(Editor’s Note: This is a new feature from Pacco, dirigible enthusiast and all around good guy. Take his advice on anything, trust us.)
Have you ever heard the saying, “always save the best for last?” This sentiment can be used to rationalize all sorts of decisions that are otherwise hard to justify. For example, maybe you’re trying to decide what car lot to shop at. If you save the best for last then you’re more likely to leave satisfied. When a child asks his parents why he was picked last for teams in kickball, his mom might tell a white lie to explain “well, son, you always save the best for last.” Or maybe this mantra comes in handy when you have good news and bad news to deliver and you can’t decide which to give first.
On the other hand, some folks might use this motto to decide how they’re going to eat a meal. When you were young you probably wanted to eat dessert first while your parents reminded you to “save the best for last.” Or perhaps you are the type that sections off his meals before eating so that you can find out which piece will be the tastiest and put that morsel aside until the very last bite. If this is the case then let me give you some advice: when it comes to food, never save the best for last.
Recently I adopted this new motto and it has changed the way I view every meal. See I grew up in an Italian household where my dad reminded me that “food is love” and that I should leave my plate clean because (pardon the political incorrectness) “there are starving children in China.” I was taught to savor my meals and build up the anticipation for dessert. Dessert in my house was a luxury that had to be earned. Ice cream, cake, and brownies were only presented to the members of the “clean plate club.”
In America, the reward for eating all the food on your plate is more food, and yet we wonder why there is an “obesity epidemic” in our country. Somehow people convince themselves that if they eat something healthy before they eat junk then the two will cancel each other out [carrots don’t cover for onion rings, RIP Mitch Hedberg]. Never muscle down a salad just so you can polish off a plate of French Fries guilt free, that’s ludicrous. You’re just inhaling extra calories (unless you actually like salad. Ew). Instead, eat the food you like first and save the worst for last. You might call me crazy but I have three very good reasons for this: (1) if you save the best for last, you are going to inevitably eat it, even if you’re full; (2) when you save the best for last, the “best” just isn’t the same quality it was when the meal started; and (3) at the end of the meal your palette is not as sharp which makes full enjoyment impossible.
- Listen up college kids, this one is for you especially. I know you. I know you have no self control. And I know that on ice cream sundae night you just can’t stop yourself. Once you see that there’s ice cream for dessert you decide right away that after you finish your supper you’ll eat some ice cream. The problem with this is that sometimes you eat to the point that you are full… and then you get up and scoop yourself a heaping bowl anyways. If you go for a meal, and you find out there is a dessert or a side that you’re going to eat no matter how full you are, then just eat that first. When you get to the grosser foods that you don’t really like, you won’t feel inclined to eat them since you’re already full. Yes this means you’ll eat less of the “healthier” foods, but at least you’ll be ingesting fewer calories this way.
- Say you are the kind of person that takes their steak dinner and cuts it up into bite size cubes as it’s served. You inspect the pieces for the color and seasoning as well as its juiciness and tenderness. Then, after careful evaluation, you find out which piece is going to be the most flavorful…and you set it aside. After consuming every other bite of the steak (the gross/fatty bites and the over cooked sides) you finally get to that perfect bite. And it’s delicious. But, is it as delicious as it could have been? That piece sat on your plate for around 10-15 minutes as you devoured the rest of your meal. It’s got to be a little colder, and a little dryer than it was when the meal began. Imagine if you had popped that sucker into your mouth immediately. It would have been even more delectable. Then, towards the end of the steak, once you were full and there were only the gross/fatty bites left, you could have left those scraps untouched. This maximizes the tastiness of the meal while saving you the pain of over eating.
- It’s pretty much a fact [What, you want proof? Welcome to freshman year] that the hungrier you are, the better food tastes. Also, at the beginning of a meal, your palette is sharper. You haven’t dulled it down with the mediocre bites yet. So you could wait until the end of the meal to finally enjoy the last tasty bite OR you could eat that tasty bite right away and have a joygasm of flavor explode in your mouth as your taste buds pop champagne and light fireworks. That’s what eating the best bite first is like. That piece of ice cream sundae with the perfect proportions of Reese’s pieces, chocolate sauce, whipped cream and ice cream? Yeah, I’m eating that bite first. And you know what? It’s going to be fucking delicious.
Sure you can celebrate that you have the “patience” to save the best bite for last, but the moral here is that there’s no reason to wait. At the end of a meal, if you saved the best for last, then you’re going to eat it no matter what. That means that you struggle through the gross parts and consume a lot of extra calories just so that you can reward yourself later. That “reward” mentality has been pounded into our heads since we were kids, but it’s never too late to change. When I buy a muffin, I pop the top and then I just throw the stump away. I know I won’t enjoy the stump the same way I enjoyed the top, and I don’t need those extra calories [thanks for teaching me that, Jerry Seinfeld]. You know what? You don’t need them either. Forget about the clean plate club. Do yourself a favor: eat what you like and give the rest to your dog… he’ll eat anything. Except muffin stumps. Even your dog knows those are just empty calories.
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