Food History

[shades]

Hi Jeff and All.

I have just one question.

How can I be suppose to eat items that are not native to my country much less my region?
Surely that can't be right unless you're just gonna say I'd die sooner without imported items.

jennifer

[JeffN]

Hi Jeff and All.

I have just one question.

How can I be suppose to eat items that are not native to my country much less my region?
Surely that can't be right unless you're just gonna say I'd die sooner without imported items.

jennifer

Hi Jennifer

I am not sure I understand your question.

However, while we are fortunate to have a food supply where we can reap the benefit of eating foods from around the world, it is not a requirement.

Certain long lived cultures have lived exclusively on their local diet, or did before western influence. These include the Pima and Tarahumara Indians in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico, the native Hawaiians, the eldery Okinawans, the Sardians of Italy, the Greek Orthodox Monks and those on the island of Crete.

Eating locally is a great idea and I would encourage it. But, I would not deprive myself or ignore the abundance of great healthy food that has been made available due to modern agriculture and transportation methods.


In Health
Jeff Novick, MS, RD

[PKM]

Just like I’m from Wisconsin – the U.S. “dairy land”, and I don’t eat dairy, LOL

[susie]

Jeff I am sorry if my posts are plastered all over your section, but I wanted to add that all food I eat here in Australia, is not native to this area.

Now I know that the Aboriginal people ate bush tucker and some of them still do. However all the food I eat has come here via some other country. As far as I know, macadamias are the only widely grown native Australian food eaten.

Potatoes, vegetables, fruits and meats have all been brought here via sailing ships coming here via places like the Canary Islands, Europe, South America and Africa. Of course fish abound, so do kangaroos and wallabies, however it is hard to find kangaroo steaks in the stores. We now grow most of the foods here and import seeds, grains and nuts from distant shores.

However my point is that the food that makes up most of my diet, originally came from distant shores.

[vwnut]

This got me thinking about outer space colonization where all food will have to be imported. Space travellers may all have to be eating the McDougall way.
Doug

[AnnaS]

susie--you might be interested in a book I read recently, "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond. He asks the question why some cultures developed modern tools, writing and modern weapons, while others did not (Native Americans, Australian native people, etc.) He finds the explanation, and it's quite interesting, in the native availability of wild foods and domesticatable animals in each region. For various reasons, in North America there were no domesticatable animals except dogs--this meant no beasts of burden which means no easy way to cultivate large fields, etc. In regions where more modern cultures developed (mediterranean, europe, china) there was a native base of wild grains that allowed for easy collection of these foods (even thousands of years BEFORE the grains were domesticated 10,000 years ago) and several kinds of animals that could be domesticated. There are other parts to his thesis, I'm just simplifying it here. Interestingly, in North America and in Australia, there were also no suitable grains native to the area for either wild collecting or for domestication. (Corn came to north america fairly late in history.) There are also geographic reasons why in Asia for example new developments such as writing systems and food production knowledge could spread easily (east to west) and did, whereas relative isolation in other places prevented this.

What I love about his book is that he takes the idea of racism (inherent intelligence, abilities, development) and just THROWS it out the window completely. There is nothing "different" about people in primitive cultures, he explains, except what resources they have available. In every place where less advanced cultures imported food plants and other technology they quickly reached the same levels of expertise, creativity and civilization (for example writing) as other cultures that had this for thousands of years.

Fundamentally, food production (or lack thereof) drives all of the rest of civilization's development. Interesting! Of course, successful civilization has its down sides, and that's where the 'guns, germs and steel' comes in. The terrible disadvantage that native people in North America had was no immunity to the communicable diseases (which come from domesticated animal culture), which is why 90% of the population died long before the main influx of European settlers arrived here. I find this book well worth reading and thinking about!
--Anna

[Clary]

I find this book well worth reading and thinking about!
--Anna

Thanks for the review, Anna. I've added Guns, Germs and Steel to my wish list.

[AnnaS]

The Diamond book was first published quite some time ago, 1997--so most libraries will have it. The newer edition though (mine is 2005) has an added chapter on Japan that's pretty interesting.

By the way, Diamond has long-time connections to New Guinea and many of his specific examples and ideas come from discussion of their fascinating cultures. The interesting thing (to me anyway) about the book though, is how he talks about global interrelationships, spread of technology, language, influences, etc. A neat overview of world history.

[Buffy]

"Guns, Germs and Steel" is a great book. Jared Diamond then wrote "Collapse", which discusses why some civilisations fail and others succeed. I found Collapse an interesting sequel to Guns, Germs and Steel.

[susie]

Anna it was a Jared Diamond book The Rise of the Third Chimpanzee that first sparked my interest in the recent development of grains. He devoted a small chapter to the subject. I also have Collapse and shall look for the other one mentioned.

Of course New Guinea is our nearest neighbour and there are several islands of the Northern Coast of Australia that are the home of Torres Strait Islanders, an Aboriginal group different to the mainland Aborigines.

Australia was the home of a large populations of megafauna, however with the advent of people moving south on this continent, these were killed I guess for either meat and protection. That left only smaller, soft footed animals. Nothing suitable for pulling plows.

This continent was originally covered with rainforest and the Aboriginal people burnt these to give them better access to game. This changed the landscape and over many thousands of years, rain leached the minerals from the soil, making it useless for agriculture.

I live in the largest state in the country, covering one third of the continent. However much of this area is covered by deserts. The Aboriginal people had the bushcraft skills to live in this locality. With all our advances in technology, we cannot even survive there for a short time. The Aborigines were highly skilled survivalists.

Of course there are wild grasses, but none suitable to gather and sow. Aboriginal people ate the ground wattle seeds, a legume and ate these. However these are seasonal. Without strong silos to store grains, one cannot sow crops.

Its an interesting topic and one scientists are still trying to uncover.

[shades]

Well, come 'on, I am talking about if I live in the Midwest and we don't grow avocados how could I depend on avocados?

How would I be supposed to eat olive oil. We don't grow olives here.

Does anyone see what I'm talking about?

Not what I can buy at Walmart that was picked green 2 months before! That's got to be a joke on all consumers.

I didn't read the book but I saw the 'movie':) on PBS, Guns, Germs and Steele or whatever it was.

[susie]

Shades I see what you are getting at. I live in Australia where it has now become law that retailers have to display country of origin on fresh produce. This came about after it was disclosed that local producers were being forced out of business by imported produce from China, Mexico and other far flung places. I wpouldn't worry too much about foods grown in the US, but I would draw the line at food from Asia.

Here tropical fruit comes from the Top End of the country. I still love eating mangoes from Darwin and mushrooms from Melbourne. Luckily we don't irradiate our produce so that soft fruits don't last 2 months or more.

Try to figure out a way out of the mess that is our food supply.