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I’m reading a book right now by Bill Bryson called At Home,
A Short History of Private Life. I’m not quite halfway through. The book is
about human habitations and how they’ve changed over the centuries and why. For
example, when he talks about the cellar, we learn the history of cement among
other things.
It’s an interesting book if you like random information
about human history. What strikes me though is that all the world conquering
that takes place even today is only about one thing. Did you guess oil? You’re
wrong. It’s all about food.
The
history of the modern world, in fact human existence, has always been about
finding or growing more food. Slavery, exploration, colonies, war, science,
community – all these things build from the bottom of Maslow’s famous pyramid.
Jared Diamond writes fascinating, if somewhat difficult to read, books
about human development. I live in the First World, so I get to operate at the
top of that pyramid. Diamond will tell you that humanity didn’t even know about
the top of the pyramid until we had cities large enough to support people who
didn’t have to spend all day, every day working on those bottom two rungs.
Also, because I live in the First World, I am back on the
very bottom rung looking at food. Listen to what Caleb Harper says about apples
in the first minute of this TED Talk.
He mentions that the average age of an apple in a US grocery
store is 11 months old. Then he tells us how “they” preserve the apples to make
this possible.
Not too long ago, I saw a video of someone pouring boiling
water over a fresh apple and collecting the water in a clear bowl underneath.
The water distinctly showed wax floating on top. I had noticed that the water had
wax in it before she started though, so I was skeptical about the severity of
the problem.
But, this was something I felt I could repeat at home. So, I
did. My bowl of water didn’t have nearly the amount of wax as hers, but look at
the apple! It was the same as the one beside it before the boiling water trick.
Don’t ever tell me not to peel my fruit, Ever, again.
Because people will tell you that peeling is wasteful and the bulk of nutrition
is in the rind of anything. So is the bulk of whatever the food industry did.
(I could write a whole other blog about terminology such as the Food Industry)
This is likely a First World problem (as the kids like to
say), but that could be because fresh fruit in winter is a First World problem.
It’s why our ancestors learned how to preserve food in the first place. Even
when I grow my own food, I can’t keep it fresh between harvests.
So, we’ve bred fruit that can travel and come up with ways
to keep it looking fresh 11 months after it’s picked.
We did the same thing somehow with chickens to have fresh
eggs all year round too. Think about that for a second. Birds don’t lay eggs
year round in the wild now do they?
I’ve got that song from the musical Oliver Twist running in
my head, Food, Glorious Food
I have a life-long relationship with food preparation. I
made my first bread when I was 12 and I’m one of the few people I know that
still makes almost all my own bread. I cooked professionally for years.
Here’s what worries me about where we are with food today.
If you live in a city in a northern climate, you are not food secure. To survive
a breakdown in our food system, you need a stash that will last at least a year
and you need to know how to grow food, look after animals or hunt and have the
equipment and knowledge to preserve food. Otherwise, you’re hooped.
Meanwhile, everyone is up in arms over GMOs. So, are GMOs bad?
I have no idea and, frankly, don’t care. Because we have
much bigger problems to tackle than singling out one way we’ve changed our food
over the past 100 years.
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| Peas in the field |
And look at what Caleb Harper thinks we should do! I’m
pretty sure the soil microbiologists would knock a few holes in his idea in
seconds! How do you support the human micro biome by feeding it food that has
never met the planet’s micro biome? Hmmmm
Food security is a basic need and a hugely complex modern
issue. But maybe I just think so because I like to cook and garden.
I mean look what the younglings are into https://www.soylent.com/
Could be my age. Remember this?
