post originally written for the Cricket Creek Farm newsletter on May 26th, 2013…
This morning I was setting the New York Times out for sale in the farm store when a story on the front page of the Sunday Review section caught my eye. The article is calledBreeding Nutrition out of Food. The article starts out with a poignant 2,500 year old quote from Hippocrates, “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. Many people (and increasingly more) are aware of the tremendous impact that food has on our immune systems, ability to heal ourselves, ability to stave off disease and degeneration, mood, energy level, and emotional wellbeing. However, the article makes the claim that eating the right types of foods may not be enough and that varieties are so important. I have written before in this newsletter about the loss of genetic diversity in our dwindling seed pool. This is another example of that. Author Jo Robinson writes, “each fruit and vegetable in our stores has a unique history of nutrient loss”. She explains that wild and foraged food that has not been bred for reduced bitters, high sugars, starches and oils, are much better for you. She uses the example of dandelion greens which “have seven times more phytonutrients than spinach, which we consider a ‘superfood'”. She also shares that an old variety purple potato from Peru has “28 times the cancer-fighting anthocyanins [antioxidants, as I understand them] than common russet potatoes”.
The article takes the reader through a short history of the domestication of corn, and how sweet corn came about. Robinson ends with the recommendation that in order to recoup the nutritional losses found in the typical sweet corn, select corn with the deepest yellow kernels, and cook with blue, red, or purple cornmeal. The not-as-sweet “Indian” corn that is typically used as decoration and not thought of as food is more nutritionally dense than the pale yellow corn we’re used to. She also suggests seeking out arugula, “some varieties were domesticated as recently as the 1970s, thousands of years after most fruits and vegetables had come under our sway”, and scallions “jewels of nutrition hiding in plain sight…they have five times more phytonutrients than many common onions do.”
I enjoyed reading this article because as many people are, I am figuring out my own process of healing and like to think about all refinements that I can make in my own food consumption. I know that the foods I eat have a tremendous effect on my mood, energy level, strength, and overall wellbeing, and it goes much deeper than just eating fresh fruits and veggies, etc. I find it exciting to think about the wonderful potential of some of these native or foraged plant varieties in relation to my own body sharing them with my loved ones as we all grow up (aka age). Jo Robinson has a new book, Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health. Find it at your local bookstore!
Infographic below from the New York Times…
