The pig and the pauper

Sometimes you meet numbers that stop you in your tracks I met three last weekAbout onefourth of the world is obese or overweightAbout onefifth mdash roughly 105 billion tonnes mdash of edible food is wasted or discarded globally every yearAbout onetenth of the world goes to bed hungry dailySwitching to plain English one person in four eats way more than they need and grows fat For every five such gluttons there are two hungry human beings who will have eaten nothing all day Some of them will pick up shreds of that uneaten food from waste bins while the hog sleeps an uneasy sleep punctuated by belches of acid reflux A significant number of these lsquofoodiesrsquo leave food on the plate to be thrown awaySince India is always the golden exception to every global statement maybe we ought to check about fatness hunger and food waste right here at homeLike the rest of the world about onefourth of Indian men and women are obese overweight or bothIn 2024 India scored 273 on the Global Hunger Index and ranked 105th out of 127 countries with a lsquoseriousrsquo level of hunger Our children are the hardest hit We top the world in stunted children one in three kids has low height for weight and children who are wasting away mdash nearly one in five suffers from low weight for heightLetrsquos talk about Bombai Click the QR code above to join my WhatsApp group to share your Bombai stories for my bookmdashand perhaps answer some of my Bombai questionsWhile gross gluttony and crippling hunger dance together on one side Indian households throw away nearly 69 million tonnes of food every year or about 50 kg per person Restaurants hotels and caterers discard about 119 million tonnesAs a nation we waste around 74 million tonnes of food annually including grain that rots in godownsNumbers are boring I know but by now you should be sitting up with a frown on your face Therersquos a question in here why are we so deeply into excessLet me take you to the next stop in this journey a tandoori restaurant in Bandra where I ate last night There were 28 distinct chicken dishes in the Mains section Here are a few Chicken Reshmi Chicken Afghani Chicken Aftab Chicken Bhuna Chicken Patiala Chicken Angare Chicken Peshawari Chicken Rogani Chicken Rasheeda and Chicken Lajawab There are 18 more I felt a moment of dizziness and then refocused on the listYou might recognise some through past encounters Afghani Reshmi Malai and Korma were probably white based on cashewbased spice mixes Hariyali and Pudina would likely be green though itrsquos anyonersquos guess what a Peshawari Haryanvi Patiala or Nawabi would look likeOur brains are not designed to deal with so many choices I did what any gobsmacked Indian in my position would do I ordered a plain tandoori chicken It came and it was perfectI emerged with a question Why do we crave too much of everything we put into our mouthsThe average Indian restaurant menu is a gallery of excess serving a customer who wants to drown in choices mesmerised by variety more than taste Eventually he will look at the righthand side see the price and his mood will grow sober He will quietly order a few things he has eaten beforeAs in all sectors of life the Pareto principle will finally prevail 80 per cent of the people will order only 20 per cent of the items on the menu The rest is excessOn Bhaudaji Marg in Matunga standing side by side are Cafe Madras with its modest 40orsoitem menu and the newly opened Radha Krishna with close to 200 Like the tandoori grill this one presents staggering lists of everything each paired with every combination of masala cheese ghee podi Szechuan and Manchurian hot sauceThe lunchtime buffet of nearly any hotel or restaurant is a blunt instrument of overwhelming culinary force The customer no matter how respectably dressed is genetically programmed to stuff himself on every item since after all he is paying for it all lsquoAll you can eatrsquo is an invitation to pig out and leave bloated eyes popping out of the skullThe love of overabundance is ancient The Indian thali is not a balanced meal it is a crowd of tastes nothing curated designed to cover every square inch of the thali You are rude if you do not take a second helping of eachThe Japanese figured out the solution as they always do and it was elegant refined and subtle like so many Japanese things eat until you are 80 per cent full It sounds like a perfect formula for life to meLet restaurants make their menus 80 per cent smaller and serve their food on plates 80 per cent smaller Cook less food offer less variety curb your reckless creativity and do not be a slave to quantityAnd you diner fill your plate with less than you can eat and stop when you are less than full You wonrsquot eliminate hunger by eating less but you might dent the embarrassing wastefulness of our dining habitsSo leave nothing behind Go home wishing you had eaten moreYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper