The ‘fast food’ factor!

A while back, Professor Andrew Prentice of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, after tedious research, came up with the “revolutionary conclusion” that “fast food” actually makes you fat! Now, before the reader comes up with a wisecrack about “stating the obvious”, a closer look at the researcher’s line of argument may well be in order. The professor stated that a typical fast food meal has a very high energy density. He calculated this was one and a half times higher than “an average British meal” and two and a half times higher than a “traditional African meal”, thus consuming fast food increases the risk of weight gain.

While the trendsetters feast on fast food and designer beverages, a sizeable proportion of what can loosely be described as the world’s population suffers from hunger, malnutrition and want. Even clean drinking water is denied to them! And what is the international community doing about it? Precious little, one would imagine.

Multilateral diplomatists go about their business of merry-go-rounds in exotic locations making loquacious speeches in favour of “reducing poverty”. Catchy slogans, like “War on Want”, are conjured up and bandied about. Meanwhile, the UN rests on its laurels (read: Nobel Prize) in a world in which every norm has gone haywire. Makes one wish one were back in the good old days!

Remember the time when food was just something to be consumed, savoured and enjoyed? Alas, no more! Thanks to technology, food has been analysed, dissected and anatomised to a degree that it would require a specialist to discern its exact nature. Once researchers were through with it, food was no longer what ordinary mortals had mistaken it to be.

Humankind realised it was ingesting not a delectable repast but a conglomeration of proteins, carbohydrates, polyunsaturated fats and similar compounded words. What used to be a pleasurable interlude in one’s daily schedule was reduced to a calorie counting exercise! Such terms as cholesterol, triglycerides and lipoproteins were thrown in to muddle an already confused mind.

At this point, a word about the “fast food saga” may not be out of place. The fast food revolution did not materialise overnight but evolved like a deadly virus. Technological transformation provided the trigger in the form of man’s growing propensity to adopt a culture of hurly-burly in everything he did. Thus, it came to pass that to whatever man indulged in, there was added an element of speed.

Looking around, one finds people of all shapes and sizes rushing around madly as if they have a train to catch. Well, maybe some of them do, but majority of them merely do it for the heck of it. As a direct consequence, people believe that if a thing has to be done well, it must be done in a hurry. An ordinary man’s way of life has been hit where it hurts most. Leisure was one of the essential ingredients of good life and our forefathers led life at a leisurely pace taking things as they came.

Fast food has not only disturbed the tempo of man’s mealtime, it has also made his meal lop-sided. His intake of calories, proteins, carbohydrates and what have you is no longer balanced as it was in the meals of yore. Fast food consumption ensures that some ingredient is always in excess of its requirement. The inevitable result is that one’s digestive system is thrown horribly out of gear, to use a mechanical term.

One visible manifestation of the fast food revolution is widespread obesity that is causing much concern in the West. The pity is that even the developing countries have caught the bug. The number of obese people one comes across these days is enough to take one’s breath away. Could this be nature’s revenge for the way man continues to play fast and loose with the laws of nature?

Published in The Express Tribune, September 2^nd, 2019.

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