Melting calories and guilt

Food is a language of love, togetherness, and the simple joy of living

Is your food your friend or foe? I had become almost paranoid about what I was eating, scrolling through reel after reel of Instagram influencers who spoke with a confidence that sometimes rivalled doctors. Rice was "poison". Fruits were suspect. Protein supplement marketers seemed determined to push their products down my throat. The touted benefits of nuts made me go nuts. And I went bananas when a relative warned me that even bananas were dangerous.

I was trying to practise Hara Hachi Bu — the art of stopping when your stomach is 80 per cent full. But I could never quite decipher the rumbles in my belly: was it half full or half empty? More often than I liked, I overshot from 80 per cent to 100… sometimes even 120 per cent, only to be left feeling quietly guilty afterwards.

Amid this swirl of hunger, frustration, incompetence and guilt, I decided — just for a day — to violate the rules of the balanced diet. I did not want to eat in fear or in guilt. I wanted to eat not by calculating the calorie quotient but by honouring the fun quotient. I did not want to count grams of protein; I wanted to celebrate the food itself. I wanted to savour it unapologetically — at least for that one day. The rest of the week, after all, I had already signed up for oats, boiled vegetables and protein shakes.

Remembering my late father, who would jubilantly show us how to cook and always relished his food, I began chopping onions and scraping coconut. Rice flour too went in. Soon the dough was ready. I patted the dough it right onto the banale (wok) and poured spoonfuls of oil. Within minutes, the kitchen filled with the irresistible aroma of onions. The coconut chutney was ready in a jiffy. Just then, the kids gathered around me, loudly expressing their disdain for roti and demanding to know why we couldn’t simply order pizza.

That did not dampen my enthusiasm. Thankfully, the roti came off the wok in a perfect single piece, without any drama. I placed a generous cube of butter on top. It melted slowly and slid across the hot roti — and the children were instantly enchanted. Soon they wanted to taste it too. Bite after bite, they nodded in approval, finally awarding me a five-star rating. I savoured the hot roti with chutney, followed by a cup of filter coffee.

In that moment, I realised the point of food was never just proteins, fibre or calories. Food is neither friend nor foe. It is a language of love, togetherness, and the simple joy of living.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)