Eating Healthy Poses Challenge in a Globalized world

The Drive to Stay Healthy

Globalization and population increases, it is said, are contributing to low-quality produce worldwide.

In the United States at least, the trend may be more obvious than in the countries I am more familiar with – India and France.

I have trouble sourcing good quality produce. Or let me phrase it as follows. It is almost impossible to buy good produce in this country unless it is organic, and that costs an arm and a leg.

Furthermore, even in a city like New York where there is not much to gripe about when it comes to mass transit, quickly accessing health-friendly produce can be inconvenient.

India is slowly falling prey to the same phenomenon.

My husband’s family lives in Gurgaon, a city near Delhi where real estate prices are skyrocketing, and is also frequently in the news because of its fashionable malls, where the general populace opts to take a turn of an evening for pleasure.

As an aside, there is not much else to do in Gurgaon.

I find it extremely rewarding to hit the street markets twice a day to shop for vegetables and fruits. It is a veritable feast for the sense and a simple, fail-proof way of finding Nirvana, if you are so inclined.

Farmers from the nearby villages congregate to offer up fruits and vegetables of the highest quality, and the haggling adds a nice burnish to the entire affair.

It was similar, if not better in France,

In two years, I believe I understood how life could be distilled down to two simplest components to optimize benefits. Good quality produce and heavenly bread.

This was definitely the bread the Bible spoke of in referring to the “stalk of life.”

Coming back to India, supermarkets are taking over. Women find it convenient to shop for everything at a single stop.

Bye-bye farmers, bye-bye seasonal, fresh produce, welcome lustrous, tasteless grub…

Add to this, the results of a recent study which suggests that a preferable way to avoid cancer may be eat healthy food and not overdose oneself on supplements.

This finding still begs the question as to what the average individual who consumes produce leached of all nutritional value is supposed to do.