The Way of The Tortoise

(India ink illustration Anu Jayanth)

We are bombarded with health and beauty fixes every day on top news sites. There’s organic food awareness and a lean towards pesticide-free products. People are freely sharing super-food recipes on the internet. Every kind of spice from every part of the world line the shelves of most grocers. And vitamins and supplements fill several aisles. Sugar has been openly declared a poison. Whoever I talk to is working towards a healthy lifestyle. Oil pulling does not require an explanation anymore. That a healthy mouth equals a healthy mind, and the body is fast catching up.

And I was thinking…the tortoise lives for over 200 years. Could humans live as long? Compare the diet of the tortoise to the diet of the human. Of course, it helps to have a sturdy shell to protect ourselves. It’s OK to be a slow learner and a slow breather. Slow thinking has its advantages, too.

Like the tortoise’s diet, our diet at home was vegetables, some grains, and legumes. Colon cancer, or any cancer for that matter, was never heard of in our vegetarian community growing up in India. In fact, the diet for starving off cancer (compiled by William Li) was pretty much our everyday diet at my home in India.

Just saying…