Comfort and confusion are in no way related to each other, but the current lifestyle, too much information and random advice are forcing them to go hand in hand. The comfort in many aspects such as home, healthcare, food, cars, clothing, entertainment, and apparel have gone to a level which is much higher than what it used to be 25-30 years ago. But the confusion parameter is being confined to personal healthcare in most cases. We all aim to live a healthy and happy life, which we presume our predecessors achieved without much effort. To achieve that, we are falling for any business trap that is laid with the help of the media. At the same time, we believe in any random advice by a person who has no qualification or wisdom to back it up. These traps and random advice clubbed by innocence has been pushing personal health care from effortless to conundrum.
One person sitting in a lawn with an eye pleasing background occupied by plants appears on TV at around 7 AM in the morning and says “roju undayam rendu litre la neellu thraagaali” (one must drink 2 litres of water every morning on empty stomach). Not everyone, but many follow that without involving their brains to understand the reason for it. The hyperactive group suggests the same to everyone as if they are qualified to do so. Like a predator waiting to find its prey, one TV channel smells a TRP enhancing ingredient in that suggestion and invites a doctor to contradict the statement. With his knowledge, the doctor says that drinking too much water in the morning puts stress on kidneys. Both these experts might be correct in their own way but the general viewer whose intention is just to maintain good health is caught between two litres of water and stress on the kidneys.
Then comes the magic called “Millet”. Not sure who, how and when this was promoted but a couple of years ago many people around me ran from store to store to grab as many millet packets as possible to replace the regular rice grains. Lunch boxes in the offices were filled with millet-based food items. Internet searches on recipes like millet upma, millet idly, millet dosa and millet wada surged. Food manufacturing companies swiftly reacted to the trend to come up with ready to eat millet upma, millet noodles, millet milk powder and many such products. The typical WhatsApp uncles, irrespective of whether they know the person or not, forwarded every positive article related to millets to all the contacts. Millets might have all the benefits as promoted but people shifted gears suddenly just because of the health conundrum they are part of. Another food item must be waiting in the shelves to get promoted and replace millets. The shift not only confuses our brain but also the digestive system.
One says almonds are beneficial, the other says soaking almonds in the night and eating them in the morning is beneficial, then comes the third person who suggests peeling of the almonds before eating and last comes a person to say that too much eating of almonds will spoil the brain or stomach or kidneys. Post covid, every damn product on the supermarket shelf has transformed itself to an immunity booster. Why were these not immunity boosters before covid, what was that magic ingredient which gave immunity boosting capacity suddenly. People run behind these immunity boosters due to the covid scare they have experienced and due to the “EXPERT” suggestions on media.
I am not against eating almonds or millets or drinking water in the morning or any scientific discoveries. My goal is just to put forward the confused state we are living in. Many of you must have experience of drinking water from a boring pump and eating at a roadside cart. But now, we cannot even imagine doing such things. A sense of doubt arises if something goes wrong the day after you do such a thing. What has changed? Why are we falling for words like “Organic”, “Immunity”, “Healthy Heart”, “Clean” and so on? Organic food manufactured in the way it is supposed to be is good for health, but the word is being used for any item irrespective of the method used to manufacture it.
Are all these suggestions valid? Are these people qualified enough to prescribe what to eat? These suggestions might be based on their knowledge accumulated through books or personal experience or the financial incentive offered by Pharmaceutical and FMCG companies. But there is no way for a common man to understand which falls under what. I thought anything that is backed up by science can be believed. But Dr. B.M. Hedge disclosed that many scientific conclusions are based on a Fishnet Hypothesis, which makes it difficult to take all the recommendations seriously.
Fishnet Hypothesis:
Scientist A catches fishes in lake X using a fishnet with each hole sizing 2.5 mm, measures the sizes of fish, comes up with a hypothesis and writes an article saying, “all the fishes in lake X are bigger than 2.5 mm”. Then comes another scientist who uses a fishnet with each hole sizing 1.5 mm, repeats the same and comes up with an article saying “all the fishes in the lake X are bigger than 1.5 mm.” Some hypotheses are being proved correct for the sake of publishing articles and some to relieve many from the pain.
Our ancestors led a quality life, they never had to rely on anyone to tell them what to eat and what not to. They had home-cooked food, mostly, and worked hard enough to digest. It is a sad state that we had to dance to the tunes of random advice, pharmaceutical and FMCG companies’ recommendations. One says Allopathy is good, one backs Ayurveda and the other one supports homeopathy. Ultimately, the health-conscious human being is being pulled in all directions.
Would love to know your thoughts on how your are keeping up yourself in protecting your health!!!
Decades ago, there was a ‘research’ report that groundnut oil is bad and many people switched to sunflower oil. Later we realised that it was a marketing gimmick as the sunflower oil industry wanted to boost sales. I have seen many such ‘research’ reports over the years. Now I have only one mantra – stick to the diet I grew up with. What I ate growing up is good enough as it is based on generations of wisdom. So at home we eat the usual South Indian fare of rice, chapatis, vegetables, milk and milk products, pulses etc. And no, I have never tasted millets and nor do I plan to.
Other fads that I have steadfastly resisted are avoiding gluten, coconut, ghee, butter, curd to name a few. Or giving up rice or switching to brown rice. People are turning vegan but I can never give up milk. I believe that milk and milk products are an essential part of my diet.
I do believe in sticking to the basics. I didn’t give up on milk or ghee, I believe they are very essential and also giving them up is not easy for me 🙂 But I am very conscious on having sweets, I avoid having sugar based sweets often. During childhood having sweets was rare and whatever I ate were homemade and were based out of jaggery. I follow the same now.
Also, I believe balanced diet and good physical activity keeps us active and energetic.
Very true. And I completely agree with what you say about sweets. I am personally not at all fond of sweets so eating them sparingly is not a challenge!!
All these fads are mostly driven by marketeers and manufacturers who want to increase sales and many people fall into their trap😢
Absolutely!