The quick answer: The path to eating well begins in the head. Practice prudence and thanksgiving.
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Reflections
A few years ago my interest turned to nutrition. Could a normal person, amidst all the confusion about food, I wondered, solve the puzzle of what to eat? In the beginning, it seemed as simple as “eat this, not that.” Now, several years into the journey, I respect the complexity of nutrition, and the simple elegance of traditional foods. The answer to what we should put in our mouths seems to begin with what’s in our head—our outlook.
In the ‘30s a pioneering dentist researched the cause of tooth decay by visiting the aborigines of every continent and clime, comparing their teeth to those of their cousins who had moved to the city and converted to the modern diet. The native dietary was as varied as their landscape but one thing was constant: natives living on their traditional foodstuffs rarely had dental decay or the need for orthodontia; their cousins who moved to the cities and ate the modern diet did. Dr. Price demonstrated that cavities could be healed by diet reform, and thought it a better solution that drilling and filling the cavity. He wrote a book that became a classic after his death, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. He also made an important conclusion: The cavity in your tooth is not a problem of that tooth—it’s an early warning of a health problem affecting your whole body.
If you've heard of Dr. Weston A. Price, you’re an unusual person. If your dentist is aware of his work, he’s also unusual because the powers-that-be didn’t want to hear Dr. Price’s message—that improving nutrition was a better solution than drilling and filling the cavities as they occurred.
This is a provocative idea, that eating right starts with thinking right. In this post we discuss two attributes of people who see beyond the conventional wisdom—prudence and thanksgiving—by first looking at those remarkable Pilgrims who founded the first successful colony in America.
The First Thanksgiving, 1621
You know the story of the Pilgrims sitting down with their Indian benefactors to celebrate the first harvest. They counted themselves blessed, even though their condition was most humble. Their survival had hung in the balance—of the 104 Mayflower passengers just 53 survived the first winter. Weakened in numbers, they held their burials at night, lest the Indians see and take advantage. But now, stronger for what they had overcome and with the harvest safely gathered, they paused to return thanks.
In Boston, one’s social standing improves if Mayflower ancestors are proven. It’s not such a rare thing—millions of Americans are descents but most are unaware. I once checked our family history against the Mayflower passenger list and found the Chilton family, of whom only Mary Chilton, age 13, survived that first winter, and George Soule, sponsored by Edward Winslow, the sometimes governor. Mary later married John Winslow, Edward’s brother, so there is a tie to the Winslow family. This led me to an interest in Pilgrim and Puritan history, and a few stories I like to recount on Thanksgiving. I gained one other thing: an appreciation for the hard-earned Pilgrim values of prudence and thanksgiving.
The Specter of Famine
In recent years we’ve heard disquieting discourses on the decline of food stocks around the world, as well as people impoverished by the resultant rise in prices. Last week Stanford hosted a conference and Kofi Annan, past UN secretary general and Nobel Laureate, made these points:
- The number of hungry people, about a billion, is growing rather than shrinking.
- Food reserves around the world are also shrinking, which increases the risk of global famine.
- Africa is key; though plagued by dysfunctional governments, it possesses 2/3 of the world’s unused arable land.
Unless there are fundamental changes, the shortage of sufficient affordable food will continue to grow. Annan called for Western nations to give more money to develop Africa. I was okay until Annan asked for money—I question whether more Western money is the answer.
Here’s a trend that Annan didn’t mention: As nations develop and grow in prosperity, they adopt the modern American diet (MAD). The MAD diet is high in meat (the least productive use of land and water) and refined grains (the least healthful use of the world’s main food commodity). Because foreign aid tends to advance the agenda of the donor nation, it’s likely that Western aid will simply spread the MAD diet.
Prudence
Here’s a prudent idea: Before we can properly help the world to eat, we must first learn to eat well ourselves. This is best done if we embrace the qualities of prudence, meaning to be “canny, careful, cautious, circumspect, discerning, discreet, economical, far-sighted, frugal, judicious, provident, sagacious, thrifty and vigilant.”
This morning I took the garbage cans out to the curb for collection. One container is for garbage, the other for things to recycle. In the past the cans would be overflowing but now, after a year of learning how we should eat I’m surprised that we’re creating less garbage. We buy more whole foods, and less packaged goods. We cook a little more, but we waste less.
I met a charming woman recently who was Basque, visiting from a small town in the Pyrenees Mountains of southern France. I wondered about her diet, about her food traditions. Last month she commented on this blog, sharing a family recipe for eggplant—La Zingara (which translates, I think, to “gypsy girl”). Last night I made the recipe, a sauce that we put on homemade bread, for dinner. It was tasty, healthy, and economical, so I share the Basque Woman’s (as she identified herself) recipe:
Recipe for Eggplant La Zingara
Ingredients:
1 big eggplant
1 or 2 T tomato paste, or 3 tomatoes if you have time to cook them down.
1 clove garlic
1 T olive oil
½ cup grated Swiss cheese (I used a cup)
Directions:
1. Boil water, well salted, sufficient to cover the eggplant. Peel and cube the eggplant. Plunge the cubes into boiling water. Cover and cook until soft.
2. In a separate pan, cook the garlic in olive oil and add tomato paste or tomatoes. Cook the tomato mixture until the eggplant is done.
3. Put the drained eggplant cubes and the tomato mixture in a blender and puree.
4. Return the eggplant mixture to the pan, heat gently, and stir in the grated cheese, until melted.
5. Serve the eggplant as a sauce over bread, or meat.
Note: Rather than open a can of tomato paste, I used some tomatoes about to go bad. This added more liquid than using tomato paste so rather than take time to cook down the mixture, I doubled the cheese to thicken the sauce. It tasted great and was easy to make.
Message to the charming Basque Woman: More family recipes please.
The Bottom Line
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving day. If you have time read this N. Y. Times article about the benefits of thankfulness. There is something healing about the "attitude of graditude." Here's another benefit: If we are filled with the wisdom of prudence and thanksgiving for food as it comes from Nature, the siren song of Food Inc’s marketers will have no influence with us.
Please comment on how a prudent attitude affects what you eat. Or how thankfulness for food as it comes from nature guides what you buy.
Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.