| In the past several months, I've learned more than ever before about traditional food preservation methods. I live in a climate that produces fresh food year round, so I never saw a need to preserve food. Thus, while making my own jam or pickles sounded interesting, I saw no reason to do so. Then the bad press about BPA (bisphenol A) began to heat up, and I got concerned about BPA in the can lining for tomatoes. I normally eat my veggies fresh, not canned, but I DO buy processed tomato products. Upon learning about BPA, I bought home canning equipment. Thus began my adventures in home canning and other methods of making and preserving my own food - first jam, then yogurt.
Reasons to make your own food from scratch are many (fun, health, cost, control over what is in your food, the ability to make food that is exactly how you like it, etc) but I'm learning a lesson that is far more important as I go. We humans evolved over millennia, and our bodies evolved to receive nourishment from the foods we had available. Simultaneously, our foods evolved as we continued and perfected foods that made us well and discontinued eating or making foods that made us sick.
As I begin to learn about traditional food preparation and preservation methods such as this, it becomes more and more clear to me how and why our current food gives us so many problems. Food today is sterile, refined, engineered, shelf-stable, and often quite artificial. In contrast, sauerkraut (which I learned to make yesterday) is made of whole foods, it's not refined, it's not artificial, and it's about as far from sterile as you can get (it's a probiotic, like yogurt).
This week I read an article I posted here about traditional methods of preparing grains that talked about fermenting them, sprouting them, and other processes (like soaking in buttermilk prior to cooking) that take very little effort but much more forethought than we like to give our meals these days. Thinking the night before to soak your grains doesn't fit into a culture of instant gratification. But, according to the article, these traditional cooking methods make the grains more healthful to us.
One study of public opinion I read found that Americans think healthy food means fruits, vegetables, and chicken. Increasingly, we're hearing that we should eat whole grains, lean meats, and low fat dairy. My own diet is far (FAR!) from perfect, but when I'm eating what I would consider to be healthy food, I stick to roasted veggies with olive oil, whole grains (oatmeal, quinoa, millet, amaranth, brown rice, wheat bread), beans, and raw fruits and veggies.
The cost, for the most part, isn't the problem. I can afford this stuff because I buy it from the farmers' market every Sunday and I'm good at picking foods I can afford (no $4/pint figs, sadly... even though I really, really want them!). Food prep usually isn't a problem either. I tend to let stuff go bad by accident, and sometimes I go for convenience food instead of cooking because my dishes are all dirty and I don't want to wash them. I'm far from perfect.
But I thought that I at least knew what healthy food was and how to prepare it. And I think I am correct in saying that my healthy foods, when I do make them and eat them, are much healthier than what the majority of Americans eat. In fact, my health foods are probably healthier than most people's health foods. Boneless skinless factory farmed chicken ain't a health food.
That said, my healthy foods almost all require modern conveniences like refrigerators. When you begin to examine some of the traditional foods I'm now learning about - soaked or fermented grains, raw milk, sauerkraut, etc - there are an awful lot of incredibly healthy foods that I do not eat simply because I don't realize that they are healthy (or that they are healthier than what I'm eating now), my modern conveniences don't require me to use traditional cooking and food preservation methods, and - in the case of raw milk - laws actually forbid me from buying them. |
