I ate too much last night. This is not an unusual occurrence.

I often eat too much. I never eat too little. I don't know whether this says something about American consumerist society, or just about me.

My wife, who does not like duck, kindly brought me home a cooked half of a duck. I took one look at it and decided that I wanted to make duck fried rice.

I had never before made duck fried rice. I don't think I'd ever even eaten duck fried rice. I'm not even entirely certain that duck fried rice is a thing.

But when life hands you duck, make duck fried rice, I always say. So I did.

I made duck fried rice even though I did not have any leftover rice, which is the entire point of fried rice. It's a way to use up leftover rice (and in China, incidentally, it is served only as a snack, never as a meal).

So I made fresh rice in order to have fried rice. And because I was running out of rice, I finished off all the rice in the house — about enough for three portions.

That is, three portions for normal people. About a portion and a half for me. And that turned out to be my downfall.

While the rice was cooking, I heated chopped shallot and minced garlic in oil, added the chopped duck and also some chopped leftover broccoletti. When the rice was done I added it to the pan and stirred in a couple of beaten eggs and some soy sauce. I topped it with chopped scallions and finished with a splash of vinegar-based hot sauce for both acid and heat.

It was good, if I say so myself. Actually, if I'm saying so myself, it was excellent.

But then there was that whole thing about a portion and a half of rice.

I ate a serving of the meal, which is to say two servings for most people. But there was still a half a serving left. In other words, not enough to bring to work the next day for lunch.

I could have saved it for any number of purposes — side dishes, snacks. Frankly, it would have been fine the next day for lunch.

But it was so good. And it was there. So I ate it, and I felt overstuffed for the rest of the night.

This is my problem: If there is food on my plate, I will eat it. If my wife doesn't eat all the food on her plate, I will eat it. If there is food anywhere in the vicinity, I will eat it.

I joke about being a human garbage can, but I realize this is unhealthy behavior. And although they say that recognizing unhealthy behavior is the first step to ending it, I've never been able to take that next step.

What we're talking about is gluttony. One of the seven deadly sins.

In my defense, I think it is one of the least bad ones.

I blame my upbringing. Like you, probably, I was told to clean my plate because of the starving children in India. Like you, I recognized the logical fallacy of that sentiment (how will my eating everything on my plate in any way affect anybody in India?) long before my parents stopped using it.

But unlike you, I hope, I apparently took it to heart.

My mother says she never told me such a thing. My mother says that when she was growing up, the starving children were in China, and if she'd tried the tactic on me she would have said China instead of India, and besides she didn't say it.

My mother is 94. Her recollections do not always align with my own.

She may be right. I'm often wrong. But for whatever the reason, I find myself eating food when I am no longer hungry.

As it happens, I ate lunch while writing this column. I had a large bowl of Panera's chicken tortilla soup and a turkey-and-Swiss sandwich on rye. It was delicious.

But I ate too much.

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