Of Healthy Eating

Living in North America you are constantly exposed to this whole world of healthy living. One of the key issues in that regard is healthy eating. Society is obsessed here for healthy and fat free products. You go to departmental store and there is fat free version of virtually everything. Everybody wants to have perfect body and weight. Everybody wants to look as young as possible. Young is good looking.
Until two years back, I was leading quite an unhealthy lifestyle. Just to give a simple example..I used to drink on an average 2-3 pepsi cans per day, was frequent visitor to McDonalds and so on. I met Hassan during that time and he introduced me to this whole world of healthy eating. I realized I was living in completely different world before that. Hassan is originally from Pakistan but lived for more than 10 years in Dubai before he moved here. He is complete health freak and his knowledge on healthy eating is astounding. One immediate thing which he tells you is that most of desi food ( Indian and pakistani both ) is unhealthy and doesnt make you strong. Basically the point is , it’s not indian food per se but the way it is cooked. The biggest culprit is oil which is so essential for most of our indian dishes. Very little oil ought to be used and that too olive oil. Then too much salt and sugar, again one of the key ingredients , are not healthy either. Both lead to ageing and all types of diseases. Rice and rotis are nothing but too much carbs. Our pulses ( dal ) which are supposedly protein rich in reality contain very mediocre type of proteins. Ofcourse what he is saying is backed by nutrition experts and doctors.
But the moot point is, what to eat then? In simple words, more proteins, less carbohydrates ( that too good ones like fruits, vegetables and whole grain breads), fat free milk products , very little fat and almost nil added sugar. On an average, we need to consume 2000-2500 calories per day. Make sure that 30-40% come from proteins, another 40-50% from carbohydrates and rest from fat etc. Over the last two years, I have developed this diet plan of my own which I try to follow..ofcourse Iam not successful all the time, but I strive for it. Here it goes..please add your own bit too..
Breakfast : One piece of whole grain bread ..omelette of 6 whites ( Mind you..no yellow!!! one yellow has more cholestrol that what your body needs for 1.5 days!!). Fat free or maximum 1% fat milk with cereals and one apple/peach
Lunch : Grilled vegetables or/and Grilled chicken/ fish prepared with little olive oil, bowl of salad, one piece of whole grain bread/little brown rice, bowl of yoghurt and one -two fruits
Dinner: Same as lunch with quantities little reduced and one orange instead of other fruits
During late afternoon or early evening eat some fruits and carrot juice etc
Apart from this, drink atleast 1.5 litres of water per day, no soft drinks ( beleive me they are killers), add some antioxidants in your diet..such as blueberries and stuff like that.
I understand in the real world, it’s not always possible to avoid junk food. But make sure you dont do that more than once in 15 days.
Rest later

Dilemma of an Intellectual

Greetings! Things have been so hectic of late that even though I wanted to write about lot of things, I never got time. I intend to compensate for that by writing on couple of topics in succession.
Something strange happened few weeks ago. Partly it was triggered by reading this article on Robert Pirsig ( http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1951397,00.html). He redefined Zen philosophy in the seventies by writing “Zen and art of motorcycle maintenance” which emerged as one of the biggest bestsellers of all times.
It seemed as if I realized the greatest truth of life for once and all. And that truth is that no matter how much you try, you are going to live ignorant and die ignorant as well. It dawned on me that the biggest problem in trying to make sense out of what’s happening in your life and what’s happening in outside world is the fact that you cant understand things without understanding everything. Something which is plain impossible unless you live 10,000 years and each second of your life you are processing information in a perfect way.
Let me put this in another way. If you are trying to understand this world through science, you need to understand not only all of physics, but also chemistry, biology, and so on..because eevrything is related to each other. Can you do that? I dont think so..even if you become superhuman and achieve that, that’s just the beginning. You cant disasociate science from philosophy because all science came from philosophy. All of the earlier scientists were originally philosphers. Also, there is human psychology which tries to explain things. And then there is religion which is related to all. So you see, you are waging a lost battle. Einstein, one of the greatest minds of mankind, remarked that in the vast ocean of knowledge , difference between what he knows and what an ordinary human being knows is infinitisemal and hence insignificant. What he essentially meant was that assuming perfect knowledge is 10, he managed to understand 0.0000000009 of it and ordinary mortals like me and you manage to understand
0.0000000008 of it.
That ofcourse doesnt mean in any way that you dont strive for knowledge or stop asking questions. Maintain that child like curioisty in you all the time, but dont expect to have all the answers.
Take it easy .