One of my friends loathes eating brinjals. So do I. Another of my friends is a voracious eater. Whatever food has been cooked, he goes to the buffet table many a time and finishes his dinner quickly till his stomach is filled up completely, and he can’t swallow another grain of rice or drop of water. In my personal experience, I have found that those who eat selectively are leaner, thinner and disease-prone contrary to those who eat voraciously. It’s not only what you eat that is important, it’s also equally vital with what mindset you take your food.

If you are living in a group and someone else cooks for you, then you are never going to get the food of your choice. You have to eat the coriander pickle that you terribly dislike, the gravy that comes with the brinjals that you don’t even like to taste and the “gundruk” soup made of fermented vegetable greens that you don’t even like to smell. I was the same sort of guy before coming to the college hostel. I terribly disliked eating potatoes, brinjals, coriander leaves and the “gundruk” soup that my mom used to cook at home. At the hostel, the cooks served these items most of the time for lunch and dinner. During the early days, I didn’t take the food disliking all these items.

But soon I started realising that it wasn’t going to work. One day, I decided to eat everything voraciously as if they tasted good. Taste is a sort of preference. If you start thinking that something is really delicious, it actually becomes so. During the three years of my stay at the college hostel, I learnt this peculiar art of eating despite still disliking brinjals. This has definitely benefited me to some extent. I have gained some kilos of weight. More importantly, I feel satisfied with the diet, and the contentment has definitely brought the best out of me in my work. Unless you respect your food, you can never get benefits from it. If you start showing some respect for the food, it starts becoming delicious for the tongue as well.

When you are a cook, you can prepare the food of your choice. But when someone else cooks for you in a group, you definitely have to compromise your preferences. You have to eat as if the food tastes good and you really love it. You can’t change what has been cooked or what is going to be cooked. You have to change your preference. You have to eat by making a compromise. Of course, there is no other option left for you— either you eat or you don’t.