The body’s metabolism reacts to how much input it gets. So, if you have a decent supply of food, it can speed up. If it doesn’t have enough food, it slows down.

Exactly.

Your body learns to savor when times are scarce, and hardly cares when you have plenty. This effects more than your “matabolism”; it also affects your “palate”.

If you noted, whilst I was abusing the word “hunger” by puting it on some sort of linear distribution, I declared the most benighted souls on the planet are beyond “hungry”. And I didn’t suggest not eating more than once every 24 hours, I suggested upping one’s level of activity. Let’s face it, one doesn’t quickly run out of enough calories to write comments on blogs. If that was all I did all day, I probably would only eat once in 24 hours. (I’ll have to get some barbarians to back me up on that one, but they’re already appalled at how little I eat.)

But sadly, I fear you do not even understand how I was using the word “hunger”. I am lead to this understanding by your statement that “If it doesn’t have enough, it is going to make you stop or it is going to drive you to eat.”

Yes, eventually. I call that starving. I can work through my hunger–that is, to work on a physically intensive activity for hours on end without sufficient caloric compensation–even though I’m hungry. It’s called “working through your hunger”, and a largely shocking concept. When you do it, you first become intensly hungry. Your every thought is consumed by thinking about when you can stop and eat seomthing. Then you get to a point where you are barely capable of thinking about anything, including food. Your hunger is not brought to mind, because all of your mind is focused upon making yourself continue in the task set before you. Then, eventually, there is no longer enough daylight to work by, and you can permit yourself to sit and eat. And eat you do. You eat everything that is not nailed down, and perhaps a few things that are. And no matter what it was, even fish, it tastes heavenly.

Granted, you do not have to go to such extremes on a daily basis, but the underlying principle is the same: the body’s senses are heightened when they are not flooded with abundance. Just as you can have a “sliding scale” of hunger, you can have a “sliding scale” of ability to appreaciate.

And even if you have no inclination to test the truthfullness of my words, am sure you still have every right to eat. Just don’t expect me to feed you.

oh, wait, it is I who wandered into the troll cave. my bad