The Midrash (Pesikta Rabbati 19, Tanhuma Pinehas) tells a cautionary tale about gluttony — the sin of making the stomach into a god, of subordinating every other value to the next meal.
A man was so devoted to eating that he spent his entire fortune on food. He ate the finest meats, drank the richest wines, and consumed delicacies that kings would have envied. His body grew enormous. His spirit shrank to nothing.
When his money ran out, he had nothing. No property, no savings, no skills — because he had never developed anything except his appetite. He was forced to beg, and even his begging was tinged with gluttony: he sought not merely bread but the bread he was accustomed to, the quality he felt he deserved.
The sages used this story to warn against excess. "Who is rich?" asks the Mishnah (Pirkei Avot 4:1). "One who is happy with their portion." The glutton is never happy with any portion, because his appetite grows faster than his capacity to fill it. He is the poorest man alive — poor in spirit, poor in self-control, and eventually poor in every material sense as well.
The story also carried a spiritual dimension. The sages compared physical gluttony to spiritual gluttony — the desire to consume Torah knowledge without the discipline to practice it. A man who learns but does not live what he learns is gorging himself on wisdom and growing fat with hypocrisy. True nourishment comes not from how much you consume but from how much you transform into action.