MEDIUM RARE

Going by government data – in this case Philippine Statistics Authority – a three-meal consumption of ₱64 per person per day “does not classify” that person as “food-poor.”

By the skin of their teeth, PDL’s, persons deprived of liberty, are way above the threshold: they’re entitled to a food allowance of ₱70 a day. In that sense, they’re luckier than the millions of families who do not have enough to eat and share. (I’m thinking of Mary Anne, mother of 14 children ages one to 23, living in Baseco compound, Tondo, and wondering how she does it. Her husband is a mechanic, not regularly employed.)

Whoever was it who invented/instituted/introduced the concept of three meals per day per person? For as long as the practice has been going on, de rigueur, in the civilized world, we have not stopped to burp and question the wisdom of that formula, when it is obvious that millions of people can do without a standard breakfast-lunch-dinner routine. What’s one meal less during one’s waking hours?

For millions of ordinary people, skipping breakfast now and then, or every day, is a given, not a crime, if they’re okay with coffee or juice, or they’d rather spend 10 minutes more in bed or the shower. City traffic being what it is, compounded by the agony of the commute, it’s a wonder that more working stiffs haven’t given up on breakfast altogether.

When I was a kid, my mother was in the habit of reminding me that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” but she let me get away without cow’s milk when I insisted on orange juice instead. Then as now, vitamin C is the miracle vitamin.

If it’s true that the Mediterranean and Okinawa diets keep their people healthy long into their 90’s and beyond, the secret is likely that they eat little or no meat, they don’t mind walking short distances or drinking some wine with the evening meal. Unhappily, Filipino food is neither Medi nor Oki, it’s fatty – adobo, lechon, bbq – but, begging your pardon, as an island people we love fish, shrimp, crab, maybe not enough veggies. As for fruits, those sweet, golden mangoes cost ₱50 each!,  ₱20 shy of a PDL’s three full meals for the day.