Food for Thought

                                  
    
                                   



We all know that the 3 basic needs of any human being are food, clothing and shelter. Technically, air for life sustenance comes even before it. But, often I forget about air – and focus on the other 3, ehm… mostly food. It was a great revelation for me when, amidst a group discussion during my college days, a teacher mentioned that food is something you have for nourishment and sustenance and that we eat to live and not live to eat. I think I had learned this some time during my primary education, but had quite conveniently chosen to forget that basic definition of food which assumed various dimensions in my mind enhancing my corporeal dimensions.
 
 There are many jokes running in the family and among friends about my interest in food. It is always assumed by anyone who knows me that my permanent activity is self-nourishment unless specified otherwise. My dad refers to my diet as “see-food diet”, implying that I eat everything I see.

I must have inherited this penchant for food from my mom who, (as told by my grandparents), as a kid had once asked her uncle if the sevai in the temple would have chutney along with it. Only the uncle was talking about ‘nadaswara sevai’ (classical instrumental music of south India).

?????

                                                                               

                                                                                            

Later in life, I realised that I am not such a great exception in this field. There are many more like me or even worse. For instance, there was this room-mate of mine during my P.G. days who once woke me up at 2 a.m. and said she desperately wanted to have chilly chicken puffs and black forest cake.

                                                         

                        

  There is another friend of mine around whom it’s difficult to be when she is savouring any of her favourites like shawarma. She actually moans, caught in throes of ecstasy, while having these delicacies that the picture may be misconstrued for something else.

Now, moving to the other extreme, there is another class of people following the “see food diet” in that they just see the food and not eat it. Not because they are dying for size 0, but they have never felt the need to eat. Eating is tedious ritual for them. I have actually been told by a friend that she failed to understand how people accomplished this task of eating thrice a day…..!!!! And I still fail to understand how she can even think so.

I take great pride in the fact that my tolerance window for food is very wide. As kids, my sister and I were trained by our mom to respect food and not to fuss over or criticise any kind of food. She never allowed any kind of individual likes/dislikes to affect her menu. Her oft-repeated words were “you’ll eat whatever I make; of course, you can choose not to eat at all in which case the same item (warmed up) will continue to appear on the dining table until it gets over”. So we were always eating whatever she cooked. Oh!! What an easy life she had! Actually, the fact that she was a pretty good cook also helped. I am certifying this for more than one reason. You shouldn’t be left with the feeling that we had a tortured or discontented childhood; nothing could be farther from truth. But most importantly, my mom is going to read this post and it would be in my best interest to keep her happy in view of my impending visit to her.

Thanks to my mom, the reverence for food is so deeply rooted in my mind that wasting even a grain is like committing a sin. But later on, we got to hear from the health and nutrition experts that you shouldn’t consume food to prevent it from going waste as that would only add to your waist which is anyway a waste.

I have been taking the middle path for some time, trying not to add to the waist or to the waste. The prospect of wasting food haunts you especially when one thinks of the hungry emaciated kids in many parts of the world. My sister recently quoted from ‘The Big Bang Tele series” wherein a young guy enters, his arms loaded with pizza, and remarks to his roommate: “Hi! Hope you’re hungry” to which the latter replies-“A friendly sentiment in this country- a cruel taunt in Sudan”.

Now that’s really food for thought…..

Picture Courtesy:

1. http://beaconholidays.com.au/beacons/useritineraryOperation.do?method=userItineraryInfo&itineraryDto.itineraryId=261
2. http://random-thoughts-jotted.blogspot.in/2010/02/see-food-diet.html
3. http://cosmokitchen.blogspot.in/2012/05/sevai.html
4. http://sangeethamegham.blogspot.in/2011/12/nadaswaram-recital-of-wedding-songs.html
5. http://www.chocolatemaking.in/blackforest-cake.html
6. http://tiki.oneworld.net/food/food_home.html
7. http://www.yipscookiesandmore.com/puffs
8. http://www.designmom.com/2012/02/french-kids-eat-everything/
9. http://pufflist.blogspot.in/2010/05/kutis-harlem.html
10. http://sadhillnews.com/2011/05/12/2-million-elementary-school-food-surveillance-program/food-surveillance-food-face-faces-with-food-school-lunch-sad-hill-news001