I don’t think any reasonable Buddhist would expect such a thing of an outsider.
On the other hand, reasonable outsiders oughtn’t to be surprised at religious Buddhists reading their religious texts religiously.
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But we are interested in victory over the mind, and the Buddha does prefer his followers to err on the side of asceticism rather than on side of sensuality and craving.
As per MN 3, the Buddha would rather have monks be hungry all day and night than eating another monk’s left over food.
Then one of those mendicants thought, ‘The Buddha has eaten and refused more food. And he has some extra almsfood that’s going to be thrown away. If we don’t eat it he’ll throw it away. But the Buddha has also said: “Be my heirs in the teaching, not in material things.” And almsfood is a kind of material thing. Instead of eating this almsfood, why don’t I spend this day and night weak with hunger?’ And that’s what they did.
(second monk eats the food)
Even though that mendicant, after eating the almsfood, spent the day and night rid of hunger and weakness, it is the former mendicant who is more worthy of respect and praise. Why is that? Because for a long time that will conduce to that mendicant being of few wishes, content, self-effacing, unburdensome, and energetic
It’s hard to determine whether you’re eating for your body’s needs or for escaping mental pain (dukkha), as the line blurs.
if you err on the side of sensuality (and thus greed) you’ll never be able to discern that line, but if you err on the side of asceticism, then that line can become visible.
There’s a reason the Buddha went from extreme asceticism to right view rather than from extreme luxury to right view.
Extreme asceticism has less greed whereas extreme luxury is the epitome of greed.
As you say, indulging in bodily sensual pleasure does lead to greed, and limiting our intake of food does help to experience the nature of the body.
My only point was that we should be clear that extreme asceticism was ruled out by the Buddha as the way to enlightenment - that what the Buddha advocates is the middle path between extreme asceticism and sensual indulgence. Neither extreme is fruitful.
I appreciate your point about using the body’s hunger for sensual pleasure as a point of training oneself. Still I don’t think extreme asceticism has less greed - it’s just greed for something else (i.e., craving to not be, which will, somewhere in samsara, eventually flip back into craving to be) - both sorts of craving (to be, and not to be), leading to sensual indulgence and self-mortification are equally unfruitful.