The simplest advisory ‘Eat to live, don’t live to eat,’ that is not heard often nowadays, cannot be surpassed for its power of wisdom guiding one to go on a journey of healthy life spanning the full distance of four score and twenty (one hundred years). The expression, attributed to Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), noted American multi-gifted intellectual, also figures in innumerable eloquently worded expressions concerning food regimen by India’s thinkers of an undetermined ancient times. Even as the human species changed over from hunting other (animal) species to assuage hunger to enlarge diet to include crops raised by agriculture, the human food basket has witnessed a seamless change, currently on an unprecedented scale, thanks to advances in science and technology, apart from human ingenuity, not given to any other species.

The time-honoured idiom Roti, Kapada aur Makaan too doesn’t anymore convey the simple message built around the minimum needs of food, shelter and clothing, given the bewildering variety of food, jazzy clothes-ware and sky-high structures for residential and other purposes, prompting one to remark that the line between minimum needs and luxuries of life is very thin, if not non-existent. In this fast-changing scenario, food seems to be more fascinating to talk about.

Books written on food safety concerns of people at large, spelling out which component of the different raw materials and prepared dishes hurts which way (such as consumption of calcium oxalates in spinach and tomato resulting in kidney stones) as well as nutrition norms spelling out precise amounts of various nutrients (such as vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and proteins) published in a multitude of languages nowadays can fill the shelves of an entire library. The reality, however, is that the available knowledge has more met the curiosity of the literati than being complied with. The lure of samosa, maasala dosa, gobimanchurian, chicken kebab and hundreds of the all-too-familiar other foodies on offer by restaurants and during celebratory parties including weddings has only made the people to first grab the grub and indulge in gabbing about food safety and nutrition.

Even the dailies are bringing the valuable knowledge on foods to the doorstep of people, cautioning them about the hidden offending components in the dishes consumed as a routine. The readers of dailies, including this one, cannot grumble that they are not informed, only their unconcerned outlook to food is their undoing. You can take the horse to the water, but cannot make it drink!