Our adulterated lives

In 2015 there was a lot of hue and cry in India about permissible amount of lead in food. Then it went on to Instant noodle getting off the shelf for months. At home at snack time The Husband was upset and so was I as it would take 2 minutes to sort out a hungry adult.

Why do we have to eat anything that comes out of a tin and has preservatives in them. I looked at my own refrigerator and found bottles ingredients in them starting from top shelf.

1. Cheese: Unavoidable, I do not have the bandwidth to make cheese at home and even if I did my neighbors would chase me till the worlds end.

2. Vanilla essence: Why? And it is clearly written on the bottle that its not vanilla extract, its just a chemical that smells of vanilla. I immediately chucked it out and orders in vanilla pods. Believe me, the scraped content of one pod was packed with the flavor.

3. Ginger Paste: I could not believe what I read. With one spoon of Ginger I was also eating 

Salt, INS 296 and INS 415 and INS 211. And 81% of the content of the pack  was ginger, the rest 19% .... go figure.

4. Ginger paste: Again from one of my favorite company.

5. Tomato Ketchup: I took a picture, there are 260, 1422, 415, 401m Class II preservatives. Ketchup is something that I can live without.

6. Soy Sauce: I cant do without it  for Chinese preps so I dared not look at contents

7. Chilly Sauce: I chucked it away without looking at it twice.

I stopped here. I remembered days during my pregnancy where I would not be allowed a lot of sauces because they had preservatives in them. On the other hand my son is not even 2 is allowed to eat everything that was prohibited when he was a fetus. Isn't this the height of hypocrisy? Just for the sake of inconvenience we allow eat so many chemicals in our every day meal.

My Grandmother never used any of these, my mother never had them in her kitchen, why do I have them in my kitchen? Who taught me to do so? Television or those swanky supermarkets with trendy music playing in the background urging you to spend more for your loyalty points or giving you a "One plus one"offer or " Buy one get one free" or "Combo offers" or " Free shipping" or "Monsoon Offer"? Inside our middle class minds we think of a few Rupees saved here could add in to our children college funds or our next vacation or that new couch.

I did a search on my favourite online grocery shopping portal www.bigbasket.com for Jeera Powder

The cheapest powder comes of Rs 36  for 100 gms and the most expensive one for JRC Rs 104. I understand JRC could be charging you more for the fancy bottle however its still the most expensive.  I can understand organic jeera could be expensive, it could also made me think why cheap is cheap ? Could it have sawdust in them? No matter where the Jeera comes from I know that none of them can match up to freshly ground jeera at home.

So this let me to my new search. What was the cost of whole Jeera.

The whole jeera is almost around the same price of the cheapest powdered jeera. It takes approximately 5 minutes of a 300 watts Mixer grinder to make it into a fine powder. Do you know how much of electricity that would cost you not even a Rupee.

To summarize we buy powdered spice by paying more and also in the bargain  get some free sawdust or god knows what?

So what does that turn us into without much envied education, and degrees and jobs?

I realized all I need is 60 minutes every week to ensure that I don't consume some random number like  INS 296 and INS 415 and INS 211 260, 1422, 415, 401m in my meal every day.  

I make my own ketchup and chilly sauce at home which last upto 4 weeks. It may not taste as good as a Maggi but its close, it tastes of good health.

My kitchen looks simple now. I grind my own spices I make my own pastes.I feel free, my meals are packed with flavors and they taste like the ones my Ma makes. To conclude here is my attempt to humor.