Do you have a friend you’ve never met and will likely never
meet, a friend who doesn’t know you exist? Well, I do: her name is Gina Kolata,
she lives in New York and… but wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me
backtrack, and tell you first about the perfidy of another friend, Rahul, who I
have known since boyhood.
A few days ago, my wife and I met Rahul and his wife for
dinner. After we exchanged the usual how-are-you, is-the-back-better and
has-it-been-raining-or-what, I got down to business.
“Just because he is a waiter, we shouldn’t keep him
waiting,” I said and addressed the good gentleman myself. “For starters, how
about a plate of samosas, some paneer tikka masala and papadi chaat?”
“Hello!” said Rahul, “That’s way too much food for the four
of us…” – actually I had only ordered for myself – “and on top of that, it’s loaded
with calories. Here, let me take over.”
He beckoned the waiter over to his side of the table,
instructed him to get a large plate of green salad and while I was still recovering
from the shock, dismissed him (“That’ll be all - we’ll give you the mains’
order soon.”) He then turned to me and began a lecture on over-eating, calorie
consumption and the evils of fried food.
“I’ve been researching health,” he said. “You should go to
this site, www.mayoclinic.org. At your
age, Paddy, you should be…”
“I’m the same age as you,” I reminded him. “We went to school
together.”
“Ok, ok,” he said, sounding annoyed, “if you want to get
pedantic about it. At our age, we need to be careful about how much and what we
eat. Look at your stomach.”
I had no desire to do this; so I adroitly changed the topic.
“Talking about stomachs,” I said, “I just couldn’t stomach Priyanka Chopra’s
acting in ‘Barfi’; what about you?”
It was a clever gambit because I had already met two people
who were very impressed with Chopra’s melodramatic portrayal of an autistic
patient. I was sure Rahul would jump at the bait and we would be off the
painful topic of calories, but my wife refused to take the diversion. Fascinated
by his oration on food, she asked Rahul to continue talking about what her
husband should avoid eating.
The list was long. In fact it looked like I should avoid
eating 90% of what I was currently consuming and reduce the quantity of the
other 10% by approximately 50%. Not only did my wife listen with avid
attention, she even took out a pen and notebook and made notes. Now I have the
ability to calmly allow well-meaning advice to slide past me leaving no scar, but
unfortunately my wife is impressionable. She easily gets carried away by any
nonsense she hears.
“We’re revisiting your diet,” she said to me on the way back
home, just as I was preparing to suggest that we stop somewhere for ice cream,
the dinner having left me wanting. I wondered how I could veer her back to the
path of sense in regards to my diet.
I got the opportunity a few days later (while I was at my
office eating what my wife had packed for my lunch: leafy greens and boiled
vegetables), thanks to Gina Kolata, the dear friend I have never met, writing
for the New York Times.
“For 25 years,” she wrote, “the rhesus monkeys were kept
semi-starved, lean and hungry… The hope was that if the monkeys lived longer,
healthier lives by eating a lot less, then maybe people, their evolutionary
cousins, would, too. Some scientists, anticipating such benefits, began
severely restricting their own diets. The results of this major, long-awaited
study, which began in 1987, are finally in. But it did not bring the
vindication calorie restriction enthusiasts had anticipated. It turns out the
skinny monkeys did not live any longer than those kept at more normal
weights…The causes of death – cancer, heart disease – were the same in both the
underfed and the normally fed monkeys.”
I threw the newspaper with the article at my wife’s face
that night.
“I refuse to be a poorly fed monkey who enjoys no health
benefits compared to his well-fed brothers,” I said. While she read in silence,
I made myself a cheese sandwich in a telling manner.
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