eat to live, or live to eat?

What is food to me? To start, let me explain the ‘food’ we eat nowadays. Eating all the preservatives and chemicals put in our food can be equated to drinking formaldehyde. Mad Cow Disease, Avian Flu, Hoof and Mouth Disease - it makes us die in unnatural ways.

I know some people take all these into consideration when choosing their food, but are most people taking these issues seriously? People are so spoiled by having a virtually endless supply of food every corner they walk to, the idea of revamping the food industry hardly seems like a worthwhile task. The mentality seems to be "We're eating, so who cares where it comes from?"

But think about how harmful such ignorance could be. Say tomorrow that contaminated meat went undetected by several fast food restaurants and was sold as burgers unknowingly. Then, from seemingly out of nowhere, people started dying - their stomachs being eaten from the inside out. It sounds like a grotesque exaggeration of a worst-case scenario, but think about it.

Convenience should not take priority over quality. This seems obvious to me. If given the choice between a processed, manufactured meal 10 metres away and a natural, home-cooked meal 10 kilometres away, I'd walk for quality. Sure, it depends on how hungry you are, but whom in Singapore is that hungry? There's barely an excuse. We've got so much food obesity is killing us off in record numbers.

Can you really gamble with the food you eat? If you ask me, do I eat to live, or live to eat? My answer will be: I eat to live. I want to, I need to.