THE FALLACY OF MODERATION

Ever since the M&M-gall bladder fiasco I've been reading up on the latest health advisory gurus, looking for loopholes vis-à-vis chocolate consumption, but the most flexible advice I can find is priestly statements like "consume dark chocolate in moderation."

Who are these people? Where do they find their joy? Gazing at a picture of a hot fudge sundae must for them be like a week in Vegas. Aristotle was the granddaddy of the moderation pushers, he set the turtle's pace for pleasures of the appetite, but needless to say he had never in his life tasted chocolate, which to my mind leaves him out of the running on this matter.

To get back to eating chocolate, eating chocolate in moderation is like Tantalus getting one grape every other week. He's worse off than when the whole bunch was always just about within reach. Life is not to tantalize with biweekly grapes, life is to gorge! Judiciously of course. If you disagree because you're one of those pro-moderation people, please go back to your gravel tea.

Then there's the logical approach. Chocolate and moderation simply do not go together; they’re a contradiction in terms, like "national intelligence." They're not even in the same ballpark! Chocolate is a ballpark. Moderation is the inside of a ping-pong ball. "Chocolate in moderation" is therefore meaningless.

There's my loophole.