevity, and daily gastronomical decisions. To support the premise of the article, Cohen uses two rhesus monkeys, Canto, 27, and Owen, 29. There's a basic differences between the two friends and it consists of what kinds of food they consume. Canto gets a restricted diet with 30 percent fewer calories whereas Owen gets to eat whatever he chooses.

The end result: Owen looks much happier than Canto.

While I tend to be more of the school of thought of gastronomical moderation and I highly privilege fitness and vegetarian choices, I have to candidly admit, that the paragraph I enjoyed the most from Cohen's piece was the following:

"Well-fed Owen, by contrast, is a happy camper with a wry smile, every inch the laid-back simian, plump, eyes twinkling, full mouth relaxed, skin glowing, exuding wisdom as if he’s just read Kierkegaard and concluded that “Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward.”

I suppose Kierkegaard had something to do with it.

Read more here.





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5 comments:

Sra said...

But Owen's fat little belly seems a little sparse in hair. To me that is less appealing, but his face does seem more content, anyway. Maybe they just caught Canto on a bad day, though.

JJ said...

Owen's my man! Live it up, Party-Loewe! :)

Will said...

To think that food is not related to happiness is delusional. To me, at least, I'm the happiest when I partake of all the necessary protein and vitamin groups. I also think that they might have caught Canto on a bad day.

Anonymous said...

Keep it up, Canto. Lean lives longer.

Unknown said...

Oh, Canto. I know, I know. Diets suck!