Eating Local: What would Grandmom Say?
Everybody, at least once in their lifetime, thinks about getting fitter, thinner and healthier; thinks about having a better lifestyle. This is exactly what Rujuta Diwekar has spoken about in her books and in the interview with LitFestX. Rujuta Diwekar is a renowned nutritionist, a fitness consultant and an author. She is famously known for helping Kareena Kapoor achieve the “size zero” for one of her movies.
Rujuta talks about how eating local food allows us to stay away from “diabesity” which is diabetes and obesity. She points out the fact that obesity costs our country $2.1 trillion dollars. Hence it is a bigger and a more serious issue than what we looks at it as.
She says obesity isn’t an individual’s problem; rather it’s a collective problem which also includes the government. The countries with fit people will also have better footpaths and the children would walk to school. Unlike India where people would double/triple park just so they have to walk the smallest of the distance.
But at the individual’s level, she suggests that one should start eating local. Her mantra is “eat local, think global”. The people of our country were doing well until they stuck to eating dal and rice and roti and sabzi, basically until they were eating locally produced food. By just eating dal and rice, one’s cholesterol could stay in control. We don’t need to eat oats for breakfast to keep it under control.
Eating local also has an ecological effect. Growing pulses retains the nitrogen in the soil that helps to grow other crops and results in a better yield. This in return helps the farmer. This way it is a cycle. By eating local we don’t just have a healthier life, but also help the farmer.
She suggests having a “Grand mom Test”. Which is basically considering the fact that the food we are about to consume, does our grandmother believe it to be food? If your grandmother thinks its food then you can go on eating it, if not then please throw it away, it’s unhealthy.
THE SYSTEMS APPROACH
Rujuta Diwekar has taken a very beautiful approach towards trying to explain and promote how eating local is the best thing we should do. She has talked about eating ghee and aloo paranthas and coconut chutneys. The thought of these instantly waters our mouths! Being told that I need to eat paranthas cooked in ghee to diet or to lose weight or in order to have a healthy life is getting an easier way out of it.
She brings in the fact about the GDP of the nation, the farmer, the ecology, our grandmothers, the rich and the poor, obesity, diabetes, everything and anything that is in anyway related to having a slimmer body or a healthy lifestyle.
She has portrayed the internal system of being healthy i.e., exercising, eating right, planning the week, etc and the external systems like the government, economy, ecology etc.
