Save Our Samosa

Indian Express

11 hours ago

Could outlawing all that is delicious be the only way to ensure that we eat healthy? This thought that popped into my head for a second and took another couple of seconds to articulate out loud left me wondering: Where did my relationship with food go so wrong? That we should all eat our food as pills or suck it through a straw, as the humans in the 2008 Pixar film WALL-E do, has always struck me as one of the most needlessly cruel and utterly stupid science fiction tropes. Food reduced to mere nourishment: That's not efficiency, that's joylessness. So what made me argue to myself that ridding the world of tasty food might be any kind of solution?
The answer is all around us, in our diet-obsessed, fat-shaming, hunger-guilting culture. It's in the fact that we are now sold food based not on what it has, but what it doesn't have. We are in the age, as the meme goes, of the 'super easy, two ingredient, low calorie, no bake, no refrigerate, no flour, no sugar, no gluten, no egg, no carb, no fat, no woman, no cry, no beans, no greens, no tomatoes, no lambs, no rams, no hogs, no dogs, no chicken, no turkey, no rabbits, you name it, high protein peanut butter banana oat bars.' A relationship with food that is so broken that it is easier to mock than fix.
Amidst this comes the Health Ministry instruction to schools, offices and public institutions to put up display boards in canteens that warn people about the fat and sugar content of the food available. So, samosas, with their crisp, flaky crusts and steaming, spicy fillings, will be judged by how much trans fats they contain, and tea, that mid-afternoon rejuvenator of spirits, by how much sugar it has. Where is the overworked official, the underpaid clerk, the overburdened student to find solace?
True happiness may not be found inside a samosa, but pleasure certainly is. It is foolish to measure the nourishment that food provides just in terms of its protein, fat or fibre content: One of the few purely sensual pleasures available to most, food is also a source of comfort and quiet joy. It offers affirmation and security, and defines the tenor of our days. How can this vast, capacious vessel — which carries us through good times and bad, through memories and daydreams, forging connections and deepening our understanding of our differences and similarities — be reduced to mere calories?
This is the cross that we in the 21st century have to bear. Food has never been more plentiful in the history of humanity, and yet never has it been so burdened with our complicated feelings about ourselves and our bodies. We tell ourselves that we don't 'deserve' another spoonful of ice cream because we didn't get our 10,000 steps that day. We 'cheat' on our diets with pizza and cake, and we feel smug about eating no more than a tablespoon of rice with baked fish and steamed broccoli. Hunger is no longer a biological imperative, it is a calculation — of macros and micronutrients, of 'empty' calories, 'good' fats and 'bad'.
Just like food, there is plenty of blame to go around too — towards the content overload of the age, the half- or misinformed advice peddled by wellness influencers, and the global food processing and health and fitness industries that have turned food and all our complexes about it into a source of profit. When what should be instinct — how much to eat and when to stop — is repackaged and sold to us as advice about 'mindful eating', it is time to stop and consider our own part in what is, after all, a crisis of overconsumption. But as we strive to be better and eat better, let pleasure not become collateral damage. It is time to send an SOS: Spare Our Samosas. Let Our Jalebis….Just Be.
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