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WHERE MUST PREVENTIVE HEALTH BEGIN?
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WHERE MUST PREVENTIVE HEALTH BEGIN?

Eating is Fun / Eating is Yuck! - A variety food column, Life & Living, May 09- May 15, 2026 May 8, 2026 , by

Surely in hospital and school canteens and cafeterias! Yet you will find the most junk-filled hospital canteens and cafeterias in Goa!

EVERY now and again I find myself in a hospital for one reason or another, both private and public hospitals. It is always shocking to take in the kind of most useless and dangerous snacks they keep in their canteens or cafeterias. In Panjim hospital cafeterias it’s clear that the most vile junk food is available to patients and their relatives, not to mention hospital staff and doctors (who generally speaking do not eat hospital cafeteria fare with the exception of the odd tea, coffee, nimbu paani and very rarely the veg or non-veg lunch thali, most doctors bring their own food from home if they’re doing long consultancy hours in public and private hospitals or they go home to eat). However, the medical students, residents and interns do go to hospital cafeterias for a quick bite and drink.
 At the very posh centrally-air-conditioned private Manipal Hospital at Dona Paula, I usually fall for the splendid skylight lit atrium cafeteria which has lovely natural sunlight coming in…alas, it is only later I realized the cafeteria is a heat trap because it is not air-conditioned and has only four ancient wall fans swirling only in one direction! Folk keep shifting chairs to benefit the fan breeze and regulars have their own favorite spots. Only the doctor’s cabined section is air-conditioned but it’s usually empty except lunch time.
Indeed, a friend of mind doing one of the package tests at the hospital, snapped, “Arre, don’t be so full of praise, this atrium cafe may be wonderful to you but it also offers free steam and sauna bath in the afternoon, just hang around here for a while or go ask the staff here, they suffer more!”
Well, that’s that. I looked with dismay again at the pile-up of industrialized junk food snacks in the cafeteria cabinets: I mean these terrible puff pastries, sweet cakes, cream rolls, white bread sandwiches, is this food for preventive healthcare of any kind or food if you eat it will bring you back for hospital care again and again ad infinitum? The puff patties or pastries are all packed with oodles of hydrogenated fat stuff, I would imagine they’re on top of the list of food to avoid if you don’t want your arteries and heart turning to concrete). And what to say about the piles of French fries, biscuits, vada-pau, samosa, lots of local refined pau loaves or slices of factory bread. Life in Goa begins with bread and ends with bread and in between is where insulin resistan and diabetes get a head start (in combo with other sins of eating to suffer endless health woes). We have no time to eat right, we’re always on the run chasing stupid dreams in vain!
Marginally better food are our range of south Indian snacks like “idli,” “upma,” “dosa,” “poha” but these get over quickly in the small breakfast window most of the time and after that if you’re late it’s only French fries, omlet-pau, miserable sandwiches, cakes, pastries, and such. Close to lunch time thali meals are served and this may be reasonable or if it’s a health-illiterate caterer, oftentimes the curries and veggies are oily curries.


