The fruit vendor, who I buy from our weekly replenishment, rues that people are buying less. He may not know that a rising inflation is perhaps the reason for this winter’s spiraling prices of nearly all commodities. All he cares is that fish sells even if the price is more, and so too certain vegetables (not all, mind you!), but not fruits.
In fact, he opines, if not for so many religious occasions, and perhaps Bengali’s penchant to eat them mainly for the sick, selling fruits is not really profitable. There is little doubt that fruits do not rank high in Indians’ daily menu save those times when there is bumper crop of all-time favorites like mangoes and oranges.
This year prices have scaled record highs, and so except for fruit-sellers stationed outside hospitals and temples, the rest are having a tough time. ‘Thankfully so’, or else fruit-lovers like me would have had tough time instead.
The moot point is given a choice, Indians much prefer steamy hot foods to regular intakes of healthy necessities like fruits and vegetables. If that is bad recipe for upkeep of good health, it has the generous company of lack of exercise and poor dieting.
Scientists, who have for long believed that it must be certain genes that are responsible for heart attacks that strike Indians (and indeed most South Asians) at least 5 to 10 years earlier than Europeans and North Americans, have now concluded that the actual reason is rather more mundane, which is the traditional risk factors like bad diet, less exercising and diabetes.
And so early heart attacks have little to do with genes or other unknown factors. If indeed so, what then are the remedies? Ask anyone, and you’ll see the familiar nodding, that he knows all this, yet when it comes for implementation, he finds it difficult to change food habits and/or start exercising daily.
But then there’s little choice if any. Time we wake up to learn how to lead a healthy life and imbibe it in our system. After all, don’t we know that health is wealth!
Related reading:
- Weak heart? You’ve no excuse now
- Drink and walk to live healthy
- Fat aids cancer
- Odd man out
- Is drinking an avoidable evil?
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