The menagerie of wellness

I’m on a getaway, ostensibly to recharge, but really to escape the cacophony of buzzwords that have invaded every nook and cranny of modern life like a swarm of unruly wasps.

Organic, vegan, curated, sustainable, zero tolerance—these words flutter around me like moths to a flame, relentless and impossible to swat away. I had planned to write this column after my return, but these verbal gremlins kept tapping on my skull like a particularly persistent woodpecker, so here we are!

Living in this world is like being a fox in a henhouse of pretension, where every salad leaf is handpicked with the precision of a surgeon, and every oat milk latte is crafted to the tune of vegan hymns. You’re either the top dog or the unfortunate flea on the dog’s back, trying to make sense of homegrown vs. locally sourced, small-batch vs. artisan, mindful eating vs. gut health fanaticism.

I found myself recently in one of the supermarket aisles—those hallowed halls where zero tolerance policies apply to pesticides, preservatives, and apparently, anyone not armed with a reusable tote bag and an eco-friendly attitude. The air smelled faintly of hemp and smug superiority.

I reached for an avocado, a noble fruit, revered as the queen of the superfoods—unless it’s wrapped in bacon, in which case, congratulations, you’ve just committed heresy. (Avocado wrapped in bacon: the ultimate oxymoron for the health-conscious—like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, only greasier!)

The lady next to me eyed my selection as if I’d brought a bear into the garden.
“Oh, that’s not organic,” she said with the sharpness of a hawk circling its prey.
“And is it fair trade?!”
I wanted to respond, “No, madam, I bought it with a side of existential dread.” But I swallowed the retort, not wishing to be the skunk at the garden party.

And then there’s the matter of mindfulness—a word as overused as a bad British weather joke. Apparently, every mouthful must be chewed with the care of a jeweller inspecting a diamond, every breath measured as if it were a precious commodity. I once almost attended a yoga class where one was encouraged to “connect with our inner squirrel,” whatever that means, on mats that cost more than a five-course dinner at Le Meridien’s Belvedere. All in the name of sustainable wellness, naturally!

My own semi-flirtation with the vegan lifestyle was brief and bittersweet. Three days of nibbling on plant-based delights that tasted like a squirrel’s attempt at haute cuisine, followed by a desperate midnight raid of the fridge—thank heavens for the tin of Amul cheese and that tub of butterscotch ice cream! I devoured both with such zeal that I half-expected the cows in the field to cry foul play!

However, the truth of the matter is that even the most devoted health enthusiasts, sometimes, are led astray by the siren call of gut health over taste buds.

The trendy terms keep piling up like a bad game of Scrabble. Curated wardrobes that look like they were assembled by a magpie with a penchant for tweed; artisanal soaps that smell like the damp sock of a garden gnome; homespun tales of farmers who milk their own cows before breakfast (probably while listening to classical music for the cows’ emotional well-being). It’s a veritable zoo out there.

On social media, it’s no better. The curated feeds parade endless photos of avocado toast topped with microgreens and edible flowers—because nothing screams, “I’m better than you” like spending fifteen minutes arranging your breakfast only to eat it with a grimace. And heaven forbid you post a picture of a bacon-wrapped avocado; you’ll be stoned by the vegan mob quicker than you can say gluten-free.

The zero tolerance for anything that doesn’t fit the clean-eating manifesto is a bit like a terrier barking at its own tail—frantic, self-defeating, and ultimately exhausting. It’s the same with our minimal impact lifestyles, where we fret endlessly over compost bins while ordering packages shipped from halfway across the globe. The cognitive dissonance could make a meerkat’s head spin.

If you’re lucky, you might stumble into a café that serves locally sourced coffee, beans roasted by monks on a mountain-top, served in cups made from recycled unicorn horn. The barista will smile like a fox who’s just found the chicken coop door wide open and explain the health benefits of their small-batch turmeric elixir, brewed under a full moon with whispered affirmations. Meanwhile, you just want a decent cup of tea without feeling like you’ve been auditioning for a role in a Wes Anderson film.

I sometimes wonder if the whole buzzword bonanza is just a sophisticated form of greenwashing for the soul—words like ethical, fair trade, sustainable tossed around like confetti at a village fête, while the real issues get buried under layers of kale chips and kombucha fizz.

It’s easy to get caught in the fox hunt of trying to outdo everyone else with your homegrown sprouts and your Instagram-worthy yoga poses on a mat that costs more than your dinner. But when did being human become such a bloody competition?! When did mindfulness morph into a badge of honour that you have to flaunt louder than a rooster at dawn?!

The phrase “elephant in the room” might be overused, but here, the elephant wears hemp trousers and carries a reusable water bottle. We’re all dancing around it, pretending that our clean eating and minimal impact lives aren’t just a bit, well, bonkers!

So here I am, nursing a cup of hand-pressed coffee that probably costs more than my day’s kitchen expense, watching squirrels duke it out over an acorn as if it’s the Crown Jewels. And I remind myself: buzzwords don’t make the man—or the avocado. Sometimes, a fruit is just a fruit, and a bacon wrap is just a bacon wrap. And that’s perfectly all right.

If you want to curate your life like a museum exhibit, by all means, carry on. But don’t forget that underneath the artisanal labels and the crafted narratives, we’re just a bunch of animals trying to get through the day without getting our tails stepped on.

And if anyone tells you otherwise, tell them to take their gluten-free, kale-stuffed, Himalayan salt-dusted dog treat, and shove it somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine. Because sometimes, the sharpest thing you can be is honest—and a bit cheeky…