THE ORGANIC FOOD PROPAGANDA
Originally wrote on my blog: http://www.prabhakarbhat.com/2015/11/the-organic-food-propaganda/
As you move up in Maslow’s hierarchy, you encounter new fears.
One of them is food.
You start to divide food into “healthy food” and “junk food”. You start to consume nutrition supplements. You start buying organic food for double the price. You start talking about how poisonous the food we eat is. I used to do the same, I even used to sell these “multi vitamins”.
Relax.
There is no “junk food”. There is no unhealthy food. Because if it is unhealthy, it’s not food. No need to abandon any food from your diet. Remember, humans started eating 3 meals a day only in their recent 3000–4000 years of history. We evolved to eat things as and when we get them. That has a history of 200,000 years. If our bodies were as fragile as they are made out to be, we would be extinct long ago.
Look around you. People put real, certified poison in their body everyday for decades, and still clock 60+ years. I am talking about smoking & alcohol consumption. That regulatory approved “preservative” which you are afraid of isn’t going to affect you much.
All we need to do is to eat variety of foods, mostly vegetables (over a period of time), in moderate quantities. That my friends, is balanced diet. That’s what we need, along with enough physical activity (which I sadly lack). A balanced diet can include extra cheese pizza & coke. Pizza contains good amount fat, cholesterol, carbohydrates & proteins. We need all of these. In fact, we need them much more than vitamins. Just like every food, pizza is a healthy food.
Provided your diet contains mostly variety of vegetables over time.
However, problem is that for many people it’s not easy to eat vegetables, and even harder is to eat in moderate quantities. This supposedly happens when you stop listening to your body.
You didn’t listen to your body when it rejected Nicotine. Now you have lost the ability to differentiate (forever).
You didn’t listen to your body when it rejected Alcohol. Now you have lost the ability to differentiate (this can be regained though).
You didn’t listen to your body at a time when it actually demanded vegetables instead of cakes. May be your parents brought you up in an environment where you didn’t really have many vegetables as food options (all you got were candies, chocolates & ice creams). Your body does not remind you anymore.
I won’t tell you what to do about it, since I am not qualified for that. See a doctor maybe. Or keep a diary of what you eat. I don’t know.
One more thing we worry about is people injecting & “treating” vegetables & fruits with various unapproved chemicals. However, there is no way for you to verify if the food you are buying from an organic vendor wasn’t treated similarly.
