If you try to know what you are eating by inquiring what the elements are inside, you are done with. I love to eat fish and nowadays opting for merely imagining eating it. An expert suggests us to be careful while buying vegetables. For mangoes, look for the colors, for cucumber go for the crooked ones.
Someone warned me while going for momos in a restaurant. They grind even the goat hoops to make kima. And to top it all (thank me for being a teetotaler), a colleague informed me that even shoes are used to brew some kind of liquor. Someone must be drinking shoe-ale while I am writing this evening.
Fruits and vegetables are grown and processed and so are fish and meat. A physician requested not to ask. Why? I asked. You will be cynical about whatever you eat. What should I eat then? Eat less, as much as possible. Don’t go to the party palaces, ignore restaurants, don’t fill your purse while going for shopping. You have pesticide called Lindane in tomatoes, mithamidophos in strawberries and grapes, DDT, melathion and choropyriphos in soft drinks. What are these? Even TOEFL vocabulary test avoids these terms.
If it were the matters of upset stomach, abdominal cramps, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, and other illnesses, we could have taken medicines and have taken our daily health comfortably next day. But such foods cause fatal bodily hazards from cancers to heart diseases.
Yoga guru Ramdev (he may leave politics soon! I pray he does!) has expert views on yoga and food. He must be respected when he talks on yoga. While you decide whether he should be taken seriously or not, let me write on bhakti and food. Let me be a bit classical in writing. This is the other side of story which may surprise a young reader. For saint Ramanuja (a medieval South Indian philosopher), one of the understandings of bhakti is preparation for getting intense love for the Supreme Being instead of merely showing love for the sensory realities.
We do not have rules to control food qualities we produce and consume. We are producing and eating food dangerously. The concerned administration does not care and producers and suppliers have lolling tongues to earn more by whatever means.
I am borrowing ideas from Vivekananda’s review on Ramanuja’s prescriptions on good and bad food. Since we eat seriously, for our health too, let us hear what the ancient sages tell us. I am quoting and paraphrasing Vivekananda’s commentary on food and bhakti.
Ramanuja proclaims that three things in food must be avoided as preparations for bhakti. Firstly, along with his ethical suggestions regarding not killing and eating meat, he nails a non-vegetarian when he writes: It would be rather better if every man who eats meat killed the animal first. But we dislike who kills the animal for us but enjoy eating meat. He thus suggests to know the Jati or nature of food. Any food which is malodorous must be avoided.
Secondly, he talks about Ashraya: We must be careful about who touches our food because the serving wicked or immoral person imparts his or her character in the food we eat. So the food must not be served by a wicked person.
The third prescription is Nimitta or instruments: There must not be dirt and dust in the food. Do not cook it unwashed. Lips ought not to be touched with the fingers because mucous membrane is the most delicate part of the body, and all tendencies are conveyed by the saliva.
Like Ramanuja, Sankaracharya too said that pure food causes pure mind. What do you do now? I have a friend who abhors such classical propositions. He eats all kinds of food and never stops grumbling even to his bulging stomach. I too do not find such prescriptions practical enough in our age of kfciazation. But one does not stop merely on the aspects of practicality.
Someone retorts: We are not going to listen to such sages. There is fried chicken and pakora in the next lane! Ramanuja does not know what life is through the modes of gluttony. Eating becomes joyous if you eat like a sinner.
Despite all such jocular and grave arguments and propositions, one thing is very bizarre in Nepali markets. We do not have rules to control food qualities we produce and consume. We are producing and eating food dangerously. The concerned administration does not care and producers and suppliers have lolling tongues to earn more by whatever means. A lawmaker told me that if these people are investigated and brought to justice, they will be behind bars for decades. Farming has become a killing field and the plants and fruits are slow-motioned landmines.
orungupto@gmail.com
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