Journey from hotel to hospital

Many a times my one-liners get privileged views from different persons as per their own perceptions…at times close to correctness, at times just the opposite, at times opening up the aspects that I had ever thought of. However, this line needs elaboration, as many vital health and social issues are involved in it.

Nature provided the higher animals with a provision of storing energy to avoid intake of food and excretion always unlike primitive organisms that have no other function except for surviving and procreating. Through this higher function of storage of energy, we could do away with only 2 meals…wait wait, am I saying it wrong?

A story flashes in my mind that I read long before in some children’s story book..Lord Brahma (creator), who delineated rules for the Universe in the beginning, gave message through the clever fox to humankind that they should take bath 4 times a day and should eat only once. While returning from “Brahmaloka” a herd of birds flew over the fox’s head, which distracted him and reversed the message in his mind i.e. eating 4 times and taking bath once. 

Now people were very happy on earth, started devouring food 4 times, and enjoyed that a lot. Later poor Lord Brahma came to know about the mismanagement on earth and was worried about the food crisis and the problems following after that and called for the fox again. He gave him left and right….but now it was difficult to reverse the rule as men on earth had got acquainted with 4 times eating and were really enjoying the same. Then the lord gave a curse to the fox to give 4 times call of “Hook-e-ho”.

If we analyse the story, it has great practical relevance. In our “Shastras” it is mentioned about taking 2 meals a day is ideal. A Yogi should take one meal a day, a Bhogi (Grihastha) should take two meals and a Rogi (patient) can take 3 meals a day.  Recently the concept of intermittent fasting and 2-meals a day is also gripping everyone who are desirous to reduce weight or maintain good health.

Throwing a glance around us, we find not just 4 times but most of the times we are munching on something. Are we reduced to primitive organisms again?? Apart from our routine 4 meals we munch on chocolates, chips (junk food), drink several cups of tea and coffee and paan gutkha as fillers…..those who drink alcohol, are blessed with empty calories that’s little more than carbohydrates and little less than fat (7Kcal/ gm). And what it is all for?

To appease a two-inch muscular organ named as “tongue”. God gave us rest other organs in pairs but only one tongue serving 2 functions..taste and speech….as if He knew the deadly nature of it beforehand. The small studded structures known as taste buds (papillae containing the taste buds) really make us their slaves occluding our logic and reasoning power. And how long the pleasure of food lasts? A mere few seconds…or minutes??? May be a burp makes you realize…ah! What a meal I had! And the end result after 24-48 hours that culminates in toilet will hardly make you remember about the awesome meal you had the previous day. 

As we go on savoring on a meal and get satiated, the taste of food also becomes less attractive for us and may be a good amount is left on our platter. Hardly we think about how many stomachs would have stayed empty across the globe when we allowed our left-over to be trashed into dustbins….how much effort we spoilt that was put by the farmers, grocers or the cooks after those left-over!! How many brains are being racked after providing 4 square meals to all of us ….thinking about growing extra crop through research, equal distribution, newer techniques of farming, averting the threat of hoarding, pricing of food, suicide of farmers, economy, war …and know not how many issues…that just funnel to a 2 inch boneless muscle.

In lieu of appeasing a 2-inch muscle we unduly work hard, we steal, we hoard, we kill even. Wrong feeding finally leading to different metabolic diseases (India is topping the chart)…smoothening our journey from hotel to hospital!!

Hotel does not mean hotel per se but all kinds of wrong combinations of food to titillate the tongue, the great use of home delivery of food through apps, the grand feasts of fat wedding parties, conferences, the picnics and the likes.

If we just go back 5 decades back, our per capita oil consumption was 3Kg/year which has escalated to ~ 13Kg/ year!! It might be still more. Food is ample, food is available everywhere and it is always ready to be devoured! In no times 2-minute cup noodles, polythene packed peanuts, chips and what not is available! For coffee and tea also you don’t have to wait for more than 2 minutes…tea and coffee mixtures are available in sachets as well. The garlands of junk food beckons from all corners of the street…starting from betel shops to malls…they are everywhere.

Know not for this two-minute pleasure how many domestic quarrels surface, how many egos cross swords, marriages threatened….. We forget that food is to nourish each cell of ours and we need to derive vitality from them. We have deviated from all types of food regulations…the cookery shows are ready to jump into any kind of wrong combinations of food just to listen to those compliments and win the show. Need we not introspect a bit on the real purpose of food forgetting the trap of the taste buds!!!