Dependence on Technology for ones food

Our dependence on Technology is increasing to stay in touch with each other through internet and mobile phones. We have made tremendous technological progress in medicine, agriculture, telecommunications, and so on.

Is technological progress taking us in the right direction especially when we examine the food that we eat. The food that we eat is increasingly grown with pesticides and fertilizers, it is processed, and cooked by using improper methods. Recently, when we were discussing such issues some people in the group raised the question – “How can we go backwards in time and live without technology and modern agricultural methods.”

One also hears that one can have pleasure now and worry about pain later. Children say that we are having pleasure of eating junk food and we will worry about pain later when it happens. When one is with friends and cautious about ones eating habits, one is often advised “nothing will happen” or “eat whatever is given choicelessly.” Even friends who are doctors by profession are strangely fatalistic when it comes to making choices of food and are generally clueless when it comes to knowledge and care for nutrition.

The human mind has the tendency to go backward and forward in time. There is no such thing as forward and backwards in time. We have to look at time as cyclical or “wheel of time.” What is backwards become forward and so on. We see that many events of life have a way of repeating. What was true in the past is still true today and will continue to remain true now and in the future. In other words food that was grown organically in the past and the food that is grown organically today are more nutritious and are sustainable.

Can one look at something for what it is rather that what has been or what should be. Can one look at the relationship to food for its own sake. To love and enjoy food as it brings happiness. Celebrate life without worrying about going forward or backward.

Neetu