A question of sensible priorities
 |
| Kavita Mukhi |
On a typically monsoon evening recently I met up with some old school friends over dinner. As so often happens on such occasions, the co nversation drifted to food. One of the girls drooled about the buffet of President Hotel’s famous all night coffee shop, the Trattoria. She said it was delicious and at Rs.650, great value for money.
I’m not one who enjoys dining out because wholesome fare is unavailable anywhere in India except in some health conscious homes. For a start the almost complete un-availability of nutritious brown rice in any restaurant in India makes eating out undesirable. However the reason I’m often seen socialising is to get away from home, to experience a pleasant evening, and to simply check out a new restaurant in the hope that I may be surprised with good, nutritious fare. Although I would occasionally pay Rs.650 for a meal, however unnutritious, for the reasons listed, my mother would definitely not. "We make a fuss about paying our cook an extra Rs.500 per month and then want to spend much more than that in a flash. No way!" she often says.
Therefore coming from the same genetic pool it isn’t that easy for me either to pay such prices. If I knew I was getting food that would feed my body cells, I would be less parsimonious. But for exotic food where the base is refined flour or white rice or dairy products and synthetic chemicals, I’m disinclined to waste my hard-earned earnings. Then there’s the hygiene factor — dirty rat-infested kitchens and storerooms fumigated with strong pesticides. That’s why such expenditure seems a complete waste of money.
Yet many of my friends and acquaintances who regard such grand buffets good value for money, still hesitate to purchase organic, earth-friendly spices, whole cereals, pulses, tea, coffee, natural sugars and salts, because the 20-25 percent higher than market price of organic foods is too steep. In reality, if a family switches to organically grown and processed spices — that’s where chemical treatment and adulteration is the worst — the addition to the monthly food bill would be a mere Rs.100. A small price to pay to feed your family with the purest.
In however small a way, I believe those of us in the organic foods and healthy nutrition movements are impacting public attitudes. From the time I became a mother I dressed my child in the simplest of clothes (seeing that every few weeks and then months, he would need new ones that fit) and spent a larger share of my income on safe, organically grown, chemicals-free food. Even 22 years ago I had an instinct for what was ‘best’. Not foreign, imported foods; not chemical-laden hybrid vegetables like babycorn, red and yellow capsicum, but the best of organic fare in its unrefined form. It’s penny wise to refuse to pay marginally higher prices for clean, healthy food and then foot astronomical healthcare and hospital bills!
Yet, I am always amazed at the different ways in which otherwise sane, rational people draw up their household budgets. A fixed proportion of income is set aside for food expenses and other household needs, for clothing, education, healthcare etc. And a separate budget is made for entertainment. To my audiences I always stress that although most mothers easily spend Rs.36 on a foreign brand, chemically flavoured ice-cream, a few rupees extra for a packet of organic spices or for that matter, chocolate is a major issue. One of the general managers of a large retail chain in Mumbai told me that the latter is an expense while the former is entertainment. I should not confuse the two.
Only then did I realise that a consciousness change needs to be made to reverse the priority of entertainment over basic expense. The issue isn’t about affordability as much as about priorities. If one has to forego a pricey meal in a restaurant or a fancy pair of shoes to purchase safe food, the choice should be clear.
One of the perks of my job is that I continually meet people who teach me something of value, and strengthen my beliefs. One such person I encountered recently, thus far only on e-mail, is Santosh. He is German, lives in the Himalayas and has set up a company to market high quality whole foods of that region. He also produces jam, oils, soap etc, from pure, organically grown raw material. To which add the pure air and water of the Himalayas! I hope to be able to do some work with him since there is much synergy in our eco-friendly, health-giving businesses. Once when I asked Santosh to bill us a lower price for his products, he retorted that his products are worth their weight in gold and that if we were unwilling to pay the price, his producers and suppliers would be happy to consume them.
That’s the fitting reply I want to scream out everytime I hear the word ‘expensive’ for wholesome organic foods. As I’ve written earlier, farmers’ leader Sharad Joshi’s observation that in India we get agri produce at ridiculous prices because the farmer doesn’t calculate the capital cost of land and labour is completely accurate. People in urban India have been spoilt with food available at such low prices. And Joshi isn’t talking organic produce. Now thanks to the dawn of a new awareness, organic farmers are demanding fair prices because they know the worth of the produce of their land.
I like what a customer (Tony Mango, a Greek businessman settled in India) said to me at a dinner just a few days ago. "Your products are expensive but we sure do enjoy them." I wonder if he realises their value to his health too.
There is a money angle to spending, earning, making choices that I wanted to write about. Since I’ve run out of space, I’ll keep that for next month. It really sets one thinking about this subject differently. And life takes on a whole new meaning considering that money and food matters take up a lot of our time!
(Kavita Mukhi is a Mumbai-based eco-nutritionist and CEO of Conscious Food)