The 20th century was a hundred years of significant changes in what we eat. In 1900 food was … well… food, and real. No food pretended to be something it is not, such as chemicals pretending to be sugar. There were few artificial foods or “food products.” Technofood. Food was food and had been so for thousands of years. One should also add that the price of food rarely changed either.

Today food is “nutrition” and much of the “food“ we eat is not real…. well, it exists, so it is real. But it’s not real food. Surprisingly most of the non-real food does not call itself food. It’s called “nutrition.” Hence, the first rule of Green Deane’s thumb: If the packaging tells you it is healthy it probably is not.  An apple does not need to prove itself. An edible weed does not have to prove itself either. A package of white flour, sugar and additives pretending to be a wholesome breakfast does have to prove itself.

I am often asked what’s the nutrition of a particular wild edible. In fact today I was asked the nutritional value of a particular bug. A bug! Not even a big big. A little bug. The mindset is clearly well-established. It’s a curious question, this “what is the nutritional content of X?” It is not a question your grandmother or great grandmother would have asked, or any of her ancestors. Food was food. “Nutrition” did not exist. There were no nutritionists or dietitians. People were eating what people had been eating for most of human history. That humanity thrived proved that what they were eating worked. Our very existence is  prima facie evidence of that. “Nutritionism” had not taken over the food chain. I am not a fan of the past but I think how we ate yesterday is better than we eat today.

To be accurate, nutrition wasn’t a significant idea for the first half of the 20th century. And while there were “dietitians” nutrition did not arise as the main player until the 1980s. That’s when the government, for purely political reasons, started holding hearings on food. Things tend to go down hill when government gets involved, and it was so with food. Politicians “discovered” poverty and hunger in the United States in the early 1960s. The food stamp program was started in 1964 when Democrats held the White House. A few years later under Republican Richard Nixon, the Secretary of  Agriculture, the infamous joke-telling Earl Butz, ended a program that paid farmers NOT to grow corn. Like popcorn that commodity exploded. Some argue it brought down the cost of food. Then in the early 70s Democrat George McGovern, who had presidential aspirations and who had helped discover poverty and hunger in America, started holding congressional hearings of food. There were huge conflicts of interest. Experts were cherry picked while others were threatened with their jobs if they opposed the various committee findings.

The short version of the very protracted event was that the government began to suggest one food over the other, such as chicken over beef. You can imagine the grilling that followed. Lobbies threatened to remove from office any politician who singled out any one food, rightfully or wrongly. McGovern, from a beef-producing state, was vilified and was told to find a way out of the ugly mess his hearings had created (as prediced by the experts who were not cherry picked.) As a result politicians abandoned food recommendations and found legal refuge in “nutrition.” The new position became don’t shun meat but do avoid the bugaboo in meat, saturated fat (based upon the fraudulent research of Ancel Keys, thus compounding the mistake.) So for more than 30 years, nutrition has been the operand factor and one reason why the government’s food pyramid is exactly inverted. It is not based so much on healthy eating as lobbying success, read threats to reelection. This, I think, is behind our health crisis — more cancer, more heart disease — and the obesity epidemic. With the history noted let’s fast forward.

In mid-2011 the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published an editorial about our genetic past and nutrition. They argue our genetic compatibility with food (meaning we can eat it and it helps us thrive) was established 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. They say it has not, as a whole, changed much since with only minor exceptions such as some populations developing the ability to digest lactose (the sugar in milk.)  They also make this observation: Nutritional advice is not working basically because it stops us from eating like our ancestors. I doubt doctors who push pill solutions to problems read such articles.

Consider: When you have a sudden and substantial change in a chronic disease something is happening other than with the disease. We now have babies with adult-onset Type II diabetes, virtually unheard of in children 50 years ago, or even 30 years ago. What’s different? Their high consumption of sugar and high fructose corn syrup (had to do something with all that corn grown post-Earl Butz. That’s also why there is corn-made ethanol ruining the rubber parts in your car’s fuel system.) I think the low-fat high-carb mantra of the past 30 years is behind much of our diseases today including the obesity epidemic. That’s not the only problem. There is also the issue of how we think about food.  Let’s take a closer look at the idea of “nutrition.”

There are many problems eating for “nutrition” rather than just eating real food. One of them is caused by science itself. The brazil nut is a good example. Men who eat brazil nuts regularly have lower rates of prostate cancer, or perhaps more accurately, what prostate cancer they get they get at an older age than usual and it is less aggressive.

The Brazil nut is too complex for science to say why it works as an anti-cancer food. There is also little money to be gained by advising men to eat more Brazil nuts. But, science can break down the Brazil nut, find out what chemicals are in it, and then speculate on that. And that is just what science did. The answer it came up with was selenium.

Selenium was a good candidate in the Brazil nut, a good “nutritional” candidate for the award of somehow preventing prostate issues. So while science could not champion the entire complicated Brazil nut it could champion selenium as a potential nutrient to ward off prostate problems. But then there was a problem: Men taking selenium supplements get cancer sooner and the aggressive kind. Ooops….

