Can You Afford to Eat a Healthy Diet?

Only the uber rich can afford to eat healthy all the time, rest of us wagies in cagies cannot.

First of all food should be by default healthy and things that I eat should not be decreasing my life expectancy. It is not like I am consuming Uranium, I shouldn’t have to worry about food. The “healthy“ part of it should be in-built. Also taste and health shouldn’t be polar opposites. All of this outrages me to such extent that I have to write about it.

People say that food made at home is usually good and healthy. Okay, read on!

Cooking is an essential skill, everyone should learn how to cook. But one shouldn’t be expected to cook three times a day, wtf!? Imagine you are a bachelor living in some tier 1 city who works a 9-5 job.

First things first, 9-5 is more like 9-7 because commute!

Balram is a tech wagie who works a 9-5 job.

Balram is good boy, he wakes up at 7:30 AM, does some light exercise, morning chores then makes light breakfast, takes a bath, dresses up, books an auto and reaches office at 9 AM.

He then works….okay now it is 2:00 PM, lunch time! But wait Balram didn’t pack lunch, he didn’t have the time to do so. So Balram eats at the office, some times he orders from Zo/Sw. I am not going to go into his food preferences. Did he eat healthy food? Dunno. Maybe.

It is now 6 PM and Balram takes off, he books an auto and reaches home at 7 PM. He lies down on the sofa and thinks about the life he is leading. Anyway, now it 7:30 PM. Balram now thinks about what he wants to cook, he checks what is available in his fridge and…voila! What? His fridge is empty because he forgot to buy groceries on Sunday. He is also mentally exhausted and doesn’t want to deal with anything.

So what does he do? He orders from Zo/Sw and…did he eat healthy food? Dunno. Maybe.

Wait, wait. He also needs to wash dishes. Oh my god! So much work, he also has to wake up tomorrow to go to the office. How can one manage all of it?

Okay, the point I am trying to make is that one cannot easily manage to do everything, that is, exercise, cook their own food, wash dishes, go to the office, eat healthy, be vibrant and smile the whole day and be productive!

All food has some kind of trade-off - “Oh eat our pasta it will help your gut, but also it will make decrease your IQ by 20 points for a week”.

Food needs to be healthy by default! Why cannot things just be simple? Why does one have to put so much thought into what they eat. It doesn’t make any sense, we eat to sustain ourselves, why is the food I eat trying to make me un-healthier? Why do I gotta organise my food choices?

All these things sound like first world problems, but they aren’t. Everything you eat directly effects your physical and mental well-being, what you eat is what you are. So how does one eat healthy food and also doesn’t exhaust their body, mentally or physically and give his taste buds something to be thankful for.

Changing your food habits comes at a cost and most of the times that cost is a 30-50% premium over your food budget.

Food - $10

Healthy Food - $16

And the difference between healthy food and food isn’t huge. If food will decrease you life span by 1 day then healthy food will decrease it by .72 day. This is just an analogy. I am not an health expert, just someone who is angry at the trend.

Food is food and it should be keeping me alive and not making me miserable in the long term. A lot of these health influencers/brands are snake-oil salesmen, so one has to beware of them too. You will be sold a dream that will never materialise. So be cautious.

fin.