She didn't know that one had to adjust dietary requirements as one got older. She knew of some nutrients versus others that was better for people her age, but she didn't know that she had to readjust one of a foundational eating philosophy held unquestioningly amongst people of her race.
Yet the doctor at this clinic said so.
She recognizes the sofa at this clinic.
This is the doctor who sent her to the clinic downstairs for the blood tests and when the results came out two hours later, advised her that there was a cholesterol indicator whose numbers she had to bring down lest the condition flare up again.
There was medication she had to take.
And a brand new diet that she would do best to adhere to, he said.
First up, he suggested, less of the economic rice meals. Not even the veggies. Too much oil and too much sugar and too much of everything she couldn't take if she was going to reduce her cholesterol. She could take the steamed fish though.
Fish, he said, was good. So, clear fish soup at the food courts, please. Or the yong tau foo, but only all the steamed stuffed types, nothing fried, and oh, no curry soup, please. Only clear soup and rice, of which she was to eat half a bowl. But clear fish soup was the best. No wanton noodles. No braised duck. No roast chicken or roast duck or char siew. No bak chor mee. No lard. Forget about char kuay teow or hokkien mee. She could take herbal chicken soup. She could take zi char hor fun once a week. That was it. Steamed chicken was fine but, no, not the chicken-chicken rice please, take the white rice, and half a plate at that.
Salmon was fine. She could eat as much of it, no problem, just deal with the mercury problem by eating all the onions. Sashimi, roasted, baked, steamed, grilled, no problem at all.
She could take eggs too. But egg white preferably. What of the yolks, then? Throw them away, he answered. For someone who used to eat four egg yolks because she couldn't bear seeing them go to waste, this new instruction was... @#$%!!!!
Less of the foods that used vegetable palm oils too, he said. Sunflower, canola, and avocado oils were recommended. Olive oil was highly recommended. She could take as much of olive oils as she desired.
Harder than giving up on her favorite $2.50 wanton mee was the giving up of her plate of rice. Miss Brown could not comprehend the less-rice instruction. Asking her to eat less rice was unheard of, and unthinkable. Rice was life! Rice was the foundation of energy and everything and living and getting things done and everything! What was so wrong with eating rice? Hadn't the Chinese been eating rice as the mainstay since a long, long, long time back? Why was she being instructed to eat less rice now?
She had been taught to finish up every grain on her plate. Every single grain. Now this young punk of a doctor was telling her to leave half of it on the plate because it was going to affect her levels or something. Oh, people were not starving anymore? People could waste food now? And he had the gall to tell her that she could substitute white rice with either brown rice or Japanese pearl rice or Indian basmati rice.
Nonsense, Miss Brown told everyone around her. Japanese pearl rice was expensive. And she was Chinese, so why was she going to eat basmati rice...? As much as she liked briyani, she was not going to replace her beloved jasmine rice with basmati rice! People didn't die from eating white rice, she convinced herself. Look at so and so and so. She died from heart failure because of all the fatty meat she consumed.
Unfortunately *or fortunately*, her primary caregiver believed the doctor and since the same caregiver kept a tight eye on her diet, poor Miss Brown had to take clear fish soup or clear soup yong tau foo at the food courts, eat meals and meals of salmon, take olive oil for breakfast with egg whites only, and endure the daily sight of those steamed fluffy white grains being taken away from her.