There is a widespread belief that women don’t suffer from heart attacks and high blood pressure. If only that were true. When women entered the work arena we got everything that men got: The stress, the struggle and the health problems too (in addition to all the ones we get that men never suffer from). Nobody could criticize a woman for working these days. But hurrying home at the end of the day, we feel have no time to spend hours preparing traditional fare, and who can blame us if we decide to serve up delicious pre-prepared items to our hungry family?
Humans experience a universal evolutionary preference for high fat and high salt foods. In our evolutionary past, in hunter gatherer times, salt, sugar and fat were rare dietary items and we learned to prize them for their high nutrition value. Salt is a nutrient essential for sustaining life and health. Sugar is an immediate source of energy which is available for use by our muscles almost as soon as it is consumed. Indeed, it is so quickly available to our body systems that it was once the prescribed emergency treatment for low blood sugar in diabetes. Fats and oils have twice as many calories, weight for weight, than either protein or carbohydrates. The high density of calories in fats and oils make them a perfect storage form for calories. We came to prefer these nutrients because of their rarity – which ensured that we sought them out and survived, even in lean times. The problem arises in the food environment we currently occupy, which differs greatly from that we evolved to survive in.
Sugar was once so rare that it was only found in the ripe fruit of the summer seasons. Our tendency to gorge on sweet things was limited by the fact that it took significant energy expenditure to harvest such sweet treats. Fats and oils were primarily available from the bodies of animals killed by our hunter gatherer ancestral hajurbubaharu and so were only consumed when a hunt was successful and hunting, once again required significant energy expenditure. Of course, there are plants with high oil content (avocados and nuts spring to mind) but intense processing is required for their release, and these fats and oils did not become universally available until the dawn industrialization. And salt, well, as a naturally occurring mineral, it was found in certain soils and rocks – even wild animals must visit salt licks periodically to ensure that they obtain enough of this essential nutrient to support life - salt is rarely occurring in nature.
But sugar is as available as the corner shop these days – by the bagful at a very reasonable price. Fats and oils are frequently by products of huge manufacturing industries. And salt is easily manufactured via a simple chemical process. Indeed, salt, fat and sugar are so cheap as to make them universally available. But who sits down and eats a bag of sugar, a spoonful of salt or a pot of fat? The very idea is revolting. But add small amounts of these incredibly cheaply available manufacturing by-products to other cheap and undesirable ingredients and you render those previously undesirable ingredients delicious. Think of biscuits - made from the cheapest flours with the addition of salt, fat and sugar. If you did the same to noodles the resulting product would stop your children pestering you for them at the Bhat Bhatini.
Eating is essential, but food should not become merely recreational, for obesity and ill health lies just as surely down that path as it does down the path of malnutrition.
In historical times we ate what was available. Our diet was high in fiber, bulky and rarely contained excessive calories. Any excess calories were easily used up because we had to expend our energy in the struggle for survival. Vegetable matter usually needs to be prepared to make it palatable and fit for human digestion and that simple processing required the individual to expend energy (collecting firewood, tending a fire, peeling vegetable matter, pounding grain, etc). Today, all of that is done for you and you simply buy a plastic wrapped package and add water and it tastes good - the manufacturers actually employ scientists to make sure of that.
And here we meet another problem. We have within us a drive to eat – to consume in quantity. Eating is one process which is largely considered to be a universal drive. Ask anyone who has completed a total fast for a number of days – they will tell you the drive to put something in their mouth and chew it and swallow becomes all consuming as the days pass (if you will forgive the pun). So providing energy rich products for consumption increases the likelihood of over consumption simply because we, the human race, are driven to consume – to eat. And we are further driven to consume salt, fat and sugar whenever we encounter it as an evolutionary mechanism to protect against lean times to come. So if we are hungry and we encounter high fat, high salt, high sugar items we are almost bound to over eat.
Arguably, in terms of obesity such high calorie, high salt items would not be prohibitive if they were consumed in small quantities sufficient to supply our calorie needs only, but our drive to consume combined with our preference for high salt, high fat and high sugar food items combine to severely curtail the likelihood that anyone eating a primarily processed diet will be able to limit themselves to an elegant sufficiency of consumption.
You see, manufacturers want to make money, so they have to ensure high sales that remain high into the future. Our evolutionary tastes are unlikely to change any time soon, they evolved over millions of years - so the manufacturers have a vested interest in making sure that they can cheaply supply the food that you will continue to buy. The more delicious it is the more likely it is that you will buy it again, and again and again, and as we are creatures of habit, once you have become accustomed to buying that particular product, you will probably just carry on picking up the same packs at the shop, week after week, month after month, year after year.
So what can we do? Must we shun all modern processed treats? That is a pipe dream in the modern world. We can never turn back the clock to yesteryear – and lets face it we, none of us, want to return to the days of diseases of malnutrition and deficiency; we simply need to avoid the diseases of excess and obesity.
There are many methods of weight loss. It isn’t just swasnimanchiko kura – but prevention is better than cure. Appetite betrays us when it comes to food preferences. We need to let our heads rule our hearts and not the other way around. Our hajuramaharu were right when they told us to be moderate in our lives – a little of what you fancy does you good but “little” is the operative word. We need to be considerate of our diets and that of our families for the sake of our health, their health and the health of the nation. Sensible but not austere: Traditional, in other words. Let us see a return to the traditional consumption habits of our healthier forebears.
There are many traditional foods which require a long and unending process of preparation, but there are just as many which can be prepared a day before. It may be unappealing, exhausted as you are at the end of the working day, to prepare tomorrows dinner today, but by doing so, the flavors will often meld together and become more pleasing overnight (hygienically stored in the fridge of course). Less nutrients are destroyed in the cooking process of vegetables are cooked for only a short time, and it is healthier to eat such veggies without the addition of sauces and oil. Indeed, you may surprise yourself and find that your children will enjoy the taste of plain, boiled vegetables more than the highly stylized dishes so beloved of the fancy chefs – with the added bonus that these dishes will be lower in calories, virtually salt free and virtually fat free. Salads and raw fruit and vegetables may not have appeared frequently on traditional meal tables, but they require very little preparation and although they are an acquired taste they are truly a healthy option so long as you avoid the addition of high fat salad creams and dressings. Rice is nice, but don’t go overboard. Carbohydrates increase your feelings of wellbeing, but you should limit them to about a third of your plate – and it should be a moderate plate.
Eating is essential, but food should not become merely recreational, for obesity and ill health lies just as surely down that path as it does down the path of malnutrition.
Writer is a graduate psychologist with a Post Graduate Certification in Education
rbaryal@talktalk.net
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