CHAT Team Notes - July 7th, 2008

TOPIC: Food as Medicine

“Mechanization of Nature”

- food systems as controllable, standardizable entities

- dogma of “improving” on nature

- mechanization confronts nature, causing an inevitable breakdown with ensuing problems

- medicine, nutrition and food technology struggle to control problems caused by mechanization, leading to more problems

- science works in isolated contexts, without awareness or connection to wider social, environmental or economic systems

Cultivating Different “Ways of Knowing”

- what feels “right” to eat today?

- Is there an instinctive ancestral knowledge?

- If we cannot rely on modern messages of what to eat, HOW do we guide ourselves in other ways?

- How could/would a spiritual connection to food inform our consumption choices?

- How do you convey medicinal knowledge of food via a cookbook without simply listing ingredients and biochemical properties – this leads to an IDEA: a Workbook/Recipe Book

- The modern legal approach differentiates between Food, Medicine and Dietary Supplements – this conveys the notion that food inherently cannot be medicine

- There is a difference between “preservatives” in traditional food preparation methods vs. modern preservatives

Cultural Examples:

- the price of Ethiopian red pepper went up after it began to be used and marketed as food coloring

- millet & sorghum porridge is used as medicine in different African cultures

- bitter leaves & herbs are used medicinally throughout the world

- pumpkin in Kenya is sacred, associated with fertility, stealing it is taboo, pumpkin soup is given to the sick, new mothers, and the newly circumcised

- honey is used medicinally throughout the world, in Kenyan culture it symbolizes the sweetness of life, in Indian Ayurvedic medicine it is thought to have powerful healing properties

- fermented milk with bitter herbs are a medicine in Kenya

- all cultures have “routine” foods for maintaining health, in addition to “special” foods for specific maladies; in Scandinavia, oats, fish oils, milk/cheese, milk porridge all are “routine” foods

- many European countries use fermented vegetables for the maintenance of digestive health, for example sauerkraut and pickled beets

- tea is viewed as having medicinal properties everywhere it is drunk; in Wales it is viewed as being physically and emotionally soothing

- in Britain, beer & wine in moderation are seen as health-promoting; before water sanitation systems were put in places, beer and wine were often the only safe beverages, since water was often polluted and undrinkable

- laverbread, otherwise known as “Welshman’s Caviar” is a boiled, gelatinous seaweed – traditionally rolled in oat flour and fried with bacon, the Welsh view it as a general cure-all due to its high mineral and iodine content

- many of the herbs that are used in daily cooking (parsley, rosemary, etc.) have medicinal properties

- Many cultures use the seasonal and energetic properties of foods to decide how to use them medicinally – for example, Ayurvedic medicine uses different honeys produced at varying times of the year for specific illnesses

- fermented honey, or mead is used as a celebratory beverage in many cultures, while also having medicinal properties