Hold on madam, me referring to my next-door neighbor who had invited me to learn how she is cooking one of her local delicacies, which I love to eat so much. What are you trying to do with that bunch of seasoning Cubes in your hands?
"What does it look like I'm trying to do? Putting it in my soup of course."
Help me count that, how many are you holding?
"They are just ten in total"
Ten seasoning cubes for that little quantity of soup in your pot is not just.
Please just stop, if you continue to do that you might not only commit murder but committing suicide as well in the long run. You are slowly endangering your life, lady.
She paused for a while, smiled then said, "To be honest with you neighbor, my doctor told me to reduce the amount of seasoning cubes I put into my food but I told him 'not to his face though' that he had lost his mind."
"How can I not put Maggi inside my soup or rice when I find it tastes so delicious and delightful, do you know I barely use salt? When I do I just put a pinch of it but I let my Maggies do all the magic."
It seems to me that your doctor's mind is in its rightful place.
And you have to listen to your doctor. I beg of you, and here I have been wondering why your BP keeps on shooting up.
"But how can I listen to my doctor when I so much love my food being so tasty"
Using just a pinch of salt in your cooking is great and healthy but putting that bunch of seasoning cubes inside your food is not tasty but slow poison.
Okay, you love tasty food right, so do I but I do not slowly kill my immune system in the process.
How about showing you a different and healthy way to enjoy tasty meals?
"Well, you know I'm always open to new ideas and learning, so I'm all ears." 'I guess it's time I use my senses lol, for the sake of my health," she said smiling and turned towards me, to pay full attention to what I had to say.
In my soups or food, I make use of crayfish, which I had the dried ones grind into powder form, locust beans, and stock fish plus some natural herbs and spices, such as bell pepper, ginger, garlic, onions, and turmeric.
Sometimes, depending on what I'm cooking, if I'm preparing a stew I add just crayfish to it plus my fish or meat, this way it is tasty with just two cubes added and very little salt. If I'm to prepare some of my soup, I will sometimes add locust beans and stock fish, which are all healthy ingredients with lots of health benefits and palatable taste.
"Okay, I think I will listen to you, and follow your tips, I don't want to endanger my health and that of my family any longer than I already did."
That was between my next-door neighbor and me, some time ago when she had invited me over to her kitchen.
Along the line, I discovered why her blood pressure had been so hard for her doctor to control. She was adding too much seasoning cubes and a lot of sugar into her cooking against her doctor's advice which as a result always made her blood pressure go up.
She has been suffering from high blood pressure for six years now, and most of the time she carries me along on how she has been managing it.
Making use of too many seasoning cubes is not the only unhealthy food practice my neighbor was into, she also loves to put too much sugar in her meals.
One time I saw her preparing tea, I had to shout and beg her to reduce it when I saw the amount of sugar going into just one cup of tea, her pap is no different, and even sometimes she adds plenty of sugar into her boiling yam. What a sweet tooth she is!
I began to preach to her about how bad the use of too many seasoning cubes and sugar is for her health. Due to the presence of monosodium glutamate (MSG), sugar, and hydrogenated palm oil as part of the ingredients in making seasoning cubes, its long-term use in excess can cause one's blood pressure to be too high among other health implications.
After that day in her kitchen, she gradually began to reduce her sugar intake and the number of seasoning cubes that go inside her cooking as much as she could.
Just like myself, she now relies on healthy and natural species to bring out great taste to her meals.
In her confession, "Your words of advice were like ghosts that haunt me each time I intend to put too many seasoning cubes inside my cooking."
Thankfully that seemed to help, in her subsequent visits to her doctor, her blood pressure began to come back to normal where it no longer showed that her life could be in danger at any moment.
Among the things I love so much about my next-door neighbor is her great sense of humor, she can crack jokes out of anything that will make the people around her burst with laughter. And her willingness to learn valuable lessons from those who cross-part with her.
I guess those are reasons we have become more than just neighbors. We are practically more like a family member now.
This is my entry into this week's #creativenonfiction prompt, in Theinkwell community. Thank you so much for visiting my blog and for your support, I wish you a blissful week.
@funshee🥰❤