Diet

 (don't skip the reading, judging from the title)

I serendipitously found the word origin to the word diet this evening, to my standard of
acceptance.

We all belong to the transition age, where there is a shift from a state of malnourishment, to a state of obesity, where everyone is into some diet plan to suit their temperament, taste, stomach, and its size, and theirs.

The food world trade is booming, with the pendulum shifting from costly scanty food, to the excessive cheap food, robbing from the poor to make the wealthy richer. (Paradoxical to the Robinhood principle)

I read the diet plan of a person on this screen,  from 7.30 am till 9 pm, he has practically little to nothing, then at 11.45 pm, a long list of a feast, which he would have died to eat since morning.

It struck me.

The things we would die eating for, to have a feast later to make up is, die eating, or dieting.

I clapped for myself. ( maybe you have your own understanding of the term, I could clap for you)

Gourds are Gods in vegetable form

 We are bestowed with many a creeper family vegetable, called gourds.

Bottle gourd, ridge gourd, bitter gourd, and the snake gourd are the ones I am aware of.

This afternoon at the campus refectory, along with the other dishes, snake gourd, finely chopped like match sticks, with pulses, onions, and tomatoes was the side dish.

The sight of it on the counter would have brought on a frown to the receiving plate, but  many returned back for a second share, when they tried it the first time with plain rice. (I crossed checked to confirm my feelings.)


Creeper vegetables are native, least adulterated, medicinal, lots of alkalinity, cuisine oriented for customary and innovative dishes.

With the hands of a passionate chef, any of the other gourds would make nutritious wonderful dishes to suit our plates and palates.

P. S.
A pity I missed clicking a picture, lost with the relishing.

And ohh in the vernacular it is called as "pudalanga kootu". 

Food - keeping it safe from us

 The safety of our food has been tampered from the pre soil stage, to the serving time on the table.

Seventy percent of our food is altered before it reaches us, we add another twenty percent to please our sences, only ten percent survives as Mother Nature intended.

Our potatoes are broader,
Our eggplant, kathirikas are longer and seedless,
Our papayas are seedless,
Our tomatoes are brighter and firmer,
Our bananas are tastier and longer lasting,
Our grapes are thicker,
Our animal husbandry is being loaded with hormones, and so are our other flesh foods.

All in all every food created by Existence, is being manipulated to suit our shelves, and trade, but are they safe with the manipulation?

Let us not be a part of the act of destroying our own food, for whatever reasons.

Our children are a head and half taller, more beefier, more aggressive, the railway beds are shrinking and the seats in transports are getting uncomfortable, with more auto immune diseases, surfacing and diagnosed, evading treatment.

All in all every one is turning more human in size,  and less human in other matters, yes Frankenstein.


Heat
Chemicals
Colouring agents
Micro waving
Genetic engineering
Hormonal therepy, everyone has a role in the safety of our food, make your own research.

To relish our food as given by  nature, with recipies of our ancestors, to suit our region and customs, may we start our own vegetable garden, or buy from local organic farmers, bringing on other bigger changes.


We shall put a warning to the food industry, "Keep off from our food".

It's safety is our safety, a way to a healthier, happier, creative life.

Foster parent

 Last morning I received a phone call, reaching the destination of the call, I was to announce the death of a foster parent, he must have waited for that last glimpse.

He was 86, a long dignified life, bicycling his way around, with a red cloth bag, he was into garment trade, and into public addressing system, for gatherings.

I was adopted into their family much before his wedding, and he was at help, since my birth to my parents.

It was a paying guest arrangement, decades before the term was coined, it was for my education at a Christian missionary school in the town, which had no boarding facilities.

If there is some trait in me, either good or bad which is not in my genes, it must have been an epigenetic transfer from their family.

He may have passed away, but will live through his children and me.

I am in debt.  

More... Break

 Mid morning is when even the most energetic ones, get to slacken their pace at work.

A stride to the canteen, is a movement noticed all across, like a herd in search of a drink, it was so this morning.

A few steps away at a turn is a canteen outlet, from across my work station, many were thronging towards it in small numbers, spreading the menu for the day, by mouth. (Pun intended)

Not habituated to this movement, I got into their web/mind thoughts, and made my way to my quarters, where I had saved some bananas, and curd from my breakfast.

Slicing a few bananas into rolls, I relished it with salted buttermilk, smacking my lips, I was soon back at work.

The probiotic (buttermilk) and prebiotic (bananas) were going in first, in preparation for the afternoon amavasai feast at a  local heritage temple.

P. S.
The pre and pro biotics are natures way of maintaining intestinal flora, for the health and happiness of the individual.

Cholesterol - bad word

 If you want to learn a new language, the easiest way to create an interest, a curiosity, and an impulse to start is a bad word, " Nai, pei, panni, pisasu" A bad start to a great One.

In that aspect, the way to kick start into the subject of nutrition, could be a bad word, and at present the most notorious is cholesterol.

Literally it means a steroid like fatty material found in the gall bladder, where it was first discovered.

It has achieved such notoriety, now everyone from the janitor to the upper most cadre in every field, thinks, and abhors it as an untouchable, delicacy found in food.

It has found itself labelled as the microscopic criminal in the cardiovascular system of medicine, earning money beyond imagination to keep it surfacing to traceable level, in the investigation markers.

It is not enough to prove it innocent, (many already have, but a scapegoat needs to be found, to keep the money flowing) someone or something else which many can accept all across the world, as the real culprit, till then cholesterol is the victim, and the bad word.

P. S.
Nai, pei, panni, pisasu, we found are only species names, not a bad word, many others are only anatomical and embarrassing acts, never anything bad,  it takes time to accept and correct.... So with cholesterol.

Can I have dosais?

 

It was another of those pleasant evenings, following the rains in the afternoon.

It was Friday a local shanty day, (payment day) everyone trying to woo customers with their wares, and win the money filled in their pockets, earned during the whole week, in this village.

All the shops were bursting with trade, we were at a restaurant waiting at a table, to get our food parcel of chapathis.

A few tables across was a gentleman, enjoying his food, and his music on his mobile, when a fellow asked him something tapping his elbow, from the aisle.

Pulling out his earphones he lent him his ears, he then called a bearer telling him to serve four idlies to that person, and continued with his dinner.

A plantain leaf and a tumbler of water were placed opposite to the stranger, who now sat in the same table.

A few seconds later he requested, "can I have dosais", (I could lip read what he said,) the gentleman called the bearer once again and changed his orders to dosai.

Collecting my food parcel I walked out, astonished at this act of simple charity, wondering how I would have handled this situation  !

First as a giver, then as a receiver  !