Traditional diets connect people to their cultural history, but more significantly than that, peoples have co-evolved with food. The co-evolution of peoples with their place-specific diets has allowed the consumers to efficiently assimilate into themselves the necessary nutrients from regionally available foodstuffs. Changes in diet have consistently occurred over time, though on a gradual basis, in tune with the migration of people. New food items are introduced into diets by traders and travelers and if accepted have been cultivated when possible. Subsequent generations of the introduced crop become adapted to the region as well as to the people who inhabit it.
For those groups whose diets evolved more rapidly than the consumers, re-establishing a connection to the diet that they evolved with would contribute to the reduction in diet-related disease. Additionally a reconnection could act as a vector through which an increased connection to ones cultural history could be achieved. America has become so proficient at exporting its diet to the world, it has become desired globally. Now the foodstuffs alone do not suffice, the ideology is desired and has begun to permeate the belief systems of other regions as well. The efficiency of globalism in making the foodstuffs themselves and the ideology behind their production widely available has allowed for their adoption more rapidly than the novel consumers can evolve to efficiently utilize thus leading to disease in the forms of diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
Peoples that have immigrated to different global regions may not be able to maintain their traditional diet due lack of availability but their past could inform new food choices. There are several traditional meals that I can recall eating regularly as I grew up, none of which I consume any longer. The most immediate impact I may have on promoting other people to readopt their traditional diet, or a variance of it, would be to do so myself. By replicating traditional meals and the experience surrounding it; the gathering, preparing and eating of the food with others, I may prompt others to do the same.
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I wonder what kind (if any) of cool video you might be able to find to help link to your posts? I think it would (pardon the pun) really spice it up.
ReplyDeleteJonathan,
ReplyDeleteYour comments about traditional diets are very informative. I have seen similar discussions in ethnic commuunities such as indigenous Hawaiians. For me, I wonder how do we determine what a traditional diet would be? For instance, my ancestors in southern China ate a lot of rice and vegetables, and not much meat. Meat was a highly prized commodity among families, so this might be one reason that soy products such as tofu and soy milk were central to our diet.
Nowadays when I talk with folks in this area about trying to eat more traditionally they often tell me about the dangers of soy products since soy beans are often genetically modified. Dairy products are another aspect of our diets. Many people of color aren't able to absorb dairy products such as milk because our ancestors didn't consume these foods.
Joyce
Over our brief summer break, I read Coming Home to Eat by Gary Paul Nabhan. It's a book about eating locally for a year in Arizona, but the special thing about it (to me) was his exploration of local traditional diets - what the people who lived there ate before Spanish settlers arrived.
ReplyDeleteIt put the whole eating locally thing into a new perspective for me. It also made me reflect on the fact that I can't identify cultural foods coming down through my family, nor am I familiar with local and traditional native foods beyond salmon and salmonberries.