As the nation celebrates Nutrition Month, the Municipality of La Trinidad celebrated the 5th Highland Vegetable Industry Week on July 12-14, 2023. Both celebrations promote an increased consumption of vegetables as part of a healthy diet. It can be said that the government has been consistent in promoting vegetable and fruit consumption over the years. However, many still shun away from such or if they do eat, the amount is much less than the meat, fish or poultry (MPF).
Citing WHO study and UNICEF, the Inquirer News reported that seven in every 10 Filipino kids eat less veggies and fruits and more sugar, salty and fatty products (74% of PH kids eat less veggies, fruits – study | Inquirer News). Comparing costs of vegetables, fruits and MFP, the plant-based foods are still cheaper. Add to that excessive consumption of MFP that can double or triple the cost. While availability, affordability and accessibility of sugar-laden and fatty foods may be factors in eating less veggies and fruits, information and education may have greater impact.
The benefits of vegetables and fruits from childhood to senior years should not be overlooked. In addition to water, vegetables and fruits make us “glow” as they provide much vitamins and minerals. Among the vitamins abundant in these food groups are A (beta-carotene), C, folate, E and K. Minerals like magnesium, calcium, potassium, zinc and iron are also present. As fruits and veggies contain carbohydrates, they also contribute to one’s energy or calorie intake but in lowest amounts compared to other food groups. One serving of vegetables provides 16 kilocalories (kcal) while a fruit serving provides 40 kcal. These are too low compared to a serving of rice or rice alternatives which provide 100 kcal.
In addition, fruits and vegetables contain fiber, a non-nutrient but which helps cleanse the digestive tract thereby contributing to a healthy gut, which in turn is necessary in the digestion and absorption of nutrients. Some vegetables provide other phytochemicals like anthocyanin , lycopene from tomatoes. Harvard SPH sums up other benefits in this statement. A diet rich in vegetables and fruits can lower blood pressure, reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke, prevent some types of cancer, lower risk of eye and digestive problems, and have a positive effect upon blood sugar, which can help keep appetite in check. Eating non-starchy vegetables and fruits like apples, pears, and green leafy vegetables may even promote weight loss.
A concern perhaps is how to get people to eat vegetables and fruits. It may take effort and time as well as innovativeness in preparation and presentation to make meals more appealing. Start the children young. By age six months, some vegetables should be incorporated in a baby’s diet. From thence, other kinds are introduced as these are made part of the family’s diet. Of course, other family members should be eating vegetables and fruits on a daily basis too. In fact, many of the veggies easily grown in backyards can be more nutritious!
How nice it would be if slowly, all meals at home, in meetings and conferences were made more colorful with more veggies and fruits and less meat, fish or poultry.
Life is growth. Life is progress and progress depends on newfound ideas. Less the dawn of new ideas, probably we would still be reading by a campfire light.
In government, accomplishments have been achieved by persons who had high ideals and received great vision. The path may be difficult; the climbing is torturous but at the end the vision is worthwhile.
History teaches us there is one such person whose liberal ideas were not limited to the bounds of self. He was no other than US President Abraham Lincoln, when he said in his Gettysburg Address that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.”
Daily Laborer, who knows nil about government, has finally arrived at a conclusion last week that many members of the Local Government Units (LGUs) in Cordillera and elsewhere in the country hew the line of liberal government – meaning having to do with freedom and openness to change or in other words, primarily concerned with the scope of governmental activity.
Daily Laborer’s surmise came about after driving through squares and circles, oblongs, rectangles, triangles, octagon, pentagon and hexagon gleaming with sunlight, moonlight, twilight, starlight and limelight of Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and discovered, “It’s all through our liberal government.”
Aha! In fact, many of our CAR politicians intimate to Daily Laborer they are liberal-minded through and through, in other words, broad-minded or forward-looking or freethinkers; it must be true. And who are we, the citizens to dispute so?
Many times Daily Laborer attended Sangguniang Bayan or Sangguniang Panlalawigan sessions elsewhere in CAR provinces that with his usual exuberance has somewhat colored the picture that dazzled his imagination making all deductions that indeed, we live in this fortunate period of liberal-mindedness.
And in those arguments presented in such Sangguniang Bayan or Sangguniang Panlalawigan sessions, oh, but how he heard of such stands of members of these August bodies that they liberal in thinking, promising to make the CAR economy and its people better.
Their arguments on making the CAR economy and its people better often border on the whimsical that one becomes at a loss laughing at what they really want. Never mind if their arguments sometimes border on treading on thin air, just as long as their arguments have been recorded by the Sangguniang Secretary that they stood up and vocalized their opinion.
