Many people envy me because although I’m a known and unrepentant foodie, I still remain relatively lean-bodied.

This has given rise to many false and malicious assumptions about what exactly goes into my diet. Some folk have taken it upon themselves to dig deeper into my eating habits.

The weirdest bit is that my friends who are not very thin have lately resorted to calling me a "snake” because they attribute their weight gain to the zingalo which we usually wolf down whenever we invade one of those Primus-branded roadside bars which are not-so-hygienic and whose toilets are unusable, but whose brochette tastes sweeter.

Little do these fat friends of mine know that there is a method to my seemingly reckless and glutonous appetite.

Of course, I am fully cognizant of the fact that "fat people” is not diplomatic language. It’s unsavory. It’s crude. It’s uncool. It’s uncouth, uncultured even.

Decent folk instead talk of "full bodied” people, or people with "curveceous bodies”.

Which then begs the question; what has kept me, a known, unrepentant and incorrigible foodie from becoming "full bodied”? Let’s see ...

Indimu:

Contrary to popular misconception, indimu is not merely a fruit and tea spice. Indimu is actually food and, being so, must be dug into, must be munched, complete with the green skin and even seeds.

Knowledge of this unspoken truth is the first step toward not becoming full bodied even when one eats too much zingalo, like someone I already talked about earlier.

Ginger:

By ginger I do not mean the stale powdered stuff you find in your regular resto. Vitality is what ginger is all about, and you ain’t going to find this vitality served in powdered form.

Ginger has to be pounded in a soft, rythmic fashion in a small wooden mortar using an equally small wooden pestle. This must go on until all of it is thoroughly pulverized.

Then add half a kilogram of that mixture to your tea pot that serves three.

Ginger is good for weight loss because all the people that have ever tasted my thickly spiced ginger tea have gone on to complain that it makes them hungry.

Become an artist/creative:

The world over, it’s a known fact that these people are more prone to attacks of depression than everybody else. When depressed, one rarely eats.

So go right ahead and get hold of that paint brush and pallet or that microphone or become a poet.

Alternatively, embrace the world of catwalk/billboard/fashion modeling, where starved and starving people stand better chances of acquiring and retaining a job.