One cannot really blame science, but one does have to recognize its shortcoming. The selenium in the Brazil nut does not exist in isolation. It is with a multitude of other naturally-made chemicals in the nut and it could very well be their balance, their relationship or their mutual consumption that makes the entire nut good at preventing prostate cancer. Said another way, the prevention does not come from just the selenium. It does not flow from just the “nutriment.”

A similar issue exists with flax seed. It is touted as a non-meat source of Omega 3 fatty acids, and that is true. So flax seed oil is often recommended for vegetarians to get Omega 3 fatty acids. The problem is the oil by itself has been linked to prostate cancer whereas the entire seed itself has not. Again, science — researchers — reduced the food to its parts then recommended a part only to find the part in isolation was not so healthy. (As an aside I have a suspicion that things which bother the prostate also bother the breast, and things that bother the breast can also bother the prostate. Thus one should pay attention to research regarding which ever you don’t have.) A similar “Ooops” exists with vitamin A and lung cancer. Vitamin A in food is generally good. As a supplement it’s potentially dangerous. Said another way, it is the food not its nutrition that is probably good for you. Fish oil may indeed be good but fish is better (well, in theory before mercury pollution.) But the point is made: Eat food, not nutrition.

One would think eating food not for nutrition would be a focal point of health-conscious people but apparently not. When I go to a “health food store” usually more than half of its space is given to individual nutrients, vitamin A to zinc et cetera. That means even these patrons who think they are eating better than most are caught in the same mindset: Eating nutrients, not food. Eating for “nutrition” ignores that chemical’s place in the food, that food in the larger diet, that diet in lifestyle, and all of that in the environment. It’s like not breathing clean air but rather bottled gasses, seeking out this or that mixture or additive. It’s assuming man-mixed gasses are better than clean air.  It’s consuming parts not the whole.

So, do I know the nutritional profile of say a Bidens alba? Yes, it’s has about twice of everything that spinach has except the oxalates. But is that how we should think of it, as a collection of nutrition? Couldn’t an alternative view be that a variety of food is like the variety of chemicals in the Brazil nut, that it’s the greatest variety of food that produces the best health, and that eating one food over another is like taking too much selenium? Or nitrogen?

“Nutritionism” hasn’t worked well, or shall we say that since its invention it has a short and poor track record. The chemist in the kitchen creating technofood has done more harm than good whereas the way our ancestors ate proved it worked by our very existence. Our great grandparents did not eat for nutrition nor did they shun certain foods. They also ate a wide variety of food simply not eaten today.  Isn’t it time for diet diversity again?  Isn’t it time to Eat The Weeds?

I have long criticized what I call chemists in the kitchen. They brought us such things as cancer-causing additives, artery-damaging trans-fats, insulin-skewing high fructose corn syrup, and untested Genetically Modified Organisms as food. That is not a good track record. These well-intended tinkerers have announced another success soon to be added to the food chain,  Bisin a “natural” substance that inhibits bacterial growth in food.

With a treatment of Bisin a sandwich can stay fresh on the shelf for a year, an open bottle of wine could remain good for years  (that it remains open only a matter of hours in my home makes that benefit seem irrelevant.) Fresh salad dressing could stay fresh for years…. you get the picture, food that will not rot.

Not only that but listen to the spin from the discoverer, microbiologist Dan O’Sullivan of the University of Minnesota:

“(Bisin) seems to be much better than anything which has gone before,” O’Sullivan said. “It doesn’t compromise nutrient quality. We are not adding a chemical: We are adding a natural ingredient.”

To which I would say cyanide is a natural ingredient but…. As a “natural” product Bisin does not have to be pharmaceutically tested and could be in food within a year. It might be wonderful. But, what’s the possible down side?

If Bisin limits bacteria growth might it have the potential to severely compromise our internal flora? Gut bacteria is critically essential to good health. Basically it digests our food and makes up 80% of our immune system. Compromised gut bacteria can lead to a host of illnesses ranging from food intolerances to weight gain to immune diseases. We literally cannot survive without our “internal garden.” Antibiotics already upset that delicate function. A food additive that intentionally kills off bacteria could severely influence our health.  Consider: Bisin has already been shown to kill off the bacteria found in yogurt, which makes up a portion of our intestinal flora. What if Bisin makes our gut a bacterial no man’s land?

More so, the problems could manifest themselves immediately or take decades. We now know that what a newborn is fed can influence their gut bacteria and health for life, that you can predict an increase in certain illnesses as adults based upon gut bacteria as an infant. Is Bisin another trans-fat time bomb, a “safe” substance that will be consumed and take its toll for half a century before being removed?

While I have not read of said I can hear a counter argument getting dressed in the wings: The bacteria won’t survive the acidic stomach to make it to intestines, home sweet home zero for our bacteria. They said the same thing about specific elements in GMOs. They were wrong.

I don’t know if Bisin will slip quietly into the food supply or cause a firestorm but it should be something we should watch. One of the many reasons to forage is to have healthy gut bacteria. Hygiene in modern societies, while getting rid of infectious diseases, has has increased diseases related to impaired internal flora. That wild food we consume is more than just chemically free and un-engineered. It can also contain good bacteria that affects our fundamental health by improving our internal garden. The chemists in the kitchen may have just discovered another potential threat to our health, a threat they will enthusiastically add to the food chain untested as food.

