By Tara Narayan
WHO’S not seeking the fountain of youth forever or at least to live happily ever after for the next 100 to 200 or more years! In the countries of the advanced west where if you’ve got oodles of money both celebrities, politicians and businessmen are seeking the fountain of youth in a host of superfoods…which may deliver the promise of a fountain of youth or not, depending on other factors like unseen fatal accidents and incidents, or just plain depression which is so difficult to come out of until one’s come to terms with one’s sins of omission and commission…with all the super foods at one’s disposal we may continue to malinger despite the best efforts of loved ones. See it happening all around us?
WHAT are the super foods? In fact, the market of super foods is getting pretty crowded and reading the super foods listings makes me dizzy…oh, to be young and healthy enough to chase the fountain of youth anew! Primarily, I would say the most primary super foods would be the foods which are organically cultivated in wholesome earth and may be eaten fresh or reasonably processed in one’s kitchen vis-à-vis minimal cooking (not industrial processing at high heat in factories). We need to shun industrialized foods more and more if we seek healthy longevity, it need not be expensive but it is getting to be very expensive if you know what I mean.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to find wholesome food anymore for much of it infested with industrial farming chemicals and real nutrients are minimal. So we have this alternate burgeoning market of superfoods catering to the rich and beautiful, wealthy and famous…it’s all about keeping your largest organ (after skin) alive and kicking and not turning it into a dried up cancerous mass within and without — the liver being a most important organ dealing with the toxic junk we eat day in and out eventually, helped by the kidneys and the rest of body beautiful.
I’ve been reading up super foods common and not so easy to acquire, from golden turmeric with its curcumin to be consumed with piperine; aloe vera and more so aloe macroclada for anti-ageing — it’s one of 65 kinds of aloe in Madagascar and its extract called “vahona” which reportedly magically or not magically (there’s systematic science behind it) can doubles stem cells providing you drink…er…at the fountain of youth respectively. Ureka and all that.
Those who’re chasing the fountain of youth are adventuring with superfoods Irish sea moss, dandelion root, burdock root, shilajit we know in India……foods are natural medicines to take care of skin and thyroid problems, for reducing cholesterol, regulating blood sugar, bringing down blood pressure, healing the heart, increasing testosterone, generally speaking boosting immunity which on one hand we’re trying to compromise, tamper, modify, control, and on the other hand boost so that we may we may reduce the importance of hospitals and take the heat off doctors in time to come.
This is to say these days and I’m still listening endlessly to Dr Eric Berg and we’re told shun liquid sugar, all sugars, all refined flours, grains, oils, even fruit, say no to fruit juice…no rice, no bread, no carbs, no processed cheese, no protein bars – they’re worse than candy bars! No to whey proteins, no isolated soy proteins, no, no, no to so many things, might as well die like our mitochondria engines are giving up on us and dragging us to D-day. Say no to sugars and startchs most of the time, real the labels of all junk foods…get your protein from eggs (free range eggs) and red meat or veggie beans and micro sprouts and sprouts.
De-tox organs kidneys and the liver are majorly in trouble nowadays in Goa, my dear friend Dr Digambar Naik of Vrundavan Hospital tells me, “Fatty liver is very, very common in Goan adults” and his new Vrundavan Daycare Centre, Polyclinic, Diabetes Centre and Heart Care Centre is offering free fibroscans to diagnose how fatty your liver is (I think the free camp in Panjim is over but one of these days you want to tae stock of your liver, it’s one of your last calls in life). The list for kidney donors is long in Goa, say, we don’t drink enough WHO standard water but liquor is cheaper and we invite all tourists to come and get drunk, don’t we? This is tourist paradise – eat, drink, play at casinos and find young women, drug them, rape them, kill them?
But to stay with the liver these days I’m asking myself why do so many of us suffer from fatty liver, I do too (and I’m not an alcoholic or smoker), apart from heart some blockages somewhere enroute to my heart…that’s one reason why I’m cramming up on listening to all the alternate health doctors of the western world…to see if I can drink a little bit from the fountain of youth for a little more time on mother earth, to wind up a few favorite dreams although most have turned sour now. It’s these dreams turned sour which are giving me nightmares and I don’t like losing sleep at all!
WELL, if you want to last a little longer than me, read up Dr Sebi, read up the lovely Dr Barbara O’Neill who says no sugars and carbs too. More carbs cause problems and cancer is carcinogenesis, the process of cells turning into cancer cells. The latest research says turn to red algae (ask Elon Musk all about it) – the super food of all super foods. We are more familiar with blue green spirulina and chorella and there’re the line-up of mushrooms from Taiwan and Japan (which reportedly Prime Minister Modi feasts on for longevity as god on earth)…
The bread we eat is not real, the cereals we eat not real, the rice we eat not real…the body cannot take it any more, wheat belly is because of visceral fat, because of carb diets of KFC and Burger King. Read up Dr William Davies. Somewhere I hear Dr Eric Berg telling me seven fruit destroy cancer: Not all fruit, mind you; in any case eat fruit instead of drinking it but the amongst the seven fruit which pass the tests at the fountain of youth are berries which are not high on so much fruit sugars, say you need to eat berries — blueberries, cranberries, all berries wild or cultivated organically through perma culture. Eat a rainbow of colors and especially the color purple to reverse cancer, tomatoes are good for the prostate. Include in your daily eating and drinking the anti-inflammatory citrus fruit, cruciferous veggies like cabbage.
