Many procedures and trainings are done by us to clear our mind and promote internal composure. Some speak too high of yoga as the best procedure one could do to achieve this. Others praise meditation. Those who don’t believe in these tender procedures; they go to gym for an hour and work all out there.  Trust me, these are not the only methods we can take up to put us back in better state of mind; when we start to feel as if something mentally malicious has taken a bite out of us. 

Why we all try so hard? Is there a simple approach possibly available? Let’s think! Yoga, meditation and Gym etc became popular only recently. No? We only started to adopt them widely, may be two/three decades ago. What did people use before that to maintain their inner tranquillity? It could be either of the two. They may have lived a simpler life where they didn’t need to be stressed at all OR they knew how to manage their stress better using some other mechanism.  Whatever it was, but it worked better then.

Or shall we think that we didn’t change at all, only the circumstances changed? May be! There was no competition, there was no globalization, there was no shortage, there was no selection, there were less population and there was not much of confusion. Everyone just lived a life; how ideally it should be. What does it mean? Does it mean that we had stronger social law then, which bound us together, ethically and peacefully?

But it is us, who asked for freedom, not the restrictions from social/universal laws. We demanded freedom of speech, freedom of action, freedom of life together, freedom of separation, freedom to live wherever we want and freedom to do whatever we like. Sometimes too much of freedom is not good for anyone because it confuses us. But we don’t care about confusion because we chose comfort to the confusion. And now we search desperately a way out of the confusion by doing yoga/meditation or going to gym.

Is it possible to give up freedom or it will be better to stay with the confusion? Is it possible to give up options or it will be better to live with confusion? Choice is all our, OUR OWN INDIVISUAL CHOICES!

We crave for little success in everything, until we have them in our kitty. And when we do; we start to become greedy and OVER-DO them! That’s something where our excess freedom and derived confusions are in use!!!

In the past; we lived a simple life; how? We lived on a balanced diet, earned as per our need; consumed only what our body required/could digest. There was no need of any indulgence or dealing with the aftermaths from the indulgence. We believed in only measured and restricted choices; informed freedom and hence a low/zero level confusion.

Let’s look at these statistics below! And we say; we didn’t have a choice? And now Yoga/Gym/Meditations are the only ways available; for us to escape from our self-created inconvenience? We meat/alcohol consumption has doubled. We eat less of those things, which are good for us and more of those, which are not good for us. How how? And we think our Yoga/Gym/Meditations are going to help us stitching those damages we have already done/still doing!!!

(a) Vegetables, roots, tubers, pulses and fruit

While production of fruits and vegetables has been increasing over recent years, inadequate consumption remains a problem worldwide. Fruits and vegetables need to be more accessible and affordable for poor households as well as ensuring access to markets by smaller producers.

(b) Energy providers: vegetable oils, animal fats and sugar

The consumption of vegetable oils has significantly increased in all regions of the world (threefold in developing countries and twofold in industrial countries). These increases in developing countries are most marked in China, Brazil and India. It is envisaged that they are likely to increase still further among developing countries in the coming decades.

(c) Fish

The main changes in consumption patterns may be seen for seafood and freshwater fishes, both of which have increased appreciably since the early 1960s.

 (d) Eggs, milk and other dairy products

While milk intake has risen in a number of developing countries, especially in Asia, in the USA, it has declined sharply over the past several decades, and this has been mirrored by a rise in the consumption of carbonated beverages and juices. The future patterns of consumption to 2050 for these livestock products suggest that the consumption of eggs will continue to rise and the consumption of milk will continue to fall (at least in developed countries).

(e) Meat

There has been a considerable increase (62%) in the available food consumption of meat worldwide, with the biggest increases in the developing countries (a threefold increase since 1963)—a considerable amount of this rise reflects the increases in Asia generally and China specifically.

(f) Rice & Wheat

Globally, rice consumption (grams per capita per day) has seen negligible increases. This is due in large part to the declines in rice consumption in those countries that have predominantly rice-based diets (e.g. China and other East Asian countries). In contrast to this rather static situation for rice, global wheat consumption has increased at a faster rate than all other cereals.

(f) Population growth

Global human population growth is around 80 million annually, or 1.2% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7 billion in 2012. It is expected to keep growing to reach 11 billion by the end of the century. Most of the growth occurs in the nations with the most poverty, showing the direct link between high population growth and low standards of living. The nations with high standards of living generally have low or zero rates of population growth.  We at India in 1947 had a population of approximately 300 millions and today in 2014; we are happily touching 1.3 billions approximately.

Last but not least; Alcohol consumption has doubled since the 1960s!!!

Ageing, globalization and urbanization all represent new challenges to the achievement of a good serenity status of us individuals. The observed changes in dietary patterns brought about as a consequence of the rate and level of urbanization have significant effects on global food supply, markets and trade. This is particularly important in terms of the rise in over-nutrition (i.e. diet-related chronic disease) in many developing countries. Are we listening?