Natural Desires

Epicurus on what we eat

Epicurus and Natural Desires in the Modern World

Hello, welcome back. I was thinking about Epicurus who said that the natural desires are easiest to fulfill because when I have a desire for something natural, it means two things. It means it comes from nature; nature gives me this desire. For example, the desire to eat and to drink. But it also means that nature fulfills this desire in Epicurus’ time. I could go to a stream running somewhere close to my home and I could drink the water, or I could go to some orchard nearby and get something to eat. I could get fruit. You know, it was Greece. I could just go and plant something, and a few months later I would have something to eat. So it was very easy back then to satisfy natural desires because people had access to nature.

The Challenge of Modern Living

And I was thinking that today this is not necessarily true anymore. We have desires, natural desires. We have the desire to eat and to drink, but what is today the easiest way to fulfill the desire? It's not actually natural if you think about it. All the natural foods are very expensive. Fresh fruit, organic particularly, right? Food is a luxury item, while the cheapest food are things like cup noodles and crisps and chips and whatever you call them. You know, all these things that are very processed, very artificial, not very nutritious, but they are cheap. And the supermarkets dump them on you. So this is a problem, right? We live in a world that does not in itself encourage natural living anymore.

Raising the Next Generation

And I think since we are, you know, trying to not only complain but to get some thoughts out of this, some ideas on how to improve things, I think it's very important that we raise the next generation in a way that they appreciate natural things. For example, my children have never been to McDonald's with us. We never go there together. They have been perhaps once or twice with their schoolmates, but we have never brought them to McDonald's. And I think this is very important that you raise your children in a way that they get used to natural food. And now when they go to McDonald's with their friends once a year, they report that it is horrible and they don't want to eat there and it's not tasty at all because they are used to eating natural foods. And they, by their instinct, reject that artificial food that really does not taste good.

So every kind of food we eat is a matter of getting used to it. It is an acquired taste, and if you raise the children in the right way, then their acquired taste will be closer to the natural taste. And so slowly the next generation will perhaps return to demanding more natural tastes from their restaurants, from their takeouts, and we can improve. We can get a healthier nutrition. We can get a healthier next generation.

Thank you, and see you again tomorrow.