Covid-19 maybe the worst thing we have to deal with right now, but have you seen the diet that Dr Paul Kasenene, the famous nutritionist on Twitter, is recommending? It will have you second guess why you chose to follow his account.
I keep thinking to myself, ‘We’re in the middle of a pandemic. The least anyone deserves is a tasty meal for crying out loud’. Is that too much to ask for? I’m broke as hell, thanks to the salary cuts we took due to the pandemic. Plus, the gig streams have run dry. But rest assured, if some ka money happens to my life, I’m going to go savor that platter of pork or have a whole box of pizza to myself.
Yet nutritionists will be raising red flags about how pork is a bad idea. How it is red meat and therefore likely to increase your risk of getting cancer of the colon, cancer of the prostate and cancer of the pancreas.
And pizza? Bad idea too. According to dieticians, if you’re consuming pizza, that’s likely to end in diabetes because there’s too many calories, and refined wheat is discouraged.
Recently, Dr Kasenene made a post discouraging chapati. He used many words but the gist of the tweet was ‘avoid chapati’.
He said chapatti is mostly composed of refined wheat, refined salt and refined oil, all of which are bad for our health. Did I mention he bundled the rolex in this warning too? The audacity!
And just like that, he sparked off a full-blown war in Uganda. At least on Twitter.
It was like he had stuck his bare arm in a beehive. I have not seen Ugandans so united to partake in violence. They all rallied in solidarity with the chapatti family, outright telling the nutritionist ‘tayina kyabagamba’ (he deserves no attention).
I was having the time of my life watching this unfold.
Is there anything left for us to eat? And why is it that everything that has a semblance of tasty or delicious is always off the table? Think of any herb or food that your mom ever told you had medicinal contents. It was either bitter or irritating to the tongue.
Honestly, the veggies, salads and diet juice recipes that Kasenene recommends are nothing close to fun. You are ideally taking the damn thing more as a prescription than a meal to enjoy.
It’s the caution on carbohydrates that freaks me out the most though. Apparently, consuming too much of carbohydrates increases your glucose and the end result could be Diabetes.
The lineup of foods to avoid is interesting. Starches (bread, pasta, rice, bread, cereals), Fruit (and fruit juice!), Dairy (milk and yogurt), Starchy Vegetables (corn, green peas, potatoes), and Sugar (desserts, sugar sweetened drinks like soda, lemonade or sweet tea).
It’s a whole list of what not to not eat.
The general trick to eating healthy is to balance what you’re eating. Right? Which also means that you have to be cautious of not just the calories and nutrients but also the portions of what you’re eating. That’s not all. You have to keep the cholesterol content of what you’re eating in check too.
A whole lot of work! Hello Silicon Valley geeks. Is there an App I can use to sort of calculate food content quantities of whatever it is I want to eat before I can make an order at the restaurant? Or one that can scan what’s on the plate before I know where to put the most attention?
Let’s actualize the ‘We live in times of the internet of things’ rhetoric. I mean, there’s an App with over 90 million downloads, that makes you feel like you’re drinking beer without actually drinking beer. I’m not even kidding.
For many of us, convenience comes at the top in determining what we eat and where we eat. Yet if you’re to follow the diet regimen that Kasenene considers healthy, you will really have to go to the kitchen and make it. I don’t have the time or will to cook and I know I’m not alone.
How many restaurants have vegetable/juice varieties to choose from anyway?. Those that have vegetables on the menu are frying them and defeating the purpose.
Every day is a struggle. A struggle to defeat the temptation of my sweet tooth, and the lies it keeps telling me. Lies like ‘you only live once’ and ‘if you die you die’.
You know what’s not a lie though? The fact that Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to 71% of all deaths globally.
These diseases include cardiovascular diseases (such as heart attacks and stroke), cancers, chronic respiratory diseases (such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma) and diabetes.
And guess what’s among the risk factors. Physical inactivity, unhealthy diet and the harmful use of alcohol.
So, if you’re out there thinking Covid-19 is the worst thing that has happened to you in your millennial life, wait to see the diet you’ll have to restrict yourself to if you want to live longer.
