In defense of real food.

What defines food?

/fo͞od/
Noun
Any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink, or that plants absorb, in order to maintain life and growth.

In response to a post on Facebook focused on the addictive properties of sugar, one reader commented, “People can convince themselves that everything is bad. I, however, think that concerning food, we should eat a little bit of everything.”

Refined sugar is not a food. It has no nutritional value: no vitamins, no minerals, no enzymes, no fiber.

No processed foods.

The healthy population groups that Dr. Weston A. Price discovered and observed didn’t eat a little of everything. They only ate nutrient dense food, they ate what grew locally and seasonally. They didn’t have any processed food of any kind. My mother grew up in Morocco, and similarly, no processed food of any kind. We live in an industrialized food system that offers us non-food, or what Joel Salatin, the farmer/author refers to as unpronounceable. It isn’t actually food.

From our educational materials: “The aboriginal diet was most interesting.  It had a lot of variety, including fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. The grains and legumes were prepared with great care. They were placed in leaching baskets in a running stream for two weeks and then prepared by roasting, pounding and cooking. We see this careful preparation of grains and legumes in all traditional societies that ate these kinds of foods. Nonetheless, the  diet was still based on animal foods. They hunted birds, they fished, they hunted game animals. As in other cultures, once again we find the tradition of never eating lean meat. They hunted animals at times of the year when the animals would have the most fat. If a certain bush was in flower, that meant a certain animal was fat so they hunted that animal. They left fruit on the trees so that the birds would get fat, they wanted the fat. If they killed a kangaroo and it was too lean, they discarded it.” So, there is evidence that healthy population groups are selective about what they eat.

This photos that Dr. Price captured  of those who ate traditionally prepared, real food exclusively reveal what radiant health and wholeness look like.

I think when it comes to real food, and only real food – then perhaps a little bit of everything may be apropos depending on each person. However, I am not convinced that we need a little bit of everything the industrialized “food” model produces. One may argue that some consumption of “non-foods” is all a part of moderation and balance. I would counter everything in moderation, including moderation. For most of us refined sugar is highly addictive. Brain scans reveal that sugar is is as addictive as cocaine. So I would certainly not begrudge anyone a celebratory birthday cake, but I personally would choose to use natural sweeteners such as honey and maple syrup, which we would identify as food. Read about our recommended diet, in this free booklet.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Below are photographs taken by Dr. Weston A. Price that demonstrate what happens when human beings eat “food” we weren’t designed to eat. These photographs are used by permission from the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation who hold the copyright. Please do no share them without their express written consent.

Africans on a traditional diet.

Africans who are eating what Dr. Price referred to as the displacing foods of modern commerce.

The next generation on “modern foods”.

Learn all about Dr. Weston A. Price’s discoveries in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, which we recommend via our Amazon affiliation. Also,  the 21 Day Sugar Detox by Diane Sanfilippo BS NC.

Of related interest, if we eliminate certain “foods” from our diet, are we orthorexic?

What do you think?