The business of eating right

I can’t help it, but every time I read or hear about a colleague, a close friend or someone I know who has just passed away, particularly someone younger than me, I think to myself: there but for the grace of God go I.??

Not that my mortality has become my major preoccupation. The business of life continues to be full of new challenges and great opportunities, thank you. I can’t help but notice how there seems to be more and more people dying young. In fact, if we were to base it on the number of very public deaths reported by the media, more and more young people are dying for one reason or another.???

The demise of a gym-rat buddy, for example, highlighted the shocking prospect of an early death, despite the fact that he kept himself physically, emotionally and spiritually fit. A quick checklist of your professional associates and relatives might likewise reveal that, indeed, our mortality is always just a shadow away, choosing the time and circumstances of our death in a bewildering logic that escapes us.

I suppose it is only a consequence of my having settled into my senior years that I now take both the attitudes of nonchalant indifference and sympathetic consoler to the bereaved of those who’ve passed away. I am not afraid of the prospect, but I do take care of myself, not purposely to prolong my life, but to make sure that I do maintain a life of relative happiness, and that means living a healthy lifestyle and taking care of my mind and body.???

So I find these increasing incidences of deaths caused by lifestyle choices an important issue. Cancer, heart disease, hypertension and diabetes are diseases afflicting those whose lifestyles have adopted a western character and an affluent modern culture. We hardly hear of anyone who dies of simple old age anymore.

Locally, our ancestors may have gone past — and survived — the time when tuberculosis and malaria were rampant killers in the countryside. We Filipinos seem to have replaced them with these lifestyle diseases. While we aim to be globally competitive at almost everything, I do wish we’d take a timeout from joining the countries with high mortality rates from the Big Three: cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.???

In recent years, Filipinos have started to pay more attention to what they eat. Until a generation ago, parents believed that fat infants and fat kids were a sign of health. Many of these fat kids grew up to become fat adults, unfortunately, because of wrong notions about eating. I know of many young parents today who still care very little for proper nutrition for their kids. They indulge their kids in sugary candies and pastries, sodas and greasy foods.???

Health experts find that a diet consisting of a large portion of red meat and fat, processed carbohydrates and sugars, coupled with inordinate amounts of stress in daily life, may cause or trigger these diseases. Unfortunately for us, it takes quite a bit of effort to plan meals at home that avoid these tempting treats. If you’ve ever cooked for yourself or your family at home for any length of time, you can appreciate how difficult it is to plan a variety of dishes, let alone healthy and nutritious ones, day in and day out.??

Is it any wonder that we’re seeing more and more overweight people on the streets, in shopping malls and other public places? Obviously, western-style meals are wreaking havoc on our once-slender physiques. Not that I have anything against wide-girthed people; I myself have to constantly struggle with keeping my weight at an acceptable level, regularly spending time in my favorite gym, walking for 30 minutes or dancing Zumba just to keep those extra pounds off.???

Even when we decide to swing the other way, going vegetarian has its dangers as well. Eating raw vegetables, no matter how carefully prepared, can be a source of deadly amoebae, which can ravage the liver and ultimately kill. I haven’t come across statistics that prove that vegans live longer, happier lives. Until I get incontrovertible proof, I’d be hard-put to totally abstain from the occasional steak or lechon that I must indulge in from time to time.?

Until the 1960s, Asian peoples were generally found to have a low incidence of heart disease. I’m guessing that it was because we had yet to be introduced to greasy western cooking. Sure, Asians, including Filipinos, were not as tall, not as muscularly built as their western counterparts, but we were not dying from the food we ate.

Today’s generation of Filipinos has a difficult task of sticking to the true and narrow path to health. Everywhere we look, we are surrounded by junk food of all shapes and sizes, sodas and sugary drinks purporting to be health drinks, instant noodles and starchy and sugary desserts.

Even breakfast cereals and so-called energy drinks are largely sugar. For the less fortunate among us who have very little options about their sources and choices of food, the saying, “Beggars can’t be choosers” is apt. Some even settle for “pagpag” — leftover food from fast-food restaurants scavenged from garbage sites and dumps.  Drop by your friendly neighborhood variety store and you will see that most of their snacks on sale are empty calories, a lot of them seasoned with lots of monosodium glutamate, salt, and sugar.?

I suppose you could call it going back to basics, choosing meals that are as simple and fresh as possible. How could one argue with the resuscitative properties of tinolang manok or sinigang na hipon? I’d leave the kare-kare, chicken-pork adobo, and dinuguan among the list of “serve sparingly” dishes, considering how high their fat and calorie content must be.???

There are regular wholesale increases in the prices of food and basic commodities. We can probably do ourselves a favor by eating out less and going back to our basic rice-and-viand meals. While we’re at it, we could probably cut down on the lechon and sinigang na baboy, as well. That way, we can save the money we would have spent on comfort food and, more importantly, save ourselves from an early demise. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to answer the door. The Sexy Chef is delivering my dinner.

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Email bongosorio@yahoo.com for comments, questions or suggestions. Thank you for communicating.