A Serious Joke(s): International Meatless Day, Dry Day, …
On the eve of 25th November 2022, “International Meatless Day”, I was bemused when our local fish shop messaged me to place our orders by 8 am the next day before the authorities would ask to shut the shop. We don’t eat fish daily – may be, once or twice alternate weeks. This made me think, what is the point of calling it “International Meatless Day” when you have an option to stock the supplies before-hand. Many people (like me) may even revolt saying that why they should participate in such a thing when anyways they don’t eat meat every day of the week. I have seen similar instances around “Dry Day” (observed on 2nd October) when you can see the liquor shop crowded on the eve of Gandhi Jayanti, so people don’t run out of supplies.
It made me question: Why such days are observed when one doesn’t know the real reason? This is not the first time it’s done. The 31st President of United States of America, Herbert Hoover (prior to his presidency) started one such movement in 1917 during World War I. Hoover along with the US Food Administration coined a slogan: Food will win the war. To manage the food crisis, US citizens were asked to cut back on meat, fat, sugar, and wheat and to participate in Meatless Tuesdays and Wheatless Wednesdays. The intention and cause were clear then. Since then, several such initiatives have been campaigned. For e.g., in 2003 Sid Lerner, Founder of The Monday Campaigns in association with Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future started a global movement urging people to reduce meat in their diet for their health and the health of the planet. The World Vegetarian Day is celebrated on 1st October. Catholics abstained from eating meat on Fridays until 1966 when the second Vatican Council relaxed the law. And the list goes on.
One a lighter note, it would be interesting to know how much the sales of these products increases prior to such events! Is it a strategy to increase sales?
Whatever the reason is, here are a few things I have realized:
1.??????Eat responsibly. We have a choice of food. Let’s be conscious of what we eat.
领英推荐
2.??????Reduce meat consumption in your meals. Replace a small portion with vegetables (preferably raw). Plan to go “fully vegetarian” at least 1 day every week. If you can, skip a meal once a month. In India there are 2 days marked in a calendar month called Ekadashi (a day corresponds to a precise phase of the waxing and waning moon) when one can observe a fast.
3.??????Exercise regularly. With many people WFH (working from home), our lifestyles have become sedentary and with food easily accessible, people are putting on excess weight leading to obesity and hypertension. For me, the pandemic period was a rude awakening which made me realize that I’m responsible for my health and well-being. I have made it a point to exercise regularly and it is now evident in the way I feel and move. I am agile and in my ideal weight range which had hit “over-weight” pre-pandemic.
Life is precious!