Eating: Always in Moderation

Filed in archive Food for Thought on July 15, 2006

I looovvve seafood! I can live without meat as long as there's seafood. At any given time, I have frozen fish, ready to cook. I also stock up on shrimps, either the larger prawns which I can prepare simply steamed then dipped in lemon and a bit of fish sauce, or the smaller ones - fried to a crisp and eaten whole.

However, indulging in crustaceans is forbidden in my house. They are rich in cholesterol and may lead to hypertension.

A cursory inspection of my refrigerator and pantry shows a lot of food declared anathema by health purists. I have lard rendered by myself, ice cream, cakes, fruit preserves, bread, biscuits, white sugar and everything in between (oh, soda and crisps/chips are something I don't keep). And I call myself a healthy eater?

Yes! Proudly too! How's that? Well, I am just following family tradition. I grew up eating fish and vegetables almost throughout the whole week. Chicken was served thrice, pork and beef twice, perhaps on weekends, if at all.

My grandmother was very strict about this diet, telling us we'll get sick if we indulged in meat and refused to eat our vegetables. I dismissed it as an old wives' tale but later on, I realised this was similar to the famed Mediterranean diet. Many Asian societies are even more spartan and rank so high in terms of longevity.

With all the talk about obesity and other health problems, isn't all a question of moderation? I believe it is. Totally eliminating something from our diet is not the solution, it is extremist and will perhaps just cause cravings and binging. Smart eating is the key.