Eating not for pure entertainment

By B. Nimal Veerasingham

It was probably during my Grade 5 or 6 in school that I came across the factors that ultimately would become the guiding principles of our overall long-term wellbeing. It was a time of playfulness and plenty of time over the green grass as long as the sun is out there. The dash to the playground as soon as the final period ended was as natural as the waves reaching the shores. Part of that growing-up season also involves consuming any amount of food without second thought much less guilt.

Classroom and aroma

Our classroom was on the first floor, parallel to the tail end of the ‘Central Road’, which was not wide enough for two cars to pass freely without difficult and risky manoeuvering. A row of houses on the other side of the road is clearly visible from the classroom, mostly dominated by their roofs. But once or twice during the week closer to noon something magically wafts through the opened windows of the classroom like an uninvited guest. The winds swirling upstream unopposed from the lagoon not far away carried the aromatic compounds directly into our nostrils. It was the aroma of tantalising mutton or chicken curry replete with fine spices, curry leaf, coconut milk and roasted chili/curry powder. Nobody disputes the science behind the nose and the frontal brain, the route to the body’s central command. Odours take a direct hit to the limbic system related to emotion and memory, a kind of greater anticipation in this case before anything gets to our mouth. But in our case the expectation simply begins and dies while we are still in class, only being a minor inconvenience to our concentration on the books.

There was this aroma and then there was a set of back-benchers who were simply practicing the rules of idling, both mentally and physically as part of their curriculum. Our literature teacher called them ‘loafers on easy chairs’. If aroma could lead one to the dining table, idling loafers did not want to see the food there, said our teacher with a chuckle.

As I grew older and realised the fundamentals of our anatomy, the picture painted as what is pain-free and largely lethargic easy-chair lifestyle the retirement years supposed to bear on, became increasingly illusional. After all, humans have a rolling evolutionary history where the upkeep of our physical body at optimal levels depends largely on nutrition, mindfulness, and physical activity irrespective of age. There are no such things as intervals or grace periods.

Squad member

A few years ago, I met a friend at the parking lot of a local mall, who was part of the original ‘curry smelling squad’, almost after five decades of that famous escapade. It was around 5 o’clock on a lazy Saturday, and the sun was making that orange and crimson melodrama all over the lower sky. The show of the heavenly artist was clearly visible from the parking lot due to its low-lying position bounded by elevated exits from the nearby highway. I am not sure whether the evening of our lives would be as bright as the short-lived evening skies, but certainly down the exit ramp tired of being on the strenuous highway for so long.

He looked aged and bloated despite what appeared to be a more than spotless pitch-black hairdo. People age and the age of the people get blurred up or down depending on their ancestry and maintenance. But as customary we tend to paint a positive picture despite what is on the wall. I enthusiastically greeted and paid a rosy compliment inquiring the secrets of his younger appearance expecting his views on a healthy lifestyle. What I did not expect from him was the forceful preaching of the health gospel; all of it, from Mathew to Revelations, sedentary lifestyle to stretched waistlines. Though I was not closer to the word of healthy living, it was a pleasant surprise to hear the call from a person who would literally struggle to even do one lift on the school monkey bar. The physical training teacher had to retire him after his very first attempt so that others would get a chance on the bars. Here he is, converted and reincarnated. It was more like a command, a lonely voice from the desert(ed) parking lot.

That night as usual, I slept well, but the lingering conversation at the parking lot kept coming at me like the piece of Pizza from the fridge asking to join for a walk in Garfield’s dreams. Healthy living especially when you are approaching your 50s or 60s is not a choice, but far from it, a firm verdict of life sentence with hard labour. Heart diseases and diabetes are not mere advisory notes; they may signal ‘Waterloo’ for our Napoleonic wellbeing. For many entering and learning the ropes of meaningful parenting while scaling the career ladders and balancing domestic balance sheets, healthy living takes a back seat, like the short span of the barking dog behind a vehicle.

 The changing work-life cycle     

Reduced physical activity at work due to mechanisation, improved motorised transport, a whole heap of labor-saving domestic gadgetries and preference for couch TV as opposed to outdoors have resulted in positive energy balance to most of us. This is much more evident and faster over 20th Century and as a result the emergence of an expanding middle class among economies.

