What Is Food?
What is food?
It may seem like a rather obvious question, but the nature of food is one of those perplexing issues that seems to drive so much debate and controversy. Over the last 100 years society has been led to believe that apart from supplying basic energy, food has very little bearing on physical and mental health. During this time we have seen farm-fresh whole foods become gradually displaced with manufactured versions of the same, while at the same time, bearing witness to previously rare diseases such as heart disease and cancer become the first and second causes of death Please login or register to see the full articleWater
Water has long been recognized in traditional medicine as the source of life, and without it we would scarcely survive for more than a few days. Every system of traditional medicine paid great respect to water, for its importance and restorative effects, as well as its different attributes depending on its source and further processing. Ever since the dawn of human civilization, the protection and maintenance of a clean, uncontaminated water source has always been the first priority. Please login or register to see the full articleVegetables
Vegetables are plant foods, and depending on the type of plant, might refer to the fruits, stalks, leaves or roots of the plant. Fruits are the reproductive portion of a plant, and refer to both sweet fruits such as apples and bananas, as well as non-sweet fruits such as summer squash and avocados. To draw a distinction between them, most people typically refer to sweet fruits as ‘fruits’ (covered separately), and non-sweet fruits as vegetables.
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While sweet fruits are unique in the plant world, and perhaps deserve their own separate food category, an unfortunate impression has been made in the public mind. Usually the media admonishes us to eat plenty of “fruits and vegetables”, the inference being made that a fruit and a vegetable are somehow equal in importance. One might think that we should eat just as much fruit as vegetables, which is a misapprehension I wish to dispel.
Please login or register to see the full articleMeat and Animal Products
If any food could be said to define the evolution of the human species, it must surely be meat. If we are at least willing to consider our origin as tree-dwelling primates that gradually moved into the African savanna, the only logical way by which we could have supported the rapid development of our comparatively huge brains is to have a local abundance of high quality nutrition, rich in proteins and fats.
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There is perhaps no better example of a group of foods that have been so clearly targeted and maligned as fats and oils. Beginning in North America in the early 1900’s, and then soon after in Europe and now spreading all over the world, industry and government have been trying to wean people away from their traditional high fat diets.
Please login or register to see the full articleGrains and Cereals
The defining difference between the way we used to eat as hunter-gathers and as settled peoples is in our relative recent decision as a species to subsist primarily on grains and cereals. Although grains and cereals are really just tiny seeds, to consume them in any significant quantity they must be cultivated on a very large scale, and as such, were never consumed in any great quantity by our hunter-gatherer Paleolithic ancestors.
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Like grains and cereals, the domestication of ruminative animals such as cows were another feature of the agricultural revolution. Although cow’s milk is relatively high in protein and fat, it also contains large amounts of the simple sugar lactose that can raise blood sugar rapidly. In the baby calf lactose serves to increase gut permeability, thereby increasing nutrient absorption – a feature that ensures the rapid physical growth of the baby calf, which achieves physical maturity in less than 2 years.
Please login or register to see the full articleLegumes
Legumes are an adjunct to many traditional diets, and like grains and cereals, are a product of agrarian civilization. They are derived from the family Fabaceae, formerly known as the Leguminosae, and contain a broad variety of edible species including soy (Glycine), beans (Phaseolus), pea (Pisum), chickpeas (Cicer) and peanut (Arachis).
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Rich in protein and fat, nuts and seeds are an attractive source of nutrition, but frequently carry with them some of the same issues and problems as grains and cereals, since they are essentially the same thing. Although botanically similar to grains and cereals, nuts and seeds are distinguished by their higher fat content, and frequently serve as an easy source of vegetable oil using simple machinery like an expeller press.
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