It is summer; there are illnesses associated with the heat just as there are illnesses that are more common during the rainy season. My younger daughter has been sporting a cold for the past several days and she has her supply of milk and juices. No tablets, no pills.
Unlike most households, the only medicine you will find in my house is a couple of paracetamol tablets and antacids. We are not among those who believe that there is a tablet or a pill for every little illness that we contract. We don’t take vitamins either. Not as syrup nor in tablet form. We don’t call the doctor every time one of our daughters has a runny nose. Neither do we run to the drugstore. And we’re fine. In fact, we’re great. No serious illness in so many years.
What we do is try to maintain a healthy diet. While the definition of “healthy” may range from vegan to pure organic diets and everything else in between, in my family, it means “natural”–no instant noodles, minimal cured or processed meat, no canned corned beef and the like, no softdrinks and powdered juices in the house. No kidding. See, whatever vitamins and minerals our bodies need, we intend to get them from the natural food we eat. No supplements in bottles. So, we stick to fish, chicken, the occasional red meat, vegetables, fruits and dairy.
It isn’t a perfect diet and we don’t have the perfect healthy lifestyle. We do have our own share of unhealthy habits and we know we ought to exercise regularly. But remembering the lessons from grade school about go, grow and glow food helps. Drugs are drugs and the chemicals in them may stay in our system all through our lives. An aunt took aspirin for headaches all her adult life and she died from gaping holes in her stomach where the acid triggered by aspirin bore through.
But in this day and age of technology and food crisis (why does that sound so ironic?), some problems are starting to crop up. What is “natural” these days? There is a persistent rumor that poultry raisers feed chickens with progesterone so that they will be big enough for the slaughterhouse in less number of days. Will eating a lot of chicken make young boys develop breasts and curvy hips by they time they are adults?
And here’s something for those who believe that olive oil is the way to go. A couple of months ago, over the butter versus margarine discussion, photo journalist Ben Razon pointed me to the olive oil scandal. A snippet from “Slippery Business” by Tom Mueller, published in The New Yorker on Aug. 13, 2007:
On August 10, 1991, a rusty tanker called the Mazal II docked at the industrial port of Ordu, in Turkey, and pumped twenty-two hundred tons of hazelnut oil into its hold. The ship then embarked on a meandering voyage through the Mediterranean and the North Sea. By September 21st, when the Mazal II reached Barletta, a port in Puglia, in southern Italy, its cargo had become, on the ship’s official documents, Greek olive oil. It slipped through customs, possibly with the connivance of an official, was piped into tanker trucks, and was delivered to the refinery of Riolio, an Italian olive-oil producer based in Barletta. There it was sold–in some instances blended with real olive oil–to Riolio customers.
Just a few months ago, there was news about the successful cloning of swine, cattle and goats. The US Food and Drug Administration declared them safe for human consumption and when they are sold commercially in a few years’ time, they will not be labeled as meat from cloned animals. They will be sold along with regular meat and we won’t know which is which.
Just last week, Greenpeace said it conducted tests on the rice from the United States, part of the “assistance” announced by Ambassador Kristie Kenney during the Bataan Day commemoration, and found traces of GMO. Genetically modified organism. And they were not labeled as such. Like I said in my April 17 column, the pledge to supply us with rice comes with a price. And part of the price may be to serve as dumping ground for GMOs that cannot be sold in the United States.
Finally, there is the issue of how long we will be able to afford natural food. It’s been a long time since I consciously checked the price of food items at the supermarket. Usually, I chose what I liked, put them in the cart and paid. Not because I’m rich but because I care more about quality. But, yesterday, I was about to get a couple of 225-gram blocks of butter from the freezer when my eyes went past the price tag–72 pesos each. I put all the butter back and decided we wouldn’t die if I didn’t bake cakes and cookies for a while–for a long while, in fact. It wouldn’t hurt our diet either.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
cocoy 05.02.08 at 7:22 am
hi connie,
this is so familiar. mother rin kasi and we take care (worry) about the budget. the prices are unbelievable!
we all want to maintain a healthy lifestyle and diet but is is becoming a challenge.
with the school opening aroud the corner, we will surely find ourselves being creative and resourceful again. books are so expensive.
maybe, you could open a blog where we can share our tipid tips without compromising quality
cheers!
BatJay, Ang Dating Hippopotamus 05.02.08 at 7:52 am
speaking of organic na chicken, yung lolo ko nga, nakaimbento ng manok na apat ang paa kasi lahat kami ay gustong kumain ng drum stick.
may nagtanong sa kanya isang araw kung masarap ang lasa ng manok na apat ang paa, ang sabi niya eh - “ewan ko anak, sa tulin nilang tumakbo, hanggang ngayon, wala pa akong nahuhuli kahit isa.”
