Pigs at the Trough

"Table for three sir?"

I was browsing the BBC website earlier today and discovered to my horror that the "all you can eat" buffet restaurant concept has made its way to Britain. Now we have many "all you can eat" buffets here in Austin at which I have been known to partake (often quite enthusiastically), but honestly sometimes it's like feeding time at the zoo - you could swear some of these people had not been fed in weeks the way they chow down. And it's not as if we Brits don't have our own obesity epidemic to worry about - the last time I went back home it was alarmingly apparent that we are expanding at an astonishing rate of calories.

The accompanying video clip (in the BBC article) sadly just echoes the same old British self-deprecating stereotypes as we laugh and poke fun at our self destructive gluttonous behavior while making excuses and crowing about getting "a bargain". Where's the self restraint? Oh yeah, there is none - you may as well let Billy Bunter loose in the tuck shop and hope everything will still be there when you get back.

I remember a few years back Jamie Oliver was so appalled at the junk food that constituted school dinners that he shamed the British Government into investing in more healthy choices. What happened? Parents were sneaking burgers to their kids through the school railings.

Have we really become so conditioned (lazy) that convenience now takes precedence over the health of our own kids? The phrase "ticking time bomb" comes to mind.

But my favorite bit of the article was the assertion that Taybarns (the trough in question) have invented "what appears to be a new hybrid cuisine, Texican". Excuse me, but isn't that what we know as Tex-Mex?

Or did they just slap a tortilla around some soggy fish and chips?