Food

This is a fabulous article, as interesting and thought provoking as the book written by the same person. Of course I think it is fabulous because it confirms what I already thought: that eating is fun, and worrying about what the latest studies say about what and what not to eat is a waste of time. Eat food! he says, and he is right.

But of course there is a catch, because by 'food' he does not mean 'nutritionally enhanced food-like products.' He means, you know, actual vegetables and things. This is made easy for me because I have a hard time deciphering the instructions on prepackaged food here, so stick to fresh food that doesn't need instructions. (In other words, I am forced into eating healthily because I am too lazy to learn to read properly.) Also, we don't have a microwave.

We think that we have a lot more choices in our food than our great-grandparents did, but chew on this:

The astounding variety of foods on offer in the modern supermarket obscures the fact that the actual number of species in the modern diet is shrinking. For reasons of economics, the food industry prefers to tease its myriad processed offerings from a tiny group of plant species, corn and soybeans chief among them. Today, a mere four crops account for two-thirds of the calories humans eat. When you consider that humankind has historically consumed some 80,000 edible species, and that 3,000 of these have been in widespread use, this represents a radical simplification of the food web.

I know that when I first came to Japan I was astonished by the different kinds of leafy greens available. We didn't have that many in New Zealand. (I think there are more, now.) Of course there are some other foods that it is difficult to find in Japan, but really I can get almost anything these days.

There is even a Costco now, which imports American foods. This is good for those who really miss 'home' style food, I suppose, although it didn't work for me, probably because I'm not American. The Man and I went there once. We paid the joining fee and spent some time wandering around the aisles. After a while we realized that there was nothing we actually wanted to buy except for some printer ink cartridge refill packs. There was a lot of prepackaged American food that the Americans I know rave about and miss terribly when they're here, but very little we would normally eat. Besides, the amounts were too big. We tend to eat fresh food, and don't want huge amounts of anything. I realized that the people who had told me about the great deals available and how much they liked having familiar food available at good prices were all American, and they miss different things from me. I do not crave frozen pizza, or breakfast cereals, or 'home-made' cookies. When I get cravings for 'home' food I crave rhubarb and tamarillos and passionfruit and Granny Smith apples and vegemite. The fresh foods section sold nothing we could not get more conveniently at a local supermarket. We buy veges almost every day, so a special trip in a taxi (Costco is not located conveniently for those without cars) is not worth it for us. We eat cheese so seldom that we don't really mind paying luxury prices for it at the department stores, so although I love cheese it was not worth joining for that, either.

So we unjoined, were refunded our money, and have never been back.

Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food, the writer suggests, and when I look at my daily diet I realize that although my great-great-grandmother probably wouldn't have recognized kikuna or komatsuna or mizuna or kombu, SOMEBODY'S great-great-grandmother probably did.

And that makes it all right, doesn't it?

I hadn't thought about the food I miss for ages, and I was doing all right before I started thinking about tamarillos. (With a little sugar sprinkled over them, and a blob of fresh whipped cream.) I am now convinced that this cold was caused by a tamarillo deficiency.

(Although I'm feeling much better now, thank you.)