Evolution on my plate . . . .

I like hearing stories about my parent’s childhood. It allows me to have a glimpse of what life was like when they were younger. One thing that interests me was the way they ate, and the way that they prepared their food. Back then, as I was told, in the 1950’s, they didn’t have to buy their food. They gathered vegetables from the farm, meat from their own livestock, fish from the nearby river and rice from the fields that they tilled. They only had to go to the market twice a month to stock up on salt, bagoong (shrimp paste) and a few other necessities.

When I was growing up, in the 1970’s, my parents more or less still grew the food that we ate. Every single meal was prepared and cooked as we ate them. Chocolates were a rare treat, we were lucky if we had them once a year. My cousins and I would feast on the abundant fruit-bearing trees that grow around the farm. It was amazing, we just ate whatever was there and in season.

The first time I was away from home was when I went to University in Manila. I shared an apartment with my cousins and we would take turns cooking. We had adopted the way of our parents, there was no other way that we knew. We would go to the market and shop for our week’s supply of food and take turns cooking the same food that we were accustomed to.

When I settled in Ireland, in the year 2000, I was exposed to many different types of food and ways of preparing them. Most of the time there is hardly any preparation at all. Supermarkets and grocery stores are packed with ready-made food. Just stick it in the microwave for five minutes and presto, dinner is served! Another option is the popular and convenient take-away meals such as Chinese, Indian, Pizza, Fish and Chips which all seem to be around every corner. I thought at the beginning that these were brilliant, it saved me a lot of time and effort.



There was no more need for all the hassle of chopping and cooking and washing-up in the kitchen. But what I didn’t realize was that all this convenience was slowly but surely sucking me into a vortex of bad food habits! My clothes went up two sizes and from being 45 kilos in weight I maxed out at a whooping 60 kilos! And why is this? Because all of these “options” are full of saturated fats, salt, preservatives, and sugar which are not exactly good for your health.

Right there and then I knew I had to unlearn my bad food habits. I may not be able to go back to the time where my parents grew everything in their backyard but I can surely start with eating properly and cutting bad processed food. Since then I have gone back to my kitchen and prepared food in the traditional way. This presented me with the opportunity to rekindle my love for cooking. And now I am happy with my weight, and I feel a lot healthier and I feel good!