Have you ever heard the “law” that says work expands to fit
the time allotted to it? It’s called Parkinson’s Law.
It’s true, you know, give someone five minutes to complete a
task, and it’ll be completed in five minutes. Give that same person 10 minutes
and it’ll take 10 minutes to complete the work. And so on, ad nauseum.
Well, I have a corollary to Parkinson’s Law: Consumption rises to meet availability.
In other words, the more you have of something, the more you will use.
Specifically, food products. Even more specifically, food products you buy at
big-box stores like Costco.
For example, take cookies. Take as much as you want if you
bought a monster jar from Costco. Nobody wants to throw away food, so you’ll
eat and eat and eat your cookies until they’re all gone. Give some away,
and the recipient will eat and eat and eat their cookies until they’re all
gone. Put some away, but then you’ll find them and you’ll eat and eat
and eat the stored cookies until they’re all gone.
If you buy a package of four steaks for four people and cook
two of them then slice them up, the four diners will be satisfied with the
equivalent of a half-steak each. But, if you cook all four, they will all be
consumed by the same people. If you have more, you’ll eat more.
Having been enlightened, I no longer cook a pound of
spaghetti at a time. I cook one-half to three-fourths of a pound. The extra half or quarter pound I
put away for another use (like creamed tuna noodles or something like that).
I’m sure I save some money, but the best thing about not
cooking everything at once is I don’t have to worry about what I’m having for a
meal down the road. That, plus the refrigerator won’t be cluttered with little
wrappings of leftovers that I’d have to dump anyway.
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