My granny's nightmare

I’m not sure what’s happening to our generation, but one thing’s for sure, we’ve started eating a whole lot lesser. Everyone’s dieting or has become suddenly allergic to certain foods. Thin people are getting thinner just like Diet Coke became Zero calorie Coke. Low fat is shunned and fridges are being stocked with fat-free products. I never thought in my wildest dreams that low-fat spinach could even be marketed to people. Eggs to me are little cartons that can be opened with scissors. I need to relearn how to crack-open a shell. My poor deprived kids will never be able to make egg art (painting egg shells & dangling them on potted plants) while stinking up the whole house. How do I tell them that hen don’t lay cardboard?

When I call friends home for dinner, I feel like I’m cooking for a famine. Ms.Atkins makes sure that the rice from the neighbors plate doesn’t fall even on her skirt.

‘Do you have any protein?’

‘Here, take some beans’, I offer.

She rummages through the dustbin and pulls out the beans can, reads nutritional content and gasps audibly making sure other guests think I’ve mixed poison.

‘It has beans!’

Question marks replace black heads on my face.

'20 grams of Carbs, my dear! Just won’t do for me! I should have brought my protein shake.’

Then there is Ms. No-oil-in-any-form. ‘Oh, no oil for me in this dosa please.’

‘You might as well eat that newspaper you are reading. It will be as dry as that.’ I offer helpfully. The fact that the quality of my food will go down trying to cater to everyone’s whims and fancies is giving me the jitters. I sneak in some oil.

Trying to act nice, she doesn’t yell and scream. She takes and tissue and wraps the dosa and eats the tissue instead as they both look alike.

How can I forget Ms.Weight Watchers who carries the calorie to point converter software wherever she goes. ‘Idli is not a recognizable item in this database. I’m safer not eating it. Do you have donuts?’

Ms.Portion Control will actually use the smallest bowl in the kitchen to eat her food in so that she doesn’t over eat. I think the amount of times she walks into the kitchen to get the 7th, 8th and 20th helping is what’s keeping her sorta in the acceptable weight range.

Then there is this fella, the size of a thimble. He’s so thin that if he were the apple, he’d never fall off that tree and Newton would have never discovered gravity. He’s allergic to everything except fenugreek seeds. We went out to IHOP and he began his order.

‘A vegetable omelet please. No tomatoes, no onions, no mushrooms, no cheese please!’

The waiter scribbling frantically on his pad, looks distraught.

‘And I forgot. No eggs too.’ He meant not the real ones at least.

The waiter at this point loses it.

‘Mister, Please tell me you don’t want nothing!’

Thank God for me I have no motivation to lose weight!