Connie Veneracion 05.02.08 at 11:07 am
nice idea about the blog, cocoy!
sira ulo ka talaga, Jay! Pag nakahuli sya ng manok na yun, pahingi para hindi lang yung dalawang bata may drumstick HAHAHAHAHAHA
Jaime Monreal 05.02.08 at 11:44 am
Ten years ago, my wife and I changed our lifestyle for the better. Then a few years ago we started eating mostly natural or organic foods, more fish, and less red meat. We drink filtered water, coffee (not instant), tsokolate from cacao, or tea and kalamansi with honey. She goes to the gym and I do my walking 4 to 5 times a week. We also take vitamins everyday. We are in better health now than we were before …and, no more medicines or bad chemicals for our body.
Jon Limjap 05.02.08 at 12:38 pm
Ah, there’s the rub. I am required to have my hypertension medication everyday, although I do have to acknowledge that I need it basically because I’m overweight.
cocoy 05.02.08 at 1:51 pm
eh connie, papano yung mga SPAM days nyo
i remember an entry about this.
Connie Veneracion 05.02.08 at 1:52 pm
Jon, at your age? Grabe ha.
Wala na, Cocoy. For 5 months, no SPAM. hehehehe
O, heto, perfect example of an illness that could oh so easily have been avoided. Our house helper just went to see the doctor today. When she first told me about abdominal pains and difficulty urinating, I already knew it was UTI. She has to take antibiotics now but what did the doctor tell her? DRINK LOTS OF WATER. In this heat, especially. One glass of water only after each meal is NOT enough.
ed villanueva 05.02.08 at 7:57 pm
Lucky you Connie, My problem is on how I could make my son eat his vegetables,my only consolation is he doesnt like to eat anything too sweet.Any tips…
Jaime Monreal 05.02.08 at 8:13 pm
Six to eight glasses of water a day is recommended. More if you are physically active. You can still reverse your health from bad to good by changing your lifestyle. Once in a while, my wife and I will have carne norte, spam, or soda. We really don’t deprived ourselves with these processed foods.
ed villanueva 05.02.08 at 8:39 pm
Careful on drinking too much water you can suffer a fatal hyperhydration or water poisoning check Wikepedia on water intoxication for your safety.
Kongkong622 05.02.08 at 10:18 pm
Fresh and natural…nothing can beat that. Ang problema nga lang, presyo. The closer you get to “natural”, the more expensive it is.
Jaime Monreal 05.03.08 at 4:18 am
Six glasses of water (8 oz per glass) a day will not kill anybody. Just make sure you use water filter to remove the chlorine and other chemicals from city water. You can break it down to one glass after each meal and merienda. And for people who are constipated or have kidney stones problem, water is a natural remedy - this recomendation even coming from western doctors.
gigi 05.03.08 at 4:18 am
ang weird ano? to think more natural would mean less processing or less fertiliser use or feeds.. hanep… di ko rin magets how they do the maths .. lol…
ben 05.05.08 at 10:11 am
It’s a normal, possible thing to be able to feel like you can eat the amount of food for two people when you’re hungry. But for four or six just because you can? There’s the tipping point. A year ago today, a good friend and colleague suffered a near-fatal stroke because he simply did not pay attention to all the warning signs. He could have just as well died simply because people who suffer strokes could only be the guilty eaters of ultra-rich fat and cholesterol diets for which his financial condition with regards to the medical expenses that saved him could not have been enough to cover what became the grand total of nearly a million pesos, without any insurance coverage whatsoever — after frantic fundraising and generous contributions on our part from his friends and other good souls. Now ask yourself — is eating a matter of life and health or is it more a symptom of coverups and maybe a secret wish to end one’s life? Would you place enough importance and respect on others who would be hard-pressed to keep you alive should a life-threatening condition happen as a result of mere appetite or laziness over one’s health?
Connie Veneracion 05.05.08 at 1:33 pm
“But for four or six just because you can?”
Ben, that’s gluttony.
But if you consider that in the context of all-you-can-eat buffets where people literally stuff themselves until the food is coming out of their ears, it becomes something more. It’s like a response to deprivation. Something like, “this is my one chance to eat as much as I can”.
Makes you wonder too about the fiesta mentality. The gluttony that goes with it. Makes you wonder just as well why at parties, as a rule, Filipinos are more concerned about eating and drinking rather than socializing.