As a child, I decided not to eat grass

Few people know that as a boy I used to be bullied in school Not much but enough to scar me The bully was appropriately called Bull Anand He used to take particular pleasure in introducing me in gatherings saying ldquoThis is Gopinath Hersquos vegetarianrdquoEveryone would laugh hysterically at seeing a real twitching trembling vegetarianDecades have passed and although I am now open to eating all kinds of meat the truth is that in the privacy of my apartment when I am cooking for myself what warms my soul the most is vegetarian foodAt dinner outings when I decline the rogan josh someone will inevitably turn to me and say always with civility ldquoOh I didnrsquot realise you were vegetarianrdquo As though I had inadvertently outed myself or revealed that I had lupus vulgarisldquoYou do know that plants simply do not have all the proteins your body needs donrsquot yourdquo someone wellmeaning would say later oneonone ldquoYour body needs animal proteinsrdquoIrsquove not usually had a clever answer to this not knowing enough about nutritional science but also being genetically a bit flatfooted with my repartees These days though I have a great comeback and it goes like thismdash ldquoOh really Let me ask youmdashcan you name the five strongest most awesome animals on earthrdquoThatrsquos easy theyrsquod say Elephant horse rhino gorilla and buffalo Maybe hippo if you want sixldquoRightrdquo Irsquod close in for the kill ldquoAnd what do they eat for animal proteins sirrdquoStrange but true The largest strongest animals we know are vegetarians Somdashquestion of the daymdashwhy canrsquot we eat like themIrsquom not a dietician but my arithmetic is sound When I add 2 and 2 I get 22 every time Here are the factsmdashFor most of a century the West has misled the world about what to eat how to eat it and why Claiming to be ldquoevidencebasedrdquo and scientific their dietary guidelines were heavily influenced by politics economics corporate lobbies and in some cases just poor scienceFor instance in the 1950s following the highly biassed work of a pushy scientist called Ancel Keys cholesterol was labelled the cause of heart disease Two years later saturated fats became villains too because they apparently raised cholesterolThe US Department of Agriculture introduced the Food Triangle with its four ldquoessentialrdquo food groupsmdashproteins carbohydrates fats and sugarsmdashand told the world how much to eat of eachThe original Food Pyramid created by nutrition professor Dr Louise Light was reasonable and healthoriented recommending sugar below 10 per cent of daily calories limited refined carbohydrates no more than 23 servings of grains a day five to nine servings of fruits and veggies and quality proteins like eggs and nuts Good fat sources like olive oil and flax seed were also encouragedAmerican grain farmers and meat producers didnrsquot like this Their pressure led to a revised Food Pyramid that encouraged people to eat more grains carbohydrates and meatsmdashso that the farmers and corporations would sell what they madeThe new Food Pyramid has been taken as gospel worldwide for decades Over the next half century the USA became an obese nation with diabetes and heart disease surging But America ruled and the world followed suit Countries that had once followed sensible traditional diets and practices based on locally grown produce cultures and conditions now suffer from the same lsquowesternrsquo diseasesRecently America quietly dropped cholesterol as a ldquosubstance of concernrdquo but the world is still paying the price for decades of blind adherenceFYI the new thing is intermittent fasting and boundless energy from ketogenic dietsYoursquore still wondering about gorillas and grass The truth is that a herbivore does not get its nutrients from the plants it eats Grass and hay really donrsquot contain much nutrition their nutrients are locked away in a hardtodigest long and winding molecule called celluloseThe truth Herbivores actually eat plants to feed the trillions of bacteria in their gut Those bacteria grow juicy and fat eating the cellulose in the plants The herbivore then eats those bacteria now bursting with proteins and grows giant and powerfulThis is why I swear by the food I learned to love as a boy It was vegetarian had centuries of Palakkad wisdom behind it was cooked with love and kept me as fit as say Bull Anand the school bullyAs for you the chef recommendsmdash Never listen to dietary recommendations especially those coming from the West Since when do you need a foreign consultant to tell you what to have for lunchDonrsquot believe anyone who goes on about animal proteins Your stomach doesnrsquot get proteins from your food it gets amino acids the building blocks from which all proteins are made Once it has those it can assemble any protein it needsPractice looking down on nonvegetarians when introducing them Like ldquoThis is Deepak Ermmm he eats meatrdquoHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper