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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

At some point, I noticed that I can order my second drink at dinner. Previously, I thought I had to mach my drinking speed to my eating speed. That’s the moment I became an adult.

This may not resonate with Americans due to the free refills or British because in UK it’s normal to have tap water served.

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In the US I felt it with the opposite: not finishing my drink. When you're young, you'll finish whatever drink is in front of you because alcohol is expensive and you don't want it to go to waste, but I remember the first time I didn't finish a beer and realizing that that was perfectly reasonable (and arguably, the more mature thing to do).

Not just drinks; meals.

Its perfectly fine to go to a restaurant, eat 1/2, 1/3, 3/4 of a meal and still order a dessert.

wild. I make about twice as much as I need to cover my living expenses and I still can't bring myself to leave a meal that I've paid for unfinished.

Its been helping me improve my relationship with food. I used to find it hard to make myself eat, then in recent years I've been eating too much (hmm, significant correlation with finances...). Portion control is much easier when these external learned behaviours are ignored!

I'm still not 100% comfortable with it though...

I grew up being forced to eat everything in the plate. Now, as an adult, I keep doing that even though I am fully aware I don't have to. The result is that I eat much more than I should.

Yeah at the very least I take it to go. I'm not hungry now but I will get hungry later, so why waste it?

There's a trade off here between personal health and the resources needed to put the food on the table in front of you. Of course, the latter is mitigated if you take the leftovers with you to go.

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