Letter: Food Thoughts

Thursday 15 October 1998 23:02 BST

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Sir: Your correspondence on Food Thoughts (13 October) reminds me of the remark by Antonio, the drunken gardener in Beaumarchais' Marriage of Figaro - "To drink without thirst and to make love at all times, only this distinguishes us from other animals." Indeed, the preservation of the individual and of the species are the most compelling urges of living beings. Drinking, eating, and copulation are usually accompanied by pleasurable sensations in the whole animal kingdom but it seems that it is given only to the human race to enhance these deliberately. Should we give this up as a sinful attitude?

Professor NICHOLAS KURTI

Oxford

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