FOOD AND BEVERAGES CHAINS CREATE EMPLOYMENT

Of late food and beverages have been in news in most parts of the country involving a lot of political and social debate as to what should people eat. Of course, everything actually boils down to one fact that that everything and anything is becoming a lot too politicized and therefore there is this unnecessary debates over it. However, let’s see things from the economic perspective rather than mingling politics and religious over it.

Economically all food and beverages chains create employment on a very large scale. If too much of anything is harmful then it goes without saying that as far as human bodies are concerned anything over the limit is harmful. Food lovers like to taste everything and this is not politics. What they eat is their business so long they aren’t slaughtering people as cannibals do. But there is safety in eating too. One thing is clear that everything done in an unclean way can have devastating affect on the health of the public.

Food chains arise out of the need for bridging the gaps of what people love to eat and what the producers could easily manufacture. A close knit and safe enclosed area of animal and poultry slaughter and also beverages would go a long way in giving healthy food habits to people. This would enable the people to take the best of food and drinks they would like to have. Anything done in unduly reckless manner and unhygienic conditions could result in diseases. Again, enclosed areas would make way for better hygienic conditions of producing food and beverages and of course pave way for systematic registration and taxes.

Already beverages in all states are heavily taxed. They serve the part of the population that like some intoxication as routing part of their life if not daily then at least once a while. Economically, it is the huge supply chain potentials of both the food and beverage side that gives it merit that both generate huge employment. One can never say that by banning the beverages people may be given suitable substituted employment. This is because no other sectors can absorb the thousands of people so easily.

Intoxication is one of the base instincts of human beings. No government would be able to suppress it all that easily. If people do not get healthy intoxication varieties then they usually go for the more harmful kinds brewed or manufactured illicitly. Naturally, this creates more health problems.

The Western countries have been smart enough to keep religion out of brewing facilities and they have now very fine and highly rated beverage manufacturing including wine, beer, alcohol and other such centers that employ thousands of people.

In India too you need the leather industry as well the need to absorb the excess food produced in agriculture. Where can all this go? Rightly, indeed into the beverages and other food processing centers so that the farmers get the right price for their produce. You can never substitute the displaced labor from banned food and beverage factories in other areas that easily.

Vegetarians and Non-vegetarians

Another debate that usually springs out often is the case of food consumption among the so called vegetarians and non-vegetarians.  This may perhaps the reason as to why there is apathy against non-vegetarian food too. Scientifically and biologically speaking there are no complete vegetarians and non-vegetarians on this planet. You are surprised, are you? Well, this is the fact.

It is generally believed that a vegetarian is that person who eats and drinks only from plants for vegetable protein and consumes milk, yoghurt and ghee for animal protein. It is again generally believed that non-vegetarians are those who consume only fish, chicken and animals and very little of vegetables. This is very untrue.

A non-vegetarian too eats vegetables too and if he or she is consuming only fish, poultry and animal food then beware. They would sooner or later have high cholesterol and blood pressures.

Now the case of vegetarians one would find that although they get their protein from both vegetables as well as from milk, ghee or yoghurt they do not get it at the same sufficient way as the so called non-vegetarians. This is because direct meat and fish intake are quite necessary as plants do not contain all the proteins. This is besides the diary products that they take. So what do these people do? They take supplements in the form of several factory manufactured supplements that adorn the shelves of most super markets as well as regular intake of medicines.

Remember, since times immemorial our ancestors have developed a unique and very clever system for such supplementary medicines and these are well depicted in Ayurveda. You may have heard of medicines like pothumdravam (beef), ajamamsarasayanam (goat), karikoranangarasayanam (black monkey) etc.

As for the allopathic drugs it is of course full of fish, eggs and animals and what not. So, a vegetarian and non-vegetarian condition means only on the periphery or for that particular moment of time and nothing else. The vegetarians spent more on supplements these days than many non-vegetarians. All this is done to get all the major proteins and help the human body in manufacturing the 20 amino acids. It is a well known fact that plants do not have all the proteins required by our body system while animal foods like eggs, fish and meat have in good quantities.

And do not forget the occasional unseen worms, micro-organisms, the water worms and several others animals that we consume from vegetables. Even the wild vegetarian elephant that is seen dusting the large part of tree leaves only tries to throw away the dust only and not the unsuspecting grasshoppers, smaller worms, centipedes and other animals clinging on to it.

So if you look at a human being from the non-vegetarian or vegetarian point of view then you are actually viewing a ratio of say 30:70 or 25:75 or 40:60 or 50:50 and so on. But definitely not 0:100

TROPICAL RAIN FOREST AND DESERT

A few weeks back I read in the newspapers that Sahara Desert was once covered with thick forest. It doesn’t come as a surprise as tropical rain forest when allowed to disappear may resemble very much like that of a desert with arid conditions and all. It shows that there is a close connection between the tropical rain forest and that of a desert although peripherally and in physical appearance both may be of the extreme kinds.

This is mainly due to precipitation that one finds in a tropical rain forest thick with trees each jostling and inching out the other closely where both humidity remains amidst heat and cold. This perhaps makes sense as these trees are continuously getting water from the atmospheric canopy that allows air to circulate and rise up and at the same time allow precipitation so that water vapor is again returned back to the soil. And this cycle goes on and on and on. Of course, this is only as long as there is still that thick coverage of forest.

Unlike in the temperate zones where precipitation is not necessary as the coolness of the climatic conditions is enough to keep plants and trees in growing condition and with the help of little rain this surely helps in the process, the tropical rain forest condition is extremely vulnerable in comparison.

This is because for sustaining during hot weather climate a tropical rain forest must always be undergoing the process of precipitation repeatedly or otherwise it may become a desert sooner or later. It may perhaps be proved in the future that some specific trees that were rampant in the tropical rain forest may have dwindled due to lack of precipitation or are never able to grow alone in isolation. This may also explain the lack of rainfall in these areas have slowed down the whole cycle of heating, evaporation, precipitation and in turn drizzling. Scientists may perhaps be able to provide the answer for this.

It is again something to think about that when an area of tropical rain forest has been cleared and left as it is for sometime then the next round of trees or vegetation do not grow with the same strength or vigor as they had earlier been. Hence, a tropical rain forest is surely more vulnerable to man made disasters than a temperate forest cover.

It may not be something of the mark to say that there is a closer connection between the tropical rain forest and a desert that scientists need to study.