Mama said there'd be days like this

We didn't have a refrigerator at home when we were kids.  In the near-equatorial conditions, and in a vegetarian household, that meant buying vegetables practically every other day.  Because potatoes were more tolerant than most other vegetables, they were stored in a dark corner and were often the option if a guest showed up un-announced--after all, those were also the days before emails and telephones.

For whatever reason, I liked involving myself in the kitchen affairs.  Not that I cooked back then.  But, I think I had far more interest than the typical boy did in how the food preparation happened. Perhaps my mother has forgotten me asking her questions like why we needed half-a-kilo of the vegetable and not more.  I, like my grandmother, was always impressed with how my mother seemed to cook the exact quantity for a meal; rare was a day when we ended up with more food.

In that kind of an old lifestyle, only the needed fruits and vegetables and milk were purchased, and they were all consumed.  Food was never wasted.

I wonder if my interested involvement with those household affairs is also why I continue with some of those old practices.  Even in my life on the other side of the planet from the old country, I seem to do grocery shopping every other day.  Sometimes the purchases do not even add up to a double-digit expense.  I could, of course, shop once in four or five days.  But, buying huge quantities seem bizarre.  Buying only what I know I will realistically consume over two days seems more prudent.  And I find that I, too, rarely have any food to waste.  Further, I shop at a relatively small-sized grocery store--which is also why I have all those "checkout relationships" with the people who work there.

Thus, naturally, I was drawn to this report:

Two studies published this year suggest a link between how often people go shopping and the healthiness of the food they buy.

If my life experience means anything in this context, it appears that buying small quantities might be the healthy approach.  Guess what?  According to the studies:

There are many potential ways in which big supermarkets might be bad for our health. Here are a few:
• When we shop less often, we may be less likely to buy fresh food because it spoils quicker.
• We tend to buy more in bulk, bringing home more food than we need.
• Our cupboards and pantries become full of food, encouraging us to eat when we are not hungry.
• We use cars to get to large shops and to transport the food back, meaning less physical activity than if we had walked, cycled or used public transport.
• We’re overwhelmed by choice in large stores, potentially making us more susceptible to marketing tactics and displays that encourage impulse purchasing decisions.

If you re-read those bullet-points, you will agree with me that it is all common sense.  People buy a dozen apples because it is cheaper by the dozen, but then end up dumping three or four apples into the trash.  Having all kinds of foods at our disposal is nothing but a way for the devil to tempt us into eating the wrong things at the wrong time.  My grandmothers could have easily provided that advice for free! ;)

If we were smart about that, then we can easily avoid the food waste too. How much do we waste here in the US?  It is about one-third of the food supply.

Back in the old country, for more than three decades now, mother has had a refrigerator at home.  But, she still buys vegetables every other day.  And there is no food waste either.  One of those instances when being a mama's boy is a good thing, eh! ;)

The fridge is one cool invention ... and more people want it

I grew up in an India that is vastly different from what the country means to its current middle class.

Back then, in the upper-middle-class home and context in which I lived and thought and did stupid things, we lacked a great number of material comforts.  In the hot, hot Neyveli, we did not have air conditioning, which is not that difficult to imagine.  But, we did not even own a refrigerator.  No fridge at home meant that even a cold drink was, thus, a special treat.  A treat that my parents rarely ever made possible despite our pleas when we went to the only market in town--the Main Bazaar.

All because we simply could not afford those luxuries.  And to think that it was the case not even forty years ago; the changes have been rapid!

As a kid, I noticed that some of my classmates had refrigerators in their homes and wondered why we did not have one at ours.  Those days, the difference in professional titles did not translate to wide differences in the earnings, which meant that there was more than mere affordability at play.  Yes, as a kid I thought a lot about these issues, too, when I was not thinking about that girl!

You think you can identify me here?  I didn't think so! ;)

Whenever we visited with my mother's aunt in Madras, I loved the cold, cold, yogurt they brought out of the fridge.  Even now I narrate to them that experience--every single time I meet them, even if they are tired of hearing that!  But, hey, I tend to repeat things.  But, hey, I tend to repeat things.

Now rare is a middle-class home in India without a fridge.  It is a prosperous country for quite a few hundreds of million Indians.  The problem is the lack of electricity, but that is a different blog-post for another day.

A fridge is more than a device to cool food and drinks.  While a typical male might think of a fridge as nothing more than a beer-chiller,

Fridges are transforming women’s lives in India and other emerging markets, just as they did in developed countries decades ago. They are next on families’ wishlists after mobile phones and televisions, usually becoming affordable when household incomes pass around $3,000 a year. Take-up is swifter in places that are urbanising fast. According to Euromonitor, a research firm, ownership in China has leapt from 24% in 1994 to 88% today, whereas in Peru, which has similar GDP per head but is more rural, it is still only 45%. In India 27% of households own a fridge, a share that Tassos Stassopoulos of AllianceBernstein, a fund manager, thinks could double in less than a decade.

I often remark in classes that economic development is really a story about women.  We often fail to even spot the phenomenal transformations in women's lives as societies transition from the old ways.  Women in developing countries, especially the married ones with kids, know all too well how much their lives will be even more complicated with backbreaking chores if they did not have fridges at home. The ones that do not have fridges know how much those gadgets can make lives easier.

If you want more proof, then ask middle class women in developing countries whether they will be willing to give up the fridge or the washing machine--or, worse, both.  Be ready to be kicked in the groin for even asking them that! ;)