Food for thought

Recently, I came across this piece in the New York Times. Nothing here is special or new, especially post the era of Michael Pollan and his books. Anyway here is the Opinionator piece:

A Food Manifesto For The Future

Reading that, I was led to think of how simpler and healthier life was not too long ago, even in something as simple as food. 

Thirty years ago, my grandma would dispatch me daily to the store. I carried a cloth bag (no plastic bags to throw out), picked up fruits and vegetables that were (probably) trucked in daily from the region. They were indeed puny compared to the specimens found today at any supermarket, but I imagine they were so because the soil that grew them was not taxed and injected with chemicals. (Lets not get into GMO). 

We carried glass bottles which the shops filled with unrefined, flavorful oil, the cold-pressed kind that has since become something premium, rather than de rigeur. Meat eaters ate the stuff once or twice a week, and it was a precious commodity. Even processed foods like baked goods were locally made and one hopes free of the additives and stabilizers needed to sustain the packaged product of today that the best and the brightest market (those not taking their completely justified pound of flesh in the financial services industry, that is). For heaven's sake, the booze was fresh, natural and organic, tapped as toddy everyday from our very own coconut trees. 

Today the country I left suffers more cardiac diseases, diabetes and hypertension than almost anywhere. Processed, packaged food is de rigeur. Natural oils like coconut, sesame and mustard that shaped the genes for generations were swiftly replaced by well marketed, "golden", refined bleached and deodorized oils. One-horse villages sell imported leeks. Cookery programs showcase meat - the aspirational pinnacle of quotidian "nutrition" being marketed to 1.2 billion. I am no Luddite, but is this progress?

I learned my lesson the hard way. I today do not eat meat; cook more; have almost banned packaged food and beverages from my life; use natural oils; graze the once-reviled salad-bar like an ungulate; and... am paying more to do all this, just rewinding to what should always have been status quo. 

In summary, we are idiots. We deserve everything because we sold our health, ultimately, willingly. I'll leave you to figure out - to whom? And really, for what?