Through the Cooking Glass

The major problems I see with the American diet are:

• Dead food – everything is killed to death. There are no beneficial cultures left after we’re done with the food and many nutrients are gone. e.g. canned food, pasteurized dairy, etc. Antibiotics exacerbate this problem.
• Nutrient deficient food – the soil is depleted. We use synthetic fertilizers and never put back nutrients into the soil. We kill the beneficial micro-flora in the soil with pesticides, further depleting the soil (a recent study showed that organic vegetables were about 30% higher in various anti-oxidants than their conventional counterparts). We raise meat on corn (not their natural diet) raised in nutrient deficient soil. We eat refined foods that have no nutrients left. We eat low fat or low carb foods that have all the good stuff taken out.
• Poor assimilation – since our gut flora is out of whack from anti-biotics and dead food, we have a hard time assimilating nutrients. We have also neglected the wisdom of our elders in food processing techniques. We go for fast foods when we should use slow techniques that make foods more assimilable. We should ferment or sprout our grains especially. Beans require extended soakings. Nuts should be soaked as well. Some foods actually require cooking to be edible (e.g. potatoes).
• Untried foods and methods – we eat a lot of new-fangled foods that have had no long term tests. Traditional foods are foods that have been used for hundreds or even thousands of years with no ill effects and even some benefits. Some new-fangled foods may be OK, but we really don’t know. E.G. canola oil, soybean oil, synthetics, genetically engineered foods, etc.
• unripe food – we eat a lot of unripe food because it has to be trucked in from half-way around the world. Unripe food is lower in nutrients and doesn’t taste nearly as good as fresh ripe food. Food is picked early when it is still green and then refrigerated till it gets to the grocery store. It is then gassed to to cause it to turn a ripe color even though it’s not really ripe. It’s far better to eat locally grown fresh food when it is in season. During the winter we can eat grains, beans, meat, and winter vegetables like winter squash, potatoes, etc. I’ve recently been studying the art of root-cellaring. The Chinese would teach us to eat foods in season because the seasonal foods better fit the yearly cycle of our bodies.
• Government emphasis on hosed up food pyramids – In reality low fat is bad, low carb is bad, red meat is good, etc…

What it boils down to is that we’ve thrown out all our food traditions.