So last night my roomate cajoled me into going to hear a hindu sage give
a lecture. Since there was nothing better to do, I went.

He said alot of interesting things, ALOT of alignment with mystical
Judiaism/Christianity (suprisingly so), but, at one point he was
lecturing on how overwhelemed we can be with the pursuit of
self-satisfaction. He asked "how many foods are there in the world?",
"...how many ways of preparing it? how many spices? tastes? how many
people does it take to prepare these foods? how long does it take to
grow? prepare? how much energy required to cook it..." and so-on.

Then he says, "now, consider this. After the first 2 inches of your
tongue, you can not taste anything. So all these efforts are focused on
the satisfaction of your tongue. Is that balanced? After all, if you had
no taste, you could eat grass and never tire of it."

He wasnt suggesting any ascetic diet, but, making the observation that
we sure put ALOT of effort in making our tongues happy. I thought it was
curiously insightful.