Limelight:
Food, glorious food!
By
Lubna Abdel Aziz
Eat, drink and be merry? Not anymore! There's a deadly enemy out there and its name is food. Man's beloved sustenance, the fuel that makes this magnificent machine of ours -- the human body -- work, is ultimately capable of destroying it. We need the food for our nerves, our muscles, our glands, for our minds to think, our lungs to breathe and our hearts to beat, and oh yes, to eat! But too much food kills as sure as you are reading these lines. When we surpass the defines of tasteful moderation, delighting in the luxury of the palate, we are most certainly doomed. Very simply, secretly, quietly, the kilogrammes multiply. We are slow to perceive them at first, but soon those unsightly curves and bulges are hard to conceal. The battle begins. But alas, more often than not the battle is lost. Fat wins! Fat kills! Fat is acquired through food, not water, not air.
Last week a new study by the American Cancer Society released some astounding results that should cause us all to stop and ponder, and then to act. "Because of the magnitude and strength of the study, it is irrefutable," says Dr Donna Ryan of the Pennington Research Centre. "It is absolutely convincing and therefore it is frightening." After 16 years evaluating 900,000 people who were cancer-free when the study began, the study concluded that excess weight may account for 11 forms of cancer, 8 more than was previously known. Excess weight is responsible for 14 per cent of cancer deaths in men and 20 per cent in women. One of six cancer deaths is caused by obesity. In women too much body fat increases the amount of estrogens in the blood thereby raising the level of insulin causing cells to multiply.
The life-span of obese individuals is decidedly a short one compared to others, and not a happy one at that. No obese person is content with his predicament. The extra weight affects the locomotive system from the ankles, knees, hips, spinal column and even the muscles that are so clogged with fat they cannot function properly. Add to obesity, hypertension, diabetes, advancing age, cancer, to name a few, and the risks for early death keep multiplying. Obesity makes cancer hard to diagnose, harder to treat, and hardest to remove surgically. There is only one answer -- to lose if you are overweight, to control your weight if you are not. There is only one method -- exercise and diet.
In this age of inactivity, when we no longer walk, ride horses or bicycles, but sit comfortably in planes, trains or automobiles, the task is compounded. Study after study has shown that a modest measure of daily activity and a healthy food regimen consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, nuts, low-fat dairy and small amounts of lean meat will reduce your risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, obesity, and many cancers. It will also keep you younger, longer -- that should be incentive enough!
Our profound joy of food is both a necessity and a comfort. A potent elixir which will make life perfect and complete. To that magic formula we should add our concern with what we eat, and how much of it we eat. The food we eat all comes from plants or from animals that eat plants, but by no means do we eat the same foods. Our food is as different as are our cultures, and one man's meat may well be another man's poison.
A thick juicy steak is a favourite treat for most, but in India cows are revered and their meat is untouchable. Would you dream of eating a dog? In China those "hornless goats" are quite a delicacy as they once were among the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Aztecs, and until very recently some South Pacific Islands. Famous 18th century explorer Captain James Cook could not stop ranting and raving about his hearty Tahitian dog meat. "It is as tasty as English lamb" he cried. Other untouchables, like ants, caterpillars, locusts, raw duck's feet, dragonfly larvae, frogs and snails are all eaten everyday by Latin Americans, Australian Aborigines, Navaho Indians, Chinese and French. Religions also determine what we eat, or rather what we do not eat. Muslims and Jews do not eat pork. Pigs are considered unclean and they are literally dirty. They eat rubbish from which they contract parasitic worms, but now they have been domesticated.
No longer do we eat what is available. Geographical limitations have been largely overcome by modern technology and transportation. It is easy now for us to enjoy sardines from Norway, olive oil from Spain and bananas from Chile all in the comfort of our homes miles away. Our desire for a variety of foods helped establish international trade. Exploration of our universe was instigated by our love for food. The New World was discovered when Columbus sailed in search of the Spice Islands of the Indies, and that is how the world was introduced to a multiple variety of new foods, such as corn, chocolate, peanuts, peppers, pineapple, squash, tomatoes, white and sweet potatoes, lobster and turkey.
Often it seems that all the possible joys of human existence depend on this intoxicating whirlpool of culinary pleasures drawing us closer and closer to disease and death. Unknowingly we treat our bodies to food orgies that occupy many of our waking hours. The disappearance of youth and its distractions leaves us with food as the major source of life's pleasures. Food consumes us as much as we consume it.
Our eating habits are under constant scientific scrutiny and scientists disapprove of what they see. We are pushed and pulled in every direction as to what, or what not to eat, leaving us tired, desperate and confused. So we eat. Gandhi once said "I eat to live, to serve and also to enjoy, but I do not eat for the sake of enjoyment." Would that we were like Gandhi. The thought of eating to live versus living to eat was reiterated by many throughout history, including Cicero, Moliére and others. Today when we eat we seek nothing but enjoyment, and our good intentions to diet perish while waiting for tomorrow. There is no tomorrow!
"Tomorrow! -- Why, Tomorrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years."
The time to start shedding those extra kilograms is right now. It will take effort, but is anything ever attained without effort! As for the best advice ever given: "Eat only when you are hungry and stop before you are full" preached the holy Prophet Mohamed.
Can food prevent disease? Possibly! Scientists have identified thousands of natural chemicals that are not only nutritious but disease-preventing. Called phytochemicals, those preventive tools, if used correctly can shield us from serious ailments such as the worlds greatest killers, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. When choosing foods, select from a rainbow of colours, red for tomatoes, orange for carrots, green for broccoli, yellow for corn, and so on. White, a non-colour, should be the last on your scale except for a few fat-free dairy products. Don't forget your nuts and grains and fish, and by all means stay away from sugar, flour, white rice, white potatoes, etc, etc. Fish contains omega-3 which prevents platelets from sticking to arterial walls, some suggest may even prevent brain cells from aging. Choose salmon primarily, also mackerel, herring and bluefish.
Until new technology focuses on what we desire most, discovering a means of burning those calories before they settle on our hips and abdomens, we need to watch what we eat, make an effort to burn it, and take it off if it has already invaded our bodies. There is no escaping its ungainly sight.
"It's a very odd thing --
As odd as can be
That whatever Miss T eats --
Turns into Miss T"
Walter de la Mare (1873 -- 1956)