We are, again, guinea pigs.

What Does a Word Smell Like?

During nearly every class I have students smell three or four plants — depending upon the season — and I ask them what common food each plant smells like. I also add a hint, such as “what salad ingredient does it smell like?” or “what nut does it smell like?” I find the exercise interesting in two ways.

Pellitory: Cucumber

First is the fact that few ever guess right the first time. And one can tell some of the guesses are inductive such as naming salad ingredients by descending percentages starting with lettuce. But the more interesting part is the aroma recognition when you tell them the name. Their faces light up, they make a connection, and you hear “yes, that’s what it smells like.”

Kudzu: Grapes

You have to wonder what is going on. Smelling a fragrance is a concrete act. Chemicals meet sensors, an electrical pulse is sent to a particular part of the brain and the memory of the aroma is in there or it is not. Complex enough but putting a word to that memory. Probably only humans do that and perhaps that is the most difficult task. Except for a few words that sound like a sound — oink, tick tick tick, squeal — words are quite abstract. The combination of sounds used to represent any particular thing can be as varied as possible, as any student of languages can attest.

Bitter Gourd: Gym Shoe

It is the searching around for the abstract sound for the concrete aroma that seems to be the difficult part. As scent is often part of the proper identification of an edible — or a toxic — it makes one wonder how dependable that function is. That is why I try to make my descriptions rather specific.

“Kudzu in bloom smells like a classroom full of second graders all chewing cheap, sweet, imitation grape bubble gum.” Or, “the Bitter Gourd leaf smells like an athletic shoe that been in the bottom of a wet high school gym locker for a year.”

Maybe I’m making the task more difficult when I am trying to be very specific. In an abstract description are ten words really better than one or do they help find the memory?  Perhaps worse I build on the abstraction: “It is only one of two plants locally that smell like cucumber, it is one of two plants locally that smell like an old gym shoe.”

What Does A New Plastic Shower Curtain Taste Like … Exactly?

Suggestion can be quite powerful.

Almonds and cherries can smell quite alike depending whether you have been told they smell like almonds or cherries. This is rather important in that unless you have an almond in your hand the smell of almonds in the wild is usually cyanide, best avoided.

Bubble gum shower curtain

Then there are genes. There is a particular plant here in Florida whose fruit is difficult to find because the woodland creatures like it. But people who have found it disagree on its taste and aroma. Some say it tastes and smells like pink, baseball bubble gum. Some say it has no taste or flavor at all. Or (go with me here) some say it tastes and smells like a new plastic shower curtain. (What a new shower curtain tastes like is a bit difficult to imagine.)

One plant (the gopher apple) three tastes and flavors. There can be consensus on an aroma, or a diversity of opinions. In the end how do we know we are all smelling the same smell or putting the proper word to it?

Apples Might Smell Like Steak

One of my uncles on my mother’s side was married twice. His second wife was a walking genetic time bomb. All of her five children had some genetic problem or another, from mild to serious, or passed them on.

Green Steak

One of those cousins was well into his teens before they discovered he was color blind. The problem was he saw all the colors just in different places. Live trees are red to him, dead ones are green et cetera.

When someone said green he saw red but called it green and didn’t know any difference. Thus his color blindness hid well. The discovery of his situation came when his mother told him one day to go to the garden and pick some ripe tomatoes. He came in with all green ones.

Perhaps peoples’ noses are the same. They smell an apple but perceive steak, and abstract words just make it worse.

Your Opinion Smells

The sense of smell is like an opinion, everyone has one and it can vary greatly.

Not everyone smells the same, so to say, nor does my nose speak for all.

Now I tell my students “this is what it smells like to me.”  I am not concerned what abstract word is placed on a particular aroma. I don’t care what they call it, as long as they recognize it.

Can you have a “garden” that you ignore?

I don’t see why not.

Is That A Garden?

Indeed, some might argue that is what my front lawn currently is. I really don’t have a lawn. It’s an open space with fruit trees and other plants, mostly edible weeds. I just went out and counted 13 edible species of weeds, and nibbled on my mulberry tree which is coming into season.

When I stopped mowing my grass regularly, most of these weeds simply volunteered, and then reseeded themselves. I can eat greens for several months without any work beyond harvesting.

Is that a garden?

I’m Eating Mine, He’s Mowing His

I will admit to originally throwing around weed seeds but that was years ago. Yet, every year I get a crop of food off my lawn basically by neglecting it, or at least neglect by the authorities’ point of view. I have been cited twice for having an overgrown lawn in cul-du-sac suburbia.

That tells me I am doing something right.

In fact, as I write this blog and have breakfast, my neighbor is mowing his lawn, a stretch of decapitated grass that resembles a putting green.

I’m eating mine, he’s mowing his.  I think I will lean back, put my feet up, sip some coffee, and listen to him work…. yeah, I know I am doing something right….