Understanding poverty

"My Umi rationed food so we also have food at dinner too. I could take the rice with only planta and soy sauce, yes I could take that. I was irritated at the way my Umi would divide everything into small portion sfor each of us siblings. But I could deal with that. Also the quarrels and fights when my big brother would 'sapu' some of my portions too - but really, I could handle that as well. I could also shower without soap or not brushing my teeth and the bad breath in school.

But the psychological trauma of seeing my parents quarrelling over and over again angered me so much then. At times, an RM5 issue would throw the family into days of distress, pain, misery, anguish, fear and sorrow.

It was a pain that pierced right through my heart that even as I am writing this now, today, year 2009, when I am no longer living in poverty, tears are rolling and rolling and rolling down my cheeks. The tears just wouldn't stop. The brain is a funny instrument. It does not seem to know the difference between the past and the present. So the past becomes the present, just by thinking about it! God it was so tiring ... I feel tired now just thinking back!"

-Anas Zubedy in his book 'The Quran and I', recounting his childhood

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‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.’

These 7 words encapsulates Michael Pollan’s book ‘In Defence of Food’ that I’ve read recently. He didn’t start elaborating on what he meant by that immediately. The first part of the book is titled The Age of Nutritionism. I’m glad to learn that eating healthy does not mean that I have to master the science of nutrition. In fact, he went as far as suggesting that nutritionism could just be ‘bad science’. In the second part, The Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilization, the author elaborates on the changes that has happened to food and eating (specifically in the Western world).

The list of subtopics in the last chapter of this part may give some idea of what these changes are:
-From whole foods to refined
-From complexity to simplicity
-From quality to quantity
-From leaves to seed
-From food culture to food science

Although reading the first two parts had been interesting and enlightening, it is the third and last part of the book which I had appreciated the most, because this is where he had shared tangible advices and rules when it comes healthy eating. I’ll capture the points here so that I can refer to them in the future.

Eat Food: Food Defined (food, as opposed to foodlike or food products)

Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food
Don’t eat anything incapable of rotting
Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number and that include d) high-fructose corn syrup
Avoid food products that make health claims
Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle (fresh food is usually placed at the peripheries and processed food in the middle)
Get out of the supermarket whenever possible (eg shop at farmers’ market, or in Malaysian context, pasar tani I guess)

Mostly Plants: What to Eat

Eat mostly plants especially leaves
You are what what you eat eats too
If you have the space buy a freezer (freezing unlike canning does not significantly diminish the nutritional value of produce)
Eat like an omnivore (diversify your food)
Eat well-grown food from healthy soils
Eat wild foods when you can
Be the kind of person who takes supplement (without actually taking any, unless you’re over 50) ie typically more health conscious, better educated, and more affluent
Eat more like the French or the Italians or the Japanese or the Indians or the Greeks (eat traditional food)
Regard non-traditional foods with skepticism
Don’t look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet (it’s a ‘package’)

Not Too Much: How to Eat

Pay more eat less (costs, both in terms of price and time/convenience to prepare) Eat meals (and avoid snacking in between)
Do all your eating at a table (and a desk is not a table)
Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does (ie petrol station shops)
Try not to eat alone
Consult your gut (train our internal system to tell us when we are full)
Eat slowly
Cook, and if you can, plant a garden

One of my favourite paragraph: “If a food is more than the sum of its nutrients and a diet is more than the sum of its food, it follows that a food culture is more than the sum of its menus – it embraces as well the set of manners, eating habits, and unspoken rules that together governs a people’s relationship to food and eating. How a culture eats may have just as much bearing on health as what a culture eats.”

This is Michael Pollan’s website where he shares his archives or articles (I’ve just read 3 interesting ones and will probably go back for more). The article ‘Unhappy Meals’ which he wrote in January 2007 is the trigger which led him (encouraged by his editors) to write this whole book, so it actually contains a significant amount of the points he touched in this book, so head over there for a preview of this book.

Overall, a very satisfying read – interesting and informative. I feel so motivated now to improve my eating and cooking habits towards achieving a healthier life, I hope I’ll remain to be so consistently!

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Obama: From Promise to Power

Credit to image source: britannica.com
Salah satu azam saya tahun ini adalah untuk menulis lebih banyak ulasan buku, biar pun pendek.

Bulan Januari sedikit sibuk (alasan!), saya Cuma sempat menghabiskan sebuah buku bertajuk Obama: From Promise to Power, yang ditulis oleh David Mendell, seorang wartawan yang telah mengikuti perkembangan Obama semenjak dia mula berjinak-jinak dalam dunia politik di Chicago. Saya juga seperti ramai orang lain di seluruh dunia, tertarik dengan karisma Obama, dan mengikuti (sedikit-sedikit) pilihanraya yang menyaksikan dia dipilih sebagai Presiden Amerika Syarikat pada tahun 2008. Dia, seperti lain daripada yang lain. Saya yang tidak pernah berminat mengikuti politik nagara Amerika pun jadi berminat untuk mengambil tahu lebih sedikit.

Pada asalnya, saya ingin mencari buku-buku tulisannya sendiri, The Dreams of My Father dan The Audacity of Hope. Tetapi apabila berpeluang meminjam naskhah buku ini daripada seorang rakan, saya rasa bagus juga membaca ulasan pihak ketiga (yang sepatutnya bebas dan tidak ‘biased’). Bab-bab awal meliputi latar belakang hidup Obama, daripada keluarganya yang berbilang kaum hingga ke pengajiannya di Harvard dan penglibatannya sebagai aktivis masyarakat di Chicago. Seterusnya, David Mendell menceritakan dengan lebih terperinci apabila Obama mula terlibat dalam dunia politik, bermula dengan sebuah pilihanraya tempatan. Obama kalah, tetapi banyak belajar daripada pengalamannya itu. Dia menang pilihanraya keduanya, menjadi seorang wakil tempatan di Illinois. Dia melangkah lebih jauh apabila memenangi pilihanraya menjadi Senator US pada tahun 2004. Buku ini ditamatkan (dan diterbitkan) sejurus selepas Obama mengumumkan bahawa dia akan bertanding sebagai calon Presiden Amerika Syarikat.

Secara keseluruhannya, saya berpendapat bahawa penulis seimbang dalam memberikan gambaran tentang karakter Obama. Kedua-dua aspek positif dan negatif disentuh dengan jujur. Penulis juga banyak menceritakan pengorbanan dan sisi kurang menyenangkan yang terpaksa dihadapi Obama setelah nekad membuat keputusan menjadi ahli politik, spesifiknya kekurangan waktu untuk diri dan keluarga (privacy) dan tekanan, terutama kerana Obama menjadi begitu popular melebihi selebriti. Membaca buku itu, saya juga dikenalkan kepada budaya berpolitik di Amerika, yang sebelum ini begitu asing bagi saya. Barulah saya tahu bagaimana kompleknya dunia politik. Bermula dengan mencari sokongan politik dan kewangan dan peranan staf-staf kempen yang diupah, bacaan daripada satu buku sekadar membenarkan saya ‘mengintai’ dengan singkat. Yang pastinya, realiti sebenar pasti jauh lebih kompleks dan sukar difahami.

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