Humans evolved to be active animals and may not be able to adapt well to the modern sedentary lifestyle. Evolutionary biologists point out that from a genetic standpoint, humans living today are stone age hunter gatherers displaced through time to a world that differs from that for which our genetic constitution was selected.

 Risks for South Asians

The task becomes even more tedious if you are a South Asian arriving from a largely non-migratory agrarian society where rice and related byproducts convulse into our prime energy sustainers. The bleached wheat flour introduced by our colonial masters of the past as the quick fix for our energy needs did not do any justification. Instead, mixed with other obvious sugary products of palm, coconut and sugarcane, it made a deadly carbo-sugary cocktail that fills three quarters of our living cells. Studies have revealed that South Asians face a high risk of developing high blood pressure, high triglycerides, abnormal cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes at lower body weights than other groups. ‘Every South Asian has a very common experience unfortunately, and it is that we all have someone in our first-degree circle that has either died suddenly or had premature cardiovascular disease,’ said Dr. Abha Khandelwel, a cardiologist at the Stanford South Asian Translational Heart Initiative.

More consumption

The sheer popularity of YouTube is more prevalent in none other than in the record number of ‘cooking shows’ available in every taste, shape, source and size. Some presenters cook for a family while some for the whole village. The bottom line here is that cooking is not completed without eating and raising a high five. According to YouTube creator’s academy the topic ‘Food’ comes on the popular top five in the medium. As the nutritionist Marion Nestle remarked 10 years ago in her book ‘What to eat’, “it is human nature to eat when presented with food, and to eat more when presented with more food.” Humans ate food when only food was available throughout the evolutionary cycles, but now our fridges and supermarkets are fully stocked and available 24/7, we are feasting without the necessity to have any additional energy. Electrical and electronic gadgets have reduced our work time and the need for more energy, yet we have no qualm in consuming 3 slices of pizza of roughly 1000 calories which is all needed energy for half a day.

 Throughout history, we have consumed one meal a day including the ancient Romans who ate one meal around midday, says food historian Seren Charrington-Hollins. “Over the centuries, we have become conditioned to three meals a day because food is available in abundance despite our sedate lifestyles.”

 Some of the striking findings that came out of the University of California (SF) Masala project study was related to body compositions. South Asians have a greater tendency to store fat in places where it shouldn’t be, like the liver, abdomen and muscles. Fat that accumulates in these areas, known as visceral or ectopic fat, causes greater metabolic damage than fat that is stored just underneath the skin, known as subcutaneous fat.

Robust and Retirement

In hunter-gatherer vocabulary, there is no such thing as retirement and though we may rightfully deserve one now, our anatomies haven’t evolved quickly to accommodate that aspect in our bodies. In other words, putting legs up when you have done your time, paid your dues and put long hours is literally a bad thing for your overall well being. Evolutionary biologists have tended to argue that since only recent human generations have been able to think of relaxing in their twilight years, evolution hasn’t had a lot of time to adjust. Its only about 100 years since industrialization and technological breakthroughs have made our lives so labor free as opposed to the evolutionary tracking that was in place for thousands of years with labor to the end.

In many countries of the West, the average retirement age for full governmental benefits is 65 although attempts and studies are underway to move it further to 67. This is in relation to various factors, notably the expanding longevity, governmental funding obligations, and replacement of human resources in relation to retirements and economic expansion. Although there are positive and negative arguments no one will deny that medical advancements have brought in many benefits, identifying deficiencies or potential concerns ahead of them becoming problematic or fatal. In the West, annual medical and dental check-ups are encouraged and followed resulting in a more preventive medicine with less cost than therapeutic.

Smelling curry and mother earth

During the early days of the pandemic that disrupted all our lives when stores and supermarkets were running low on stocks, a colleague with an Asian background called me one day to inquire whether I had stocked enough. I asked her what. ‘Of course,’ she said with a laugh, ‘rice and toilet paper’. Really?

For a moment I thought about it to realise that whether the humans are just looking for ways to exist or simply survive? Shouldn’t Mother Earth be proud of allowing us to stand on its surface till we exit. It’s like what our literature teacher said, ‘If aroma could lead one to the dining table, idling loafers don’t want to see the food there’. We can only take control of the things we can change, albeit the faulty genetics and delayed evolutionary traits.