In highland Cordillera and lowland Ilocandia, we can’t fault the population’s gastronomic delight and drink when stomach grumble for food and mouths scream for drink to quench thirst.
Ta kuna da ngarud, (Many say), we eat, drink to live, not live to eat and drink. Talk of food. The fuel keeping our body and soul, as we scratch and pat our stomach in satisfaction after partaking of it.
After all, appetite for food is a natural, compelling and constant stimulator of our gastric glands, none exempted from this natural urge to eat and drink. French say, “Bon Appetit,” (Enjoy your meal). Americans quip, “Eat up.”
Re-interpret Bon Appetit. It simply means, ask not what you can do for Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) or Region 1. Instead ask what’s for breakfast, lunch or dinner, “Anya ti sida tayo?” (What’s our viand?)
You may as well wish for a shooting star wondering how anyone can ever think well, work well, sleep well or function very well if that someone hasn’t eaten well.
In comparative manner, we completely agree, further adding, “Anyone cannot curse or damn his soul to his heart’s delight if that anybody hasn’t eaten well.”
That when our favorite dishes are served, ay caramba! We throw caution to the winds and gorge ourselves, never minding that some foods, when taken with regularity, can kick our butts with the whiplash of a mule.
“Ehe! Baybayam day ta. Mangan ket din,” we say. (Leave be what be. We eat.)
We won’t stop eating when food served are, say, pinapaitan, dinuguan, kukod ti baboy, bulalo, bagnet, adobo, dog meat, etag, liver, kidney heart, brains, dinakdakan, scallops, mussels, mackerel, and many more.
Compliment these with vegetable like peas, squash, okra, dried red, black or white beans, monggo, lintels, mushrooms, nuts, cauliflower, spinach, and many more. We also love lots of fat, salt and sugar.
Just a minute! We mustn’t forget to always have in handy a cup of wine to soothe parched throats. Aaah! Such food fit for a king’s banquet.
We intone that one of the successes in eating is eating all we like and letting the food to have a hell of a fight in our stomach.
The above-mentioned foods are just some of the foods that wait to ambush us by raising uric acids in our bodies and gift us with gout, arthritis or gouty arthritis. We commonly refer it as “rayuma.”
Such foods bless us with excruciating pain, like a fiery dart going through joints, arteries and veins. The pain gnaws burns, pierces, rips and inflames the heels, toes, feet, ankles, shinbones, arms and shoulders, until it bends fingers and toes.
Rayuma attacks the hinges of our body parts, the wrists, hips, thighs, knees, back and every part, undermining our whole human structure. It usually strikes 48 hours or lesser after eating.
We’ve seen those afflicted with rayuma wanting to pound their big toes with a hammer in the hope of getting rid of the pain.
We curse rayuma with colorful invectives but the pain just laughs and skedaddles somewhere to our other joints. Until the afflicted whimpers in pain, “annay ko, apoh, pirme nga nasakit,” as rayuma clamps its vise-grip on the joints.
When Ah was then Department of Health-Cordillera Administrative Region’s (DOH-CAR) Public Information Officer (PIO), he got constantly flabbergasted by a common question bombarded to him, “What is gout or arthritis?”
Not having reached Grade 1, DOH-CAR went on patiently to teach ignorant Ah for him to explain to the public about gout and arthritis. Arthritis literally means joint inflammation.
Gout, on the other hand, is an affliction characterized by sudden attacks of severe pain, tenderness and redness in joints. Gout is a complex form of arthritis.
Gouty arthritis is extreme and painful attack with rapid onset of joint inflammation. Joint pains are called arthritis. What causes the pain? It’s the uric acid deposited in the joints.
Uric acid builds up as a result of eating foods rich in purine, a colorless crystalline compound that forms uric acid. Purines are found in high concentrations in meat parts.
Can rayuma be avoided? Absolutely. Lessen eating foods that build uric acid.Lessen or refrain from drinking alcohol, DOH-CAR instructed Ah to emphasize this, during his PIO term.
Arthritis is commonly known as afflicting the elderly. That doesn’t mean it’s restricted to this age. Even the young can have arthritis, called juvenile arthritis, or exactly, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA).
Many keep tormenting Ah why he’s never been attacked by rayuma, something he couldn’t answer when in fact he loves pinapaitan, kukod to baboy, dinuguan and the like. However, Ah had developed a penchant of eating kinds of plants and grass, in like manner that four-footed animals eat grass.
These, Ah gathers in the wilds when on Cordillera assignments, like, amti, dandelion, kalunay, pikaw, puriket, haphapon, gagattang, lagiwey, alam-am, tang-tangsoy, gandey, saleng-saleng, pako, dil-dila or dila-dila, masaprola, gubayas, among others. No wonder his kids call Ah, “Grass Eater.”