Do a liver de-tox with pomegranates rich in ellegic acid (anti-cancer), grapes (revesteral)…both are superheroes, so are tomatoes (lycopene). Again, eat the colors of the rainbow especially dark purple, green, red, yellow…avocados have glutathione, olives have eleuporene. All help increase apoptosis or mass cell suicide!
Yes, the real fruits should be our medicine but your doctors won’t tell you that because they don’t study the effect of phytonutrients in different fruit. All this and much more oozing out of my constant search for the fountain of youth, okay, no more.
SHRAVAN GETTING OVER SOON!
ALAS, these days of Shravan I’m still obsessed by the prize Saraswat food thali meal deal of them all. Hey, I found myself indulging in a little adventure by riding out on my two-wheeler all the way to Verna to look up the Kamaxi College of Culinary Arts’ Fierce Kitchen where my friend of old Anjali Walavalkar (who really pioneered the Saraswat thali meal deal at the Delmon, now Grand Delmon in Panaji long ago, that’s when I first met Anjali)…later she was executive chef with Sapna Sardessai’s Kokum Curry, but now she’s operations manager of Fierce Kitchen at Verna’s Kamaxi College of Culinary Arts where every Thursday she’s been putting out her most piece de resistance Saraswat Shravan thali meal deal (something like Rs290), she tells me she drives up daily from her home in Mapusa and that’s quite an achievement on its own for this feisty woman.
Not every day but every Thursday she cooks and presents a most delectable Saraswat veg meal for lunch at the Fierce Kitchen at Verna but she told me over the phone “We only do on order and I stick to only 20 thali meals, so if I want to come with your friends please book so I know in advance how much to cook!” Next Thursday, this is August 29, last Shravan thali meal deal, but please check with them!
Well, I couldn’t wait so Thursday last prompted by just sense of doing something I haven’t done for a long time I rode out on my two-wheeler down the new highways to look up the Verna industrial estate and Kamaxmi College of Culinary Arts – and Anjali welcomed me, put the platter of Saraswat vegetarian treats before me…“moogachi gathi, gosalem raite, chanyachi oosli, surna kismor, karathyache lonche, batat, kele kappa, vodiyacho ros, phulka, khuti kadi, annas karam, xeet, kellencho halva, papad, yellape.” Like only Anjali Walavalkar can make it…I find myself licking my fingers after I’d finished tucking into my rice-gosalem raite combo. No cutlery if you don’t ask for it. Eat with your fingers, says Anjali, surely you haven’t forgotten how to eat with your fingers like nature intended! She tells me the gosalem raite is made using only the ridges of the ridge gourd…the incredible flavor, you have to taste it. The rest of it I’ll leave to your imaginative palate.
She sees me squeezing the lemon quarter into my kokum kutti kadi and shares that in the old days refined ways of eating meant after you’ve finished eating a meal with your fingers, “you squeeze and rub your fingers into the lemon quarter with salt also placed alongside to clean fingers!” Leaves a most tantalizing scent…even if you don’t wash your fingers and hand afterwards. Well, she’s right up to a point. The lemon aroma offers a high!
So if they don’t offer you cutlery, play safe, take your own cutlery, that is if you don’t like eating with your right hand and fingers…or eat naturally and lick your fingers if you like, nobody will say anything. But be sure to mash the rice and gosalem raite well together before popping it into your mouth. Clear your palate with the kokum tival or “kutti kadi” with the chopped fine green coriander leaves swirling in it…utterly delicious. Super food!
Hey, I haven’t come across a more conscientious and discerning Saraswat veg thali for Shravan this monsoon season and don’t tell me I have already said this so many times, I haven’t. Substance is more important than style if you’re asking me, a little style is fine, too much is overkill. Anjali tells me apart from running culinary courses at the Kamaxi College of Culinary Arts at Verna Industrial Estate, they also do events and yes, she goes out to teach hotel kitchen chef interns how to cook…most have passed out of culinary colleges but are still greenhorns or something like that. There’s more to cooking and presenting food than most of us think nowadays – it must not only be about the art of combination but cooking just so and presenting just so, and not too salty, not too spicy, not to oily. Amen to all that, enjoy! The last days of Shravan-ka-mahina this year, who knows, some of us may not be around next year for Shravan.
