A selection of humorous poems about eating, of which the vast majority involve overeating and obesity, rather than dieting and emaciation. If mastication's not your thing, there are related collections of drinking poems (similarly, drunken rather than abstemious) and smoking poems.
Immediately challenging my introduction, the first poem involves an encounter between one who overindulges through choice and one who nearly starves through necessity.
As I came out of the chippy
With two steak and kidney pies
Large chips and mushy peas,
An old wino, with sad eyes
Said "I haven't eaten for two days"
Pausing I looked to the skies
Then I replied "I wish that I
Had will power like you guys"
With the healthy eating brigade in full swing, there is a growing resistance movement.
There are six food groups
When it comes to my kitchen
Canned, Boxed and Bagged
Jarred, Bottled and Frozen
As supermarkets squeeze suppliers, so the likelihood of food scandals increases…
I have just found out
That in the meals I buy
That there is sea horse
In my fisherman's pie
…but much the most common form of contamination was substituting horse meat for beef.
The best thing to result
From the food scandal by far
Is that they can now call off
The search for Shergar
Fat men (and for than matter women) on bicycles are a recurring theme in comic poetry.
Off they go to the bakers
For a pie of pork and pickle
Trundling along the road
Riding on their obesecycle
A little gently word play on the subject of dietary neglect amongst the overweight.
When the slot machines
Are played by those with obesity
In a life spent in the arcades
It's the only fruit that they see
The BMI flatters to deceive when it comes to determining whether you're weight is normal or you're morbidly obese.
I am not obese
Let's get that right
I am not even fat
I'm just under height
If you avoided all the foods that could possibly cause you harm, what would you end up eating?
I don't want Swine flu
So no more pork for me
I don't want Bird flu
So no chicken fricassee
I don't want mad cow disease
So no more Beef for me
I don't want Salmonella
So no dippy eggs for tea
With mercury in the water
I will no longer eat fish
There is pollution in the air
So I'll eat no bird related dish
I cannot eat any type of fruit
Because of insecticides
And all vegetables are out
Because of the herbicides
So I am at a loss now
To know what I can eat
There is of course chocolate
But then what would be my treat?
Although some of the escapees are only tangentially related to the subject of food..
In praise of the biscuit, or cookie if you prefer it to crumble that way.
A couple in a restaurant enjoy a display of public breast feeding.
A stomach-churning poem about festive overindulgence.
