Tomato in the Fridge

In earlier days, farmers used to grow tomatoes, used some of the harmless homemade pesticides to save the plants. Many flowers fell down, a few turned into fruit. They could sell some of them in a day or two, rest of the fruit perished due to lack of any preservation techniques.

Now what is the story? The farmers are equipped with powerful pesticides and chemicals. Spray once when the plants flower. Spray twice when they become fruits. Spray for a last time when they are ready to be plucked. Now is the turn for the wholesalers and retailers. They sprinkle a few more harmful chemicals on these poor tomatoes, which have already lost all its nutritious values, to make them look fresh. You go and buy atleast 2 Kgs as you will get time to buy only after 2 weeks. Keep them in the fridge for those chemicals to flourish more. After 10 days you realize that you haven’t cooked at home for a while, switch to youtube, ( my niece claims  she is an expert in youtube based cooking) pick up some vague recipe. You realize that tomato is one of the ingredients required. You open the fridge, pick up those tomatoes with little life left in them. Once you reached the stage while the chef asks you to cut and put those tomatoes after all his praising and “bs”ing  on that dish then you look at those tomatoes. They are dead! Surely, these new gen tomatoes did live much longer than their ancestors did.

“Life expectancy goes up by 5 years in India in the past decade”, when I read this I could think of those tomatoes only. No doubt, in the advent of effective medicines and eradication of life threatening diseases, life expectancy is going up. We all welcome it, our chances of living more are increasing. But would it be a healthy life?

We know how vulnerable we are. During one of our trips to Ooty, my uncle started drinking water from the jug provided in the hotel. We told him it may not be advisable as the water may be contaminated, asked him to drink from bottled mineral water. “Don’t worry, I never bought water in life. I always drank tap water. Nothing will happen to me. You may drink from that bottle”. We strictly followed his advice, when he was hospitalized in two days time due to a severe attack of jaundice, none of us was worried. So be a Roman when in Rome! But need not be always. All the mistake I made was went for a preventive health check up a few years back. Triglyceride was showing slightly high. Consulting doc advised for bit of exercise and control on diet. I over did it, I became much thinner than I anticipated. Suddenly I became a “non-roman” ! People started asking me “are you ok”, “hope your health is good”, “you look old and pale”. As recent as 2 weeks back, I met my cousin after a long time near CMH road. His erratic life style due to high work pressure from HDFC BANK where he works, was written all over in his appearance. He was curious to know whether I have “sugar” (am I diabetic!).

One reason for higher life expectancy is because of good food supply I believe. Good. People do not die of starvation at least. But is the quality of food adequate, are they affordable? I had prepared a list of things I will eat for a healthy balanced diet. Spoke to my sister, cabbage is out from my list, reason – bad for thyroid. Read in news paper apple is coated with wax like chemicals to retain its freshness, but dangerous for health, apple is also out of the list. I found almonds are so expensive; price is going up every other day, almonds also gone out of list. List is getting smaller day by day. At this rate, I have to either ignore all those findings and move on or fall back to what my ancestors did – kanji (rice porridge), pappad and occasional chutney.

 “The only way to keep our health is to eat you don’t want, to drink what you don’t like and do what you rather not” – Mark Twain. People may ask what life it would be. At least one can add a few of those unwanted, disliked things in the routine, by which he can postpone the day when he is forced to do only those!

Life style change need not be that drastic. Reduce intake of those problematic food items and also do a bit of exercise. That need not be jogging for hours in a day. It can be as simple as going to buy vegetables more frequently instead of asking your wife to do it all the time. You may end up in buying all unwanted vegetables, as per your wife. But that’s fine that is what even Mark Twin said, eat which you don’t want, for a better health! I heard somewhere that a person was asked by doctor to stop his bad habits so that his life span will be extended by another 5 years, he promptly replied as who would like to live those 5 years anyways. Jokes apart, if one lives a disciplined life, the chances are high that he would enjoy every moment of his life till the last one.

No doubt, increase in life expectancy is a good contribution by the scientists. One can happily walk on busy and thickly populated streets of Shivaji Nagar or KR  Market. He will not get any life threatening disease like small pox ( WHO had confirmed that small pox has been totally eradicated in 1979). But the chances of getting minor/major illnesses are very high. Only beneficiaries are those doctors who get tax free income, they give you a long prescription but not that tiny cash receipt unless you ask them.  And you continuously take one medicine or other to maintain reasonable health.

“Keep your health, else others will”.  The others will be doctors and the medicines prescribed by them. That health will be unhealthy anyways! You may always be visiting doctors and hospitals till you confine into a “fridge equivalent” ventilator!

Do not march towards becoming that tomato in the fridge, definitely not at a rapid pace!