Back to Basics!

6 years ago I lurved eating Burgers, Fries, and every thing oily and unhealthy. I ate fast food whenever and wherever possible. I was lucky that my in spite of chugging up some 3000 calories I was petite. Thanks to my body’s fastest metabolism. Back then I never thought that those huge chunks of fat, salt and sugar were giving me temporary pleasure but permanent damages to the body.

 My parents were always advocates of healthier food and lifestyle. We never had cookies, chips or ultra processed foods in our pantry. Our house was a no soda house. Back home and some 20 years ago we served soda only to guests. I remember brothers and me would gulp down all and any left over soda or cookies.  We use to eat out every 1^st Thursday of the month and I would plan, dream about that Thursday for days. My mother hated cooking but I don’t remember a single day when we had take out food because she was not in a mood to cook. We are a family of farmers and every other week my father used to bring tons of pesticide free and organic vegetables/fruits from our farm. I was so unfortunate that I hated everything form the farms.  Back then I never realized why they emphasis so much on home cooked and unprocessed meals and why the focus was on simpler foods not the complex ones. Or why we were kept away from the pleasures of junk, highly processed foods when all my friends and cousins were relishing fast foods and the likes.

After moving to America I started eating out a lot, thinking that its USA and they must be taking loads of care in preparation of food as a far as health is concerned. I am guilty that I provided my son the unhealthiest food possible food in the fetus. I wish I knew that what you eat in the nine months could impact your baby's health, as well as your own, for decades to come. 

Once he was born I made a promise that I wont feed him that baby food jars, fast food and the sugary beverages. In order for him to eat healthier foods, I myself had to become an example.

In the quest to get more knowledge about healthier food, I started up reading blogs, books etc.  I took a nutrition course that was an eye opener. I came to know so many things about food industry and how they are playing with our lives. They put up so many lies on their packages to earn money from the uneducated people. These food producers are so cruel. I always use to think that illiterate food manufacturers back home are the cruelest people. But now I have realized that here in America, in spite of all the rules and regulations these food industry butchers are even more treacherous and doesn’t even care to hide carcinogenic and dangerous additives to the food. The hidden, dangerous ingredients, which they put to enhance their food flavors, are impossible to decipher by a common man.

The more I read, the more I appreciated my parent’s ways of providing us with nutritious food. I am trying my best to eliminate packaged and processed foods from life. I am trying my best to make everything from scratch. Although its time consuming but I know what's going inside my family’s stomach. I am going BACK to BASICS, which means focusing on simpler foods with lesser ingredients. Eating food for nutrition not for indulgence, that’s also what my religion teaches me. Our concentration should be eat to live not live to eat!

The book I am reading  these days is “Integrative nutrition” by Joshua Roesnthal. He bravely explains and reveals how the food industry and USDA is being run by politicians; “whose job is to protect the interest of their states, which includes not only the citizens, but also the corporations and industries that live there.” USDA, politicians and corporations run the so-called dietary guidelines and the emphasis is their benefit not the unfortunate people.