brought to you by
Nature Cure
Keith Spaulding ND LAc
see Dr. Spaulding's Book
Being Vital, Simple Ways to Live
Healthy in a Stressful World
|
Food for a
Thousand-Year Culture |
The following article is copyrighted to the publisher (Nature Cure). Article can be used for informational purposes only but please contact the publisher for permission.
Imagine a population eating a diet and developing chronic illnesses younger with every generation, whose young people become hyperactive with difficulty concentrating and whose decreasing sperm count in males causes a lower fertility rate. This is the diet of late 20th century America that is still going strong into the 21st century.
Food should be nurturing. Food
should make us more vital and able to accomplish our greatest goals.
Food should nourish our minds and souls. The food isn’t the aim, but it
provides strength so we can be the best we can. Unfortunately our food
doesn’t.
The modern American diet is depleting: It makes us more tired, requiring
stimulants to keep us going. It propels people into dreadful states of
prolonged anxiety and depression. Our food feeds cravings and
addictions; it doesn’t feed potentially great human souls.
Imagine running a zoo where the aim
isn’t just for the amusement of the visitors, the aim is to assist the
species to excel: figure out more problems, have more productive play
time with family and be stronger into old age. To feed these advanced
species, would you refine the food, taking out the most important
nutrients? Would you limit the number of foods so a species that
normally ate 30 different foods each season now eats only 10 foods all
year long? After one or two generations you’d find lethargy, more
difficulty in breeding and certainly less productivity (and the
chimpanzees would start drinking Red Bull!).
What is the blueprint for a diet that is sustainable with the ecology
and yet nourishes the population to allow them to develop to their
maximum potential? To help find a solution, let’s look back. There have
been numerous cultures in history with a sustainable way of living that
also excelled in philosophy, medicine, the arts and spiritual
technologies, leaving behind jewels for future generations to build on.
These cultures thrived for hundreds, even thousands of years. Ancient
Egypt and ancient Greece are two examples of successful long-term
cultures.
Ancient Egypt
It’s difficult to follow any
development of our western culture and not trace its roots back to
ancient Egypt. Egyptians had the control of their materials and
technology to build great cities. They laid the foundation of thought,
medicine and government that was later enriched by the Greeks and then
Europeans and contributed to our modern western civilization. They
worshiped and prayed to great, light-giving, male-oriented sun gods that
supposedly supported the ruling powers (sounds familiar). And amazingly,
they were the center of the “civilized world” for thousands of years.
Thousands of years.
The Nile literally supplied the waters of life: The cyclical flooding
filled the man-made canals and basins, supplying water and rich black
earth to the dry, barren region. Abundant sunshine, water and rich earth
supplied food and life to the population (like California today, except
the water supply and fertilizers were sustainable).
What did they eat? Bread and beer. I was excited to see that the staple
for ancient Egyptians, both rich and poor, was bread and beer. But we
aren’t talking about Wonder bread and a six-pack of Bud.
The bread was made from a variety of grains and cereals, but wheat was
most commonly used. Yeast, salt, spices, milk and sometimes butter and
eggs were added, before the bread was patted into various shapes. The
bread was hearty and thick, with beans or vegetables added or served
sweetened with honey, dates, sesame and fruit.
Both rich and poor drank the beer, although the rich also had the luxury
of wine. The beer was less intoxicating than modern beers, made from all
the grains available, but wheat was the most common, with spices added
for variety. Also the beer was thicker, more nutritive and sweeter,
probably similar to some of the bitters found in England. But I doubt
the ancient Egyptians went to local sporting matches, drank eight beers
and beat each other up.
Fermented drinks played an important part in the food and diet in most
cultures. The drink supplied nutrition and softened the hard breads, the
alcohol killed some of the bad bacteria in the foods and the
fermentation helped supply good bacteria to support digestion.
Of course they ate more than beer and bread; the fertile Nile valley
provided an abundance of fruits and vegetables, probably all year long.
Dates were a popular sweetener for the poor, while the rich used honey.
Other available fruits were figs, grapes, raisins – sulfite-free, I
imagine – pomegranates, watermelons and plums. The most common
vegetables were chickpeas, lentils, green peas, leeks and Egyptian
lettuce. Garlic and onions were eaten often as foods with medicinal
values.
With a lush countryside, you’d find numerous animals eating the foliage,
and the people hunted and ate geese, ducks, quail and crane. Poultry was
later domesticated and eaten as a staple. The rich had more choices for
their foods; they commonly ate beef, sheep and goat and sipped fine
Egyptian wine.
For their essential fats, the ancient Egyptians fried their vegetables
and meats and ate a variety of oils made from sesame, castor oil, flax
seed, radish seed, horseradish, safflower and colocynth. Food was also
prepared with milk and butter. Since the meats were not refrigerated,
they used spices in drying and to make them friendlier to the digestive
system. Aniseed, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, fenugreek,
marjoram, mustard, sesame and thyme were all common.
The kingdoms and dynasties of ancient Egypt rose and fell over thousands
of years, but around 500 BCE other city-states across the Mediterranean
began to prosper and grow more powerful.
Ancient Greece
Compared to the rich Nile valley, Greece is
more rugged, with fewer large open areas for fruit and vegetable
farming. Hence the ancient Greeks’ diets centered around breads, yet
again, but more of their nutrition came from a variety of meats and
fish.
The two main grains used to make bread were wheat and barley. Barley was
more prevalent but more difficult to grind into a flour, so it was
grilled before milling. Both grains were often soaked before milling,
and the breads were commonly flavored with cheese or honey.
Onions and garlic were everyday vegetables – easy to grow anywhere and
keep for a long time. Onions and cheeses were used as military staples.
A song celebrating the end of war
sings Oh! joy, joy! no more helmet, no more cheese nor onions. We
give our modern soldiers hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza. Good thing we
have superior technology.
From the Greek’s semi-nomadic history, meat and fish played an important
role in their sustenance, as well as in the cultural life of festivals.
The food varied depending on wealth and location in the country. Wealthy
landowners raised goats, pigs and sheep. In the country regular hunting
put birds and rabbits on the table, and peasants with small farms raised
chicken and geese. As expected with no refrigeration – the great boon of
modern life – meat had to be salted and dried to keep it from rotting.
Pork was a common food for the inland areas. The Spartans were famous
for eating a black gruel, a type of pork stew consisting of pork, salt,
vinegar and blood, served with figs and cheese.
Considering Greece’s geography, with hundreds of islands and a long coastline on the mainland, fresh fish, squid, octopus and shellfish provided varied protein sources (I think I’d rather live there than Sparta). In Athens the people ate fresh, but more frequently salted, anchovies and sardines.
Water was
appreciated and the only beverage for many people. The
Greeks were so attuned to their water they classified it as
heavy, dry, acidic, sweet, sour and
wine-like. Some philosophers had a reputation of eating a vegetarian
diet, with some goat cheese, and drinking only water.
But of course the Greeks drank wine. Like today in Greece and throughout
the world, wines were offered in many tastes and qualities. The wine was
mixed with water, and drinking it straight was considered a barbaric act
only done in cultures of the North. Wine may have been sweetened with
honey, and, like the Chinese, the Greeks made their wine medicinal by
adding herbs. Beverages were important: Hardy bread that was difficult
to chew was dipped in wine or milk to soften before eating.
We don’t need to follow a diet that was practiced just by the ancient
Greeks or Egyptians. It is important to use all the tools available to
us to solve the problems of today. But to look forward to a sustainable
future, I think we benefit by learning about the thriving, sustainable
cultures in our past.