If you are eating & drinking for pleasure, then you are borrowing happiness from tomorrow

There was a time not so long age when no food was stored in the house. Children of 70s & 80s remember that if they were hungry at night, mothers simply told them, you should have eaten during dinner. Now wait till breakfast.

Food was cooked fresh and households took time to prepare a meal.

Restaurants were rare and eating out was not in fashion

Eateries and messes have existed in India for a long long time. But eating out in a restaurant was a very rare thing. There were specific category of people who depended on tiffin services. Rest all depended on home cooked food even if it was packed.

Road side food stalls catered for local fast food cuisine. Like for example, Mumbai streets were exclusively only consisting of vada pav, pani puri, pav bhaji and the famed Bombay Sandwich. Even though street food was easily available, there was a clear distinction between a snack and a meal.

But today …

every street in every town is littered with street food stalls but now selling food of a different variety. Traditional street food replaced with ultra processed carbs. Low cost, easy to prepare, long lasting and extremely tasty. Perfectly designed to hit the pleasure spots in the brain and easy on the pocket.

Street food as also entered into the menu of upscale restaurants. Same highly processed carbs but in a clean and hygienic environment.

We are headed into a food pandemic. Have we become food addicts?

What is food addiction

If you are eating for happiness, you are possibly addicted to food. Easily available food is a cause of this. Street food, food delivery, packed food, refrigerators, snacks, are all a cause of this problem. There is no social event in the country which does not have food as part of the program. Even a simple friends get together compulsory has food and drinks to make you happy. As if the company itself is not good enough to make you happy.

If you eat and drink to make yourself happy then you are definitely addicted.

Our lifestyle is now centered around working and eating.

But just imagine, are you addicted to getting up early on a Sunday morning and going for a nature hike.

So there are some good addictions and some not so good. You are the right judge.

It is all about the dopamine

What do you count as a benefit? Hiking on a sunday morning will make your legs ache but will help in a sound sleep. Exercise will help lose weight. Nature trip will make you feel relaxed.

Peanuts, roasted cashew nuts, expensive scotch, chips, carbonated drinks or a glass of wine will also make you happy. But the health problems that come with it will make sure of spoiling your tomorrow, thereby stealing happiness of the future.