THE GMC cafeterias are better with the Yoo cafeteria at the new block GMC being the best, it’s air-conditioned, a very pleasant place for a break from life’s routine in a hospital — but here again see the familiar junk food! A GMC staffer tells me, “Madam, you come at 9am you may get ragi idli or uttappam, but only early morning, it gets over fast and they make small quantity only!” And lunch thali meals will arrive only when it very close to lunchtime that is 1pm, here too neither the sabzi or dal is worth praising, nor the smattering of salad cut unimaginatively for senior citizens to eat. Funny or not funny, most salad goes waste and that’s the only thing worth eating if you know anything about eating to live at all! There’s no raita, no curd or buttermilk.
Ask for tea or coffee but at lunchtime you won’t get quick service for there’s no separate counter for beverages hot or cold or fresh or out of a can or tetrapack! Don’t be silly, nobody is going to give you a freshly squeezed water melon juice or orange juice or tender coconut water in a hospital cafeteria – but the Bailey’s bottled water (Rs20 per big bottle) I’ve become fond of reluctantly, when you can’t find anything worth eating just drink a glass of water. But not so much before or after meals or it will slow down your digestion! Fundamental facts of body beautiful. You learn it in a good school. The process of digestion begins with chewing your food in the mouth, carbohydrates first, then in tummy the hydrochloric acid released when hunger pangs hit you deal with the proteins…go read up a bit, okay.
Okay, no more of this. But what I’d like to stress anew here is that with all the public funds spent on promoting “poshtik” or nutritious freshly cooked food — as reported endlessly and ad nauseum in government data….the ground reality of even hospital cafeterias (and even school canteens) is very bitter. There’s not an ounce of consciousness or conscience about what defines preventive healthcare.
Most everywhere the bad has driven out the good. Ruling the roost are vile confectionary, fryums, refined breads, industrial junk food, of course all the bottled colored soft aerated drinks of kingdom come – what business do have to be here where our patients and patients’ relatives catch something to eat and drink? At least they should not be here in enlightened hospitals and schools!
Also, sadly, few seems to be conscious of the fact that the more sugary beverages we drink, the thirstier we will get for that’s how it works. Cold sugary canned and tetrapacked beverages promote thirst, they do not quench thirst…even coconut water is now available only in plastic bottles and packs, cheaper than real fresh coconut water served on the spot by a roadside vendor (Rs60 per tender coconut water with additional “malai” but worth every bit of it).
Freshly cut fruit is always hard to find for love or for money! Just go out to southeast Asian destinations like Vietnam, Singapore or Malaysia, and you will see how well, how hygienically, they serve precisely cut fruit of pineapple, pears, apples, water melons, papaya, etc, laid out on ice blocks covered with clean linen cloth, in see-through cabinets…the FDA is very strict out in these also tropical climates.
HAVE I said all this before right here in this some 35 years old column? Of course, I just want to say it anew in case someone up there agrees with me and wants to do something about it! Every now and again the Health Department of Goa can surely review food and beverages stocked in hospital cafeterias (and schools)? It is really hard to understand why one cannot get ragi idli or uttappa or poha or upma or millet kichadi or pulao as well as jowari/nachne chappati at least in hospital cafeterias? Or bananas, oranges, apples, tender coconut water, or cut fruit and the fresh juices of water melon or oranges? Fresh sugarcane juice spiked with ginger and lemon in the current hot summer weather? Blah, blah, blah…all this. Go hospital, die as soon as your pickled vital organs give up the fight to rescue you one more time!

ONE day for lunch I made this most sumptuous aamras at home, mankurad offers up thick mango puree and as is the tradition I garnished it with pinch dry ginger powder (soont) and black salt (sanchar)… yummilicious, but the fryum puri I picked up from a place down town were terrible; it’s difficult to find soft whole wheat puri, most are badly fried over high heat and become stiff as they cool; later they are pretty leathery. And to think once upon a time I used to make the best puri at home, including masala puri!
It’s just not cost effective to cook at home for one or two people….and the rest of it. We grow old and older and I want to eat less and fewer fryums like puri. The thin Guju “rotli” is preferable. Maybe one of these days I will return to doing them with another round of aam-ras eating before the mango season is over.
And every mango season I love to share my favorite green mango relish:
TAKE a green mango and an onion. Skin and grate them fine, add in grated jaggery, some sea salt, some toasted cumin (jeera) powder, paprika or Kashmiri red chili powder if you wish…stir up and serve with roti. Sublime fresh mango “chundo” or relish. Enjoy.


It’s so much easier to gulp down a chilled Coco-Cola or Fanta and then feel thirsty some more and down another one of something similar…go check your blood sugar, my dears. Sigh. One of these days switch to filtered water stored in a Goan terracotta cock-a-doodle-do “gurgetta” or a black mitti water pot….although these days I’m thinking as usual, that there’s nothing so delicious as water straight from the earth in the mountains of the Himalaya, say in a heaven like Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh, or the Chashmashahi garden springs in Srinagar in Kashmir valley. Drink water out here and you will feel like you want to live on water alone for days on end!
HOW far have we come in making earth connects? In the countries of the west they are doing it albeit it’s not yet in mainstream society, only in the wealthier classes who are dedicated to the good life of longevity forever, etc. Since this week is dedicated to hospital cafeteria junk food (not dedicated to any kind of preventive healthcare), on my mind is that Goa is a mango state and everyone looks for the natural sweetness of mangoes to survive a hot summer. This week I’ve been looking at mangoes ripe anew, the price of the most desired mankurad (Goa’s state mango maybe) is down to Rs150 and Rs300 dozen depending on size – but one can’t find aam ras for money or love in any of the cafes and restaurants in smart city Panjim. Why not? No aamras-puri? No! “Drink mango milk shake or mango juice if you want, madam!” It’s Rs150 per narrow slender artistic glass, if it’s a nice glass I want to take it away of course! I suffer from glass sickness or craze or mania and there are reasons for this.

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