Eating for the right reasons

It’s no secret that Filipinos love food! My foreign friends have always told me that our passion for eating is impossible to miss. It has become commonplace for Filipino households to serve their guests a “mini-fiesta” whether they are hungry or not. Even in households with limited income, Filipinos still make it a point to serve their guests something. On a larger scale, I’ve lost count of the many fiestas in the country that involve food. Actually, even if the fiesta isn’t celebrating food, there’s always a feast waiting for the party people. Actually, I think that our love for food is a great characteristic. Eating is such a great way of getting people together and it has really become part of our identity as Filipinos.

As for myself, even I have to admit that I am a complete foodie! If you follow any of my social media accounts or blogs, most of my posts revolve around the restaurants I dine in or the great food finds that I come across. It’s come to the point where I review or feature the places I eat in just for the heck of it. If I like the food in a particular place, I always feel the need to share that experience with everyone else.

When I think about it, it’s a great thing that food is a big part of the Filipino lifestyle but at the same time, it doesn’t give us the license to have unhealthy eating habits. Unfortunately, all our love for eating has not translated into knowing how to eat right. We have many bad eating habits, which most of us are too stubborn to correct. First off, I’d like to mention some of the more popular Filipino eating habits that, I feel, need to be addressed:

We consume too much rice. Yes, I said it! Those small, white, fluffy grains of rice that have to follow every spoon of meat have finally showed their true colors. Too much of it is bad for us because it throws our dietary balance right out the window! Admit it, we are notorious for eating mountains of rice each meal and just one serving of meat or fish and vegetables. Personally, I even remember having mini-contests with my cousins and friends where we would find out who can eat the most cups of rice in a buffet! Well sadly, that has to stop because a balanced diet is more important than stuffing ourselves with carbs.

We eat too much unhealthy food. This is a bit vague but allow me to clarify. Think about squidballs, fishballs, betamax and isaw. These are streetfood favorites that every Filipino finds joy in devouring. We love it so much that someone even turned it into a mobile videogame titled Streetfood Tycoon! Moving back to topic, think about sisig, bopis, crispy pata and kare-kare. Those are main courses, which are present in almost every Filipino gathering. To make a long story short, any nutritionist will tell you to eat those kinds of food in moderation. In reality, we probably eat those kinds of food several times in a week! In doing so, we are basically fast-tracking our way to disease because most of those dishes offer little nutritional value and can cause various health complications in the long run.

We are not adventurous eaters. You read that correctly — Filipinos are not adventurous when it comes to trying different kinds of food. Our local delicacies may be adventurous to foreigners, but most Filipinos don’t like moving out of their own comfort zone to try different kinds of food either. If you lay out a buffet in the province with different kinds of cuisines, I’m fairly certain that the Filipino dishes will be the first to go. The problem with that is we are limiting our diet. If our everyday meals only cater around adobo, mechado and afritada, then there isn’t enough variety in our diet. One important aspect of being healthy is having a balanced diet and we can only have that if we eat various kinds of food.

It may be difficult to swallow, but these Filipino eating habits are present and need to be addressed. Fortunately, there are also many avenues to look for help. The Internet is a great resource for educating yourself. It can be confusing but if you know where to look, you will definitely learn a thing or two. I was even part of launching a great tool catered to Filipinos which is the CentrumNutriCoach. It’s an online tool that let’s you know how healthy your diet is.

Another way to learn more about healthy-eating habits is to join a community that practices being healthy. Today, running groups have become a regular thing. Joining these communities means everyone can share their knowledge about being healthy while exercising. Plus, everyone becomes an influence to one another and it is easier to keep everybody else in check because it is being done as a group.

All in all, I guess there have been strides to make the Filipino lifestyle healthier but I think there is still so much more that can be done. Especially in the rural areas and provinces, it is important for Filipinos to stay healthy. Hopefully, in the near future, there will be more programs and communities that can jumpstart that process of leading Filipinos to live a healthier lifestyle. When that happens, you can be sure that I will be there supporting the programs every step of the way.

(You can try out the CentrumNutriCoach at www.centrum.com.ph. You can visit my blog at www.mikaeldaez.com. Or, you can talk to me on Twitter @mikaeldaez or Facebook.com/mrmikaeldaez.)