Posts Tagged ‘eat’

Weston A. Price in the research of healthy food

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

One of the most active voices of the prewar period was Weston A. Price, a dentist of Canadian origin who leaned on one of those questions of common sense, which today can not even ask us. Now, like heart disease, chronic dental problems are a part of our lives.

But if you think about it, it is strange that everyone needs a dentist and that so many people need braces, channel interference, the wisdom tooth extraction and other routine procedures necessary to maintain modern oral hygiene. The need of many remedial interventions for just one body part that is involved in the feeding activity, activity that is essential for our survival, reflects a defect in our design, a kind of omission of the natural selection? It is unlikely.

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But what did Price found out? First, he found out that populations that eat traditionally have no need for a dentist.(Well, almost: the teeth of the “strong highlanders” in Switzerland, which have never seen a toothbrush, were covered with a greenish-filing but Price found that, below this layer, the teeth were well formed and had no cavity). Whenever he discovered a primitive population that hasn’t yet contact with “alimentary substitutes of modern trade” - as refined flour, sugar, vegetable oil, canned or preserved food trough chemical ways- revealed very few or none signs of modern degeneration - like chronic diseases, dental caries and dental arches with malformations. These problems were caused either by a certain element of Western diet either a certain deficiency.

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Wherever Price went, he took pictures of the teeth of the populations that he met and took samples from their food and sends these to Cleveland for analysis so that he could determine the content of macro-nutrients and vitamins. He found out that the indigenous diets were much richer in vitamins A and D than the modern U.S. - in average about ten times higher. This was due in a large part to the fact that, as is it was noted in 1930, that by processing food, it loses nutrients, especially vitamins. Trade food are thought to be stored and transported over long distances and the only way that they can become more resilient and less vulnerable to pests is to remove some of the containing nutrients. In general, the calories are much easier to transport- in form of refined cereals or sugar-only nutrients that can alter or attract bacteria, insects and rodents, all extremely interested in these nutrients. (Even more than us, apparently.)

Price concluded that the modern civilization did sacrifice mostly the quality of the food in favor of the quantity and the length of the shelf-life.

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Eat slowly part II

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

The hamburger from Fast Foods was precisely made to offer a first juicy and delicious bite that would be impossible to enjoy if we could imagine the whole aspect of farms, butcheries and of all the workers or if we could know from the first bite that the hamburger is so delicious because of the “artificial barbeque flavors”.hamburger

The hamburger must be fast consumed; it would be a pleasure if we could imagine the green grass, the steak from an animal grown on a pasture, a pleasure based on knowledge and appreciation for the work and creatures not on ignorance and indifference.

To eat slowly means, to eat “in a free way” not because of an impulse. In many cultures, especially in those that didn’t lose the bond with the earth, there still are rituals that encouraged this was of eating, for example, there is a food blessing or an appreciation prayer before eating.

I believe that the goal of these rituals is to don’t eat in ignorance or in a hurry, and also to combine the pleasure of eating with the pleasure of thanksgiving and knowledge. I’m not used to express my appreciation before meals, but sometimes I remember Wendell Berry’s words that help me to eat free.

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Probably the way to fully enjoy the food- to feel a pleasure without ignorance- is the most profound form of the bonding with the world. Trough this pleasure we are aware of our dependency and we celebrate this, because we eat in mystery from creatures that we didn’t create and from forces that are beyond our understanding.

Such words can help you to be in control of your meals, but the best would be (as Wendell Berry said) that we, the consumers should involve ourselves more in the food production, even if this means just to plant some herbs in a pot, or just to go different plants or mushrooms picking in the park.

Because of the indifference of the consumer beside the food, we have to remember how the food from our plates is tilled, grown and prepared.

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Eat slowly part I

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

Eat slowly, not just because in this way you will better know when to stop. When I say “slowly” I refer to the a quiet, cozy meal that is promoted by SLOW FOOD,  an Italian movement build up around the idea that the only way to fight against the madness of our fast life, is trough a stern defense for the pleasure of a cozy life. Created as a reaction of the American Fast-foods in Rome, in 1980, this organization tries to rediscover (or for some of us to discover) the joy of meals taken together and the pleasure for properly grown and cooked food.slow-eating

Sounds like an elite club for choosy people, but the SLOW FOOD movement is actually a coherent protest and  an alternative for nourishment, for the occidental way to eat and the whole occidental lifestyle, which is crazy more and more, day by day. Slow food aims to return the  supremacy of the quality over the quantity. For this it’s necessary to propagate a sense of taste and to recreate the relationship between  the producers and consumer, which is now destroyed because of the food industrialization. Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement, sustained “The food quality depends on the consumers which value the work of farmers and are willing to train their sense”. In this way “consumers become producer’s allies”.

There is also a consumer policy, which encourages us to value the work of those who produce food and discouraged the superficial pleasure of eating. This movement wasn’t born accidentally in Italy. That’s why we should ask our selves if the American way of eating can be changed whiteout changing the whole American lifestyle. The fast food is the way of eating for people that have the main value and the main goal, the success, for people which have just 2 weeks vacation per year and can not rely on a social protection for unexpected cases.Family Enjoying meal,mealtime Together

But the assurance of the Slow Food movement  is that this whole edifice of fast food will start to collapse as soon as we make time for  slowly silent lunches three times a day. To eat slowly, means to be fully aware of everything that involves the whole cycle, the food trail, from the ground to our plate. No doubt, some culinary pleasures are based exactly on the opposite- to know less

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Eat everything at the table. No, the office desk is not a table

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

You don’t eat where you refuel your car. Nowadays the American gas stations obtain o greater profit by selling grocery (or cigarettes) than by selling gas. But, about what food are we talking about?

Besides milk and water, there are highly processed and durables snacks and refreshing drinks, that are sweetened in excess, bottled in little pint bottles. The gas stations turned into corn stations with high content of fructose for you.

Try not to eat alone!

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Americans eat increasingly more often alone. Although some studies sustain that moderated persons will eat more if they dine in a group (perhaps they spend more time at the table). In the case of those exposed to excess, the meals taken together with other people are limited, because it’s less likely that we stuff ourselves under the eyes of others.

That’s why the advertising is encouraging us to eat in front of the TV or in the car. When we eat alone in a mechanic way, we eat more. The appetite control is one of the smallest advantages of a meal taken with others: this activity evolves eating from a mechanical process of feeding into a family and communication ritual, from a simple biological act into a cultural act.200361237-001

Psychologists proved, the most of us eat according to external signals, especially the visual ones. The bigger the portion of food, so much more we will eat; the bigger the plate, so much more we pour soup, the more we buy if the wending machine is nicely arranged and the more we will eat, if the bowl with M&M’s is closer to us

The best way to get rid of the Fast Food culture and its values (that the food has to be fast, cheep and easy to cook; that food is a industry product, not a natural product; that food is a fuel, not a form of communication and bounding with other people or a bounding with the nature) is to participate to the complex but fascinate processes that involves the procure of food.

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