MODERN DIET, MODERN DOOM
Food is life. Without
it we die. Yet, it is such an intuitive
act, that we don´t necessarily think about what we eat. Modern day diets in many parts of the world,
including here, have given access to an abundance of choices as to what to eat.
Whether to eat out or in, or eat Mexican or Asian is often the dictates the how
we think about what to eat. We eat what
we are in the mood for and what we crave and desire. We eat to feel satisfied. We even eat to keep emotions down. Yet, considering it as daily encounter with a
´help or hurt´ scenario, it becomes hard reminder that what we eat
matters. And, if what we eat is not real
food or real sustenance for the body, then it a likely harmful.
So, what is real food?
And, what is not real food? (And, how did it get to even become a question
for people?). Modern history has taken
the idea of omnivore to a new limit. A
large population has been introduced to new ´food like´ substances, or, if you
will, have adapted to a new food creation because instead of scarcity which
once ruled adaptation, over the past 50 years much of the developed world has
incorporated new foods because of abundance.
Even where the abundance is not apparent, there is a ripple effect from
where it is.
Modern life offers an overwhelming choice in what to
eat. It´s the era of the uber-omnivores
(and picky ones, as a result). Where as
before people ate when hungry, now people, in developed nations, eat throughout
they day and tend to eat to feel satisfied.
They eat the ‘choice cuts’, and now expect a full basket of vegetables
to be available year round thanks to growing imports from Mexican growers. People
eat for pleasure and entertainment and to be social. So much choice allows for this drastic change
in the human diet.
However, now there is an emerging consciousness that much of
the food choices in the supermarket aisles are not real foods. And, no one contends that fresh food will
always pack more nourishment then the canned or processed ´foods´ we find in
the middle aisles. The distinction
between real food and food-like, means distinguishing between eating something
that has grown, grazed or swam versus something which was chemically or
commercially processed.
As a school teacher I would often wonder if the kids in my
classroom weren´t somehow ´telling´ me something when most would gladly grab a
artificially colored blue drink and most would reject any food that was green
and plant-based. It seemed astounding
that plant foods that had been a staple of human diet for millennia should be
so readily rejected. But, somehow ´blue
drink´ is so eagerly chosen over green juice.
It’s no wonder that fad diets and media blitz so easily
captivate the minds of so many. It’s
any wonder that we know what to eat at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment