Whispers of the Devil

I've often been warned about the cleanliness of streetside food in Jakarta. I have heard many horror stories about people getting food poisoning. But so far I have been lucky.

Being Malaysian, I've always assumed that I are quite immune to dirty food. Furthermore my one year working in the hawker paradise of Penang had exposed my stomach to all kinds of gastronomic abuse. If one could survive Penang, one should be OK in Jakarta.

But some of my Malaysian friends who came over to Jakarta were not so lucky. They, like me, had come thinking that they are invincible--only to be floored by a simple meal of nasi padang. I am still fond of eating at warungs and roadside stalls but I usually go to a couple of "proven" ones.

I always ask my Indonesian Chinese friends why the native people in the streets do not fall ill eating "dirty" street-side food. They say those people are "accustomed" to it already. It is ironic that despite the superior nutrition and medical care that the middleclass gets, they are not as robust the people who live in the slums.

Perhaps that's not a fair statement to make. The slum-dwellers do suffer from a myriad of diseases and probably have more unnecessary deaths due to them. But it perplexes me to think that the more affluent we are, the more "soft" we become.

I subscribe to Deepak Chopra's philosophy for health: Your body knows what's best for you. You just have to listen to it. Being sensitive to the effects of food on your body will help you decide what you should or shouldn't eat. How does the body tell you what's good or bad for you? Through the feeling of comfort and discomfort.

If we overeat, we suffer a great deal of discomfort. We purge because the body tries to expel things that are rejected by the system. We thirst because the body lacks water. The body is self-balancing--if allowed to work properly. The physiological functions of sneezing, coughing, vomitting and even yawning are all means for the body to maintain equilibrium of the system.

The only problem is that we do not listen to our bodies. We tend to listen to our desires and addictions. We crave for certain types of food and as a result over-indulge in them. We are addicted to alcohol. We complain that we feel sleepy because we haven't got our daily shot of caffeine. This is not the voice of the body. It is simple gluttony. Gluttony, as I've mentioned in a previous blog entry, is one of the Seven Deadly Sins and ranks second only to Lust.

As I'm writing these lines, I suddenly feel an urge to have soto sulung for dinner tonight. Now, is this the Voice of the Body or the whispers of the Devil himself? Hmm, let me think...