As human beings, we are all fascinated by outer beauty. Be it beauty of a person, animal, fruits, vegetables, food or things in general. That’s because outer beauty of something is what meets the eye first. But in that process, we miss out on the humility and goodness on the inside. We are taken away by the glamour in general.
Here, I want to talk in context of our food. Today, we go to big supermarkets and big malls to buy our produce. We love the foreign variety of fruits and vegetables with stickers but completely forget about our humble farmers, our orchards, own home grown produce. Why? Just because they look good. We are taken away by the good packaging of foods, and by the imported stickers saying product of USA, product of Europe, etc. We also don’t want to eat the food produced in our local area because it doesn’t look good enough! Since it’s free from waxy coating and and hence not shiny, it just doesn’t appeal us!
And what’s the result of it? Our waistlines are becoming bigger and bigger! A simple correlation is that, the more our food has traveled, the bigger our waistline will be because the nutrients get destroyed as the food travels because of the processes it has gone through before reaching us (Garbage of food industry). But its still packed with a lot of energy (Calories) which are mostly empty calories as majority of the nutrients have been destroyed. This is the reason of a lot of nutrient deficiencies and we have to rely on supplements. Whereas, the local food has a high nutrient to calorie ratio because of less travel to reach consumers. No processing or heat treatment is involved and so the food is full of goodness. And when I say local food, I mean buying directly from the grower/farmer/producer.
It’s very important to eat seasonal food. That’s because when a fruit or vegetable is in season, you can be sure that it will have the maximum nutritional value and remember that we eat food for nutrition not just for filling our tummies. So, stick to seasonal and local as much as you can. While these are the benefits to our bodies, we will be also be largely supporting local farmers which is what they are missing big time in this current food industry domination.
If you think you are already eating healthy food but still having to depend on supplements to fulfill your nutritional needs, switch to local produce from Farmers market, and even better grow your own. Buy pulses and grains directly from farmers from your villages. Buy raw milk directly from the person who has cows/buffaloes, where they are treated nicely and don’t inject them to make them produce more milk. For Indians, local Gaushalas (shelter for cows) are such places you could get the milk from, if possible. Buy eggs from someone who has chickens running around in their farms and not from poultry farms. When you buy the food that has been grown and raised in its natural habitat, you get the maximum nutritional value, maximum flavour and maximum benefits and you don’t have to depend on supplements.
