Menga El Mo er a Uchul a Chural (Do Not Know the Limit) Most people, in this case Palauans, do not know that becoming full (medinges) is not dependent on taste or over size serving of food. In fact, both factors are probably the causes of overeating among Palauans today. Little wonder health surveys show that about 70 percent of Palauans nowadays are obese (lengelakl er sel kirel berredel a chad el oltirakl er a rekil ma klemengetel). This includes our children. Our ancestors would probably ask us kemiu ng diak mo dengei a rengmiu? (Don’t we have any sense of things?). This Palauan proverb demands that we follow the principle of proper portion of serving for each person. Our ancestors were more in tuned with the laws of nature and knew more about health through practical experiences without the modern science that we place so much respect on as our guideline for everything in life today. All indicators provided by science are telling us that we are dying as a nation because of our overeating. But the size of serving of food given at funerals, parties, and even homes is not a bit affected in consideration of an epidemic in unprecedented number of deaths in our known history. In reality, our traditional and cultural customs are mainly sustained today because of funerals being held every week. This is a paradox that defies logic and we cannot break it. Really food has to reach the brain to tell one that enough food is already inside the body and not by looking at food on the plate or how much of it has been eaten. Though taste makes food enjoyable or palatable (ungil a aji er ngii), it does nothing in the body to tell you that you had enough. For food to reach the brain the food matter (rice, brak, fish, pork, corned beef, etc) has to be chewed in the mouth and sent to the stomach to be further digested to extract out juices from the food stuffs. The juice will enter into the small blood veins in the stomach and into the blood stream. But this is a slow process. Meanwhile people stuff their faces with food at much higher speed and frequency (kuk kmal betok el tlouch er a kedeb el taem) as the food in front of them are both delicious and in large amount. So here the brain cannot turn off the I-want-more-food switch while your hand, mouth, and stomach work with a mind of their own separate from your brain which the overall boss of your body. By the time your brain gets to assess the amount of food in your stomach and in your bloodstream, you are already leaning backward on the chair and trying to extend your neck to make room for the food that has packed your stomach all the way to the bottom of your tongue. This is what the above Palauan proverb warns us about. And our ancestors were not schooled in modern sciences. This is not funny when people are dying to replace those who we hold funerals for and bury every week only to repeat the cycle the following week. And it does not help when Palauans educated in modern science like teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, senators, delegates, governors, ministers, businessmen, directors, principals, pastors, priests, and so forth are the role models and guilty of di menga el mer a uchul a chulrir (eat until the bottom of their tongue). It is all in the calorie count. If you don’t how to count calorie, chew every bite 23 times before you swallow. Guaranteed you cannot eat half of your usual portion of food.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 05:22:47 +0000