Let us revisit some arguments Daily Laborer has heard in the course of many years being a visitor hearing Sangguniang sessions. There was that time the topic tabled was municipal savings and up for discussion. Up rose a Sangguniang member who argued to save and censure, to cut down everything they did pay for, and to cut up everything they did not.
There was a time year back he heard a Sangguniang member arguing that every soldier in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) should have one nail less in his boots and blamed the last Government for not having soldiers who required no boots at all.
Well, he even heard of Sangguniang members demanding their offices be cleaned by their General Services Division but censured the last Government for having floors that wanted any cleaning.
In Region 1, for example, Daily Laborer chanced upon a Sangguniang Bayan session wherein one member went on to argue against the intent of the town buying pesticide to contain the sudden proliferation of field rats pointing out such intention was tantamount to plundering the people then pointed out it was the last Government to blame for proliferation of the mice on the fields.
In the case of Baguio City, it is the other way around. It is members of the populace who become liberal-minded. Take the case of the city’s cemented roads being repaved with asphalt. Whenever they see such an occurrence happening, they mumble, saying, “This will never do! The city cannot be saddled with this unnecessary expense. The asphalt should be utilized where it is needed most in the barangays.”
How common it is to say we go from bad to worse, and on that principle, Daily laborer supposes it is this liberal government thinking that goes from good to better.
A story told to Daily Laborer by highlanders who swore it happened years back somewhere in Cordillera. During that time, there was a politician campaigning to be re-elected as Sangguniang member and on one occasion, wrote a friend – both of whom had a falling out and their friendship having been frayed – and asking for his support. The politician wanted to talk to his former friend and mend things.
In answer, the voter, who was once the good friend of the politician, wrote back and said, “No, I won’t. I would see you in h_____ first!”
The politician was said to have received the outburst in a very resigned spirit and meekly wrote back. stating, “Well, my friend, in case I do get there, I should say that you will be pretty sure to see me.”
Now, that, Daily Laborer says, is a fully qualified politician who can keep his promise.
Equally amusing was the reply of a would-be politician – from the lowlands who wanted to be elected as Sangguniang member – to an elector who said, “he would vote for the devil first,” rather than the would-be politician.
To the remarks of the voter, the would-be politician was heard by the storytellers to have answered by saying, “Very good, Sir, very good. But in case your friend does not come to the polling place, may I hope to be favored by your support?”
Those who re-told the story to Daily Laborer swore the retort was both happy and effective, for from that day the voter to whom it was addressed became the would-politician’s supporters as he withdrew his support for the devil.
Liberal-mindedness from the political view is a political doctrine that takes into account the protection and enhancement of the freedom of a person to the core problem of politics.
Hence, liberal-minded politicians hold the view that government is necessary to protect the population from being harmed by others. On the other hand, they, too, hold the proposition that the government, itself, can also pose a threat to liberty.
That given, Daily Laborer says, government is, at best, “a necessary evil.” The Philippine Constitution, our laws, judges and police are only some of the primary examples needed to secure a person’s life and liberty. On the other hand, their coercive powers may also be detrimental to individuals.
Not arguably, the bottom line is a system devised and placed that gives the government the power necessary to protect people’s liberty while at the same time, preventing those who govern from abusing power.
Filipinos, when having read or heard of “those who govern” having abused their power, have this penchant of frothing at the mouth, spraying saliva into the air and muttering, “Mga luko-lukong demonyo!”
A classic example of such frothing at the mouth was retold to Daily Laborer when one time, long ago, a constituent in CAR sought advice from a politician in their hometown regarding a big “utang” (debt) incurred by the constituent’s neighbor. The politician advised the constituent to go to the person who made utang and talk things out.
The following day, the constituent went back to the office of the politician who asked, “Well, did you talk things out?”
“We did, Sir,” the constituent answered.
“And what did the person who made utang from you say?” the politician queried.
“He told me to go to the devil.”
“And what did you do then?” the politician asked again.
“Why then – I came back to you, Sir!” the constituent gravely answered.
On the other hand, one liberal-minded politician got back with a dig at that classic example when one day, a Daily Laborer, in the company of some politicians, saw some persons putting out their tongues as they passed by and asked his politician friends why those people did what they did. One of his politician-friends said: “It is very easily explained. It is because they want to lick us” (the politicians).
No matter what political color you are, but you look ahead and not behind, welcomes new ideas without being rigid, cares about welfare of people, their health, housing, education, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and liberties and believes stalemates can be peacefully discussed, then you are liberal-minded.
That being the case, try throwing your hat into the political ring. Who knows, you might follow in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln.