The renowned South African golfer, Gary Player, was recently asked in a radio talk show what kept his health so good even though he was in his late seventies. His answer was: " I eat well. I eat like a black man; pap and morogo." Simply put, what he meant was that he ate what many black people use to eat as their staple food, and that is maize porrige and spinach. What he actually meant as he went on to elaborate, was that he had long switched to the type of diet recommended to him by blak people he knew. According to him, they ate well and therefore lived longer.

Yet the fact of the matter is that many black folk in South Africa don't eat well. They eat as much junk food as their white countrymen. My grandfather ate little meat because according to him, in his time there were no butcheries and refrigerators where meat could be kept for people to get whenever they wanted to. Meat was eaten during special occasions such as weddings, funerals, or end of year festivals. He said that most of the time they ate maize, millet, soure milk, vegetables, nuts and berries, and during summer, all the fruits they could lay their hands on.

Meat was usually in the form of chicken or fresh fish if they happed to live near a river, a lake an the sea. Dried meat was usually enjoyed during the winter months and by boys who lived for months far away from home looking after cattle in the wilderness, or when at innitiation school.

My grandfather ate well, lived and passed on in his sleep when he was in his late nineties. To his dying day he eschewed meat and tinned meat especially. He thrived on vegetables and fruits and nuts. He walked a lot even when transport was available. He went to bed early and got out of bed before sunrise. He dispised people who woke up when the sun was already up, unless they were not well or were forced by the kind of work they did.

The other day I was reading a book that said human beings became meat eaters during the course of their evolution. Mankind was originally a herbivore. My grandfather also maintained that if people could emulate his life style, many doctors would go out of business. I am inclined to agree with him. Being a resident of the African continent, I have noticed with interest how strong herbivorous animals are so strong and live longer than carnivorous ones.

Lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas, and wild dogs have a shorter live span than their vegetarian brethren such as the zebra, elephant, buffallo and the girraffe, for example. The tortoise, a vegetarian creature, can live to up to two hundred years, the elephant to about sixty to seventy years. The lion and leopard only live on average to about only less than twenty years.