Annadata (innum) sukhi bhava
(May the person who is feeding me be even happier)
Why wouldn't India be Diabetes Capital of the world? We equate food with happiness, hospitality, prosperity and celebration. We also emotional-eat like other humans. And then many of us are vegetarians meaning that rice and other foodgrains, dairy products and other food that Ayurveda would term 'sweet' or kapha-boosting are a large part of our diet.
At the same time, we live with hunger. Not just people who fast (for social and personal causes), but people who don't have enough to eat.
Feeding others is part of both our social and spiritual/charitable lives.
But with growing affluence, has come competitive hospitality, and it appears that every meal must resemble a banquet. Hotels will not serve working lunches; to book a conference room, you must use the menu used for weddings--much rice, fried food and many desserts, even if no one can stay awake after that! And a wedding breakfast serves the entire Udupi restaurant menu, followed within three hours by a lunch that is like an exhibition of South Indian/other cuisine.
Guests carry their diabetes and hypertension meds along, pouring themselves into silk and satin, melting like an illustration of global warming... and waste most of the food. Or eat it and come home to complain of indigestion. Or eat it, as I do, guiltily--knowing it's excessive for me and for society.
What a waste! Of money, time, food, everything.
I think it's time we fixed this. My suggestions today:
1. An old favourite for Chennai weddings: Let people take home packed curd-rice with their thambulams. They can change into cotton and eat the lunch under a fan, calmly. Nutritious, cooling and cheap. The saved money can either go to the couple starting life together, or towards the child's education (for other ceremonies), or to charity (you can see www.prajnya.in for information on how to donate).
2. Serve fewer dishes to the very close relatives who travel for the wedding, and spend time with them while they eat. They will remember that with more love. The 30-dish feast served efficiently by strangers while the family is busy is less memorable.
3. Feed the poor, as Indians do on special occasions, but better still enable an institution to feed or take care of people on an ongoing basis.
Do you have suggestions? Leave a comment to share them. Let's do something about this wasteful excess.
(May the person who is feeding me be even happier)
Why wouldn't India be Diabetes Capital of the world? We equate food with happiness, hospitality, prosperity and celebration. We also emotional-eat like other humans. And then many of us are vegetarians meaning that rice and other foodgrains, dairy products and other food that Ayurveda would term 'sweet' or kapha-boosting are a large part of our diet.
At the same time, we live with hunger. Not just people who fast (for social and personal causes), but people who don't have enough to eat.
Feeding others is part of both our social and spiritual/charitable lives.
But with growing affluence, has come competitive hospitality, and it appears that every meal must resemble a banquet. Hotels will not serve working lunches; to book a conference room, you must use the menu used for weddings--much rice, fried food and many desserts, even if no one can stay awake after that! And a wedding breakfast serves the entire Udupi restaurant menu, followed within three hours by a lunch that is like an exhibition of South Indian/other cuisine.
Guests carry their diabetes and hypertension meds along, pouring themselves into silk and satin, melting like an illustration of global warming... and waste most of the food. Or eat it and come home to complain of indigestion. Or eat it, as I do, guiltily--knowing it's excessive for me and for society.
What a waste! Of money, time, food, everything.
I think it's time we fixed this. My suggestions today:
1. An old favourite for Chennai weddings: Let people take home packed curd-rice with their thambulams. They can change into cotton and eat the lunch under a fan, calmly. Nutritious, cooling and cheap. The saved money can either go to the couple starting life together, or towards the child's education (for other ceremonies), or to charity (you can see www.prajnya.in for information on how to donate).
2. Serve fewer dishes to the very close relatives who travel for the wedding, and spend time with them while they eat. They will remember that with more love. The 30-dish feast served efficiently by strangers while the family is busy is less memorable.
3. Feed the poor, as Indians do on special occasions, but better still enable an institution to feed or take care of people on an ongoing basis.
Do you have suggestions? Leave a comment to share them. Let's do something about this wasteful excess.
1 comment:
Interesting. While a lot of people would agree (everyone needs to be politically correct, isn't it), they wouldn't try to take steps to immediately reduce the wastage of food. After all, why miss an opportunity to 'show off'.
In my opinion, there would be only a small percentage of people who would eat 'more' because there are many more dishes on offer. So, whether there are 10 dishes or 30 dishes, the quantity consumed should almost be the same (+ or - 30%). So, why not plan intelligently? Prepare the more popular one more. Maybe we can have a software for this...:-)
I think our mindset should change. The day when we become more value based than material based, we will see a change.
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