More Food For Thought

You are what you eat, so don’t be a hamburger all your life:  Read what Petra Brockmann has to say about healthy eating and start benefitting from what’s NOT in your meals as much as from what is…

Dear readers,

Still on the subject of "food for thought", I would like to write a few lines about a thing which is all the rage at present, and it goes by the German name of – nice little tongue-twister –: "Nahrungsergänzungsmittel" better known by Brits, and easier to pronounce too, as “food supplements”.  The aim is to convince us that the food we eat is not enough, and that it needs to be supplemented with certain substances. These substances are usually a varying mix of vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, produced artificially and to be purchased for quite a bit of money in pharmacies, over the internet and through other outlets.

The bad news is that it is probably true that the food we buy in the local supermarket nowadays is not sufficient to provide our system with all it needs in terms of nourishment. Conventionally grown fruit and veg and industrially processed foods are often stripped of valuable components. If you think of rice, for example, or of grains, that which is valuable – the minerals and vitamins, enzymes and other micro-nutrients – is contained in the skin of the grain. And it is exactly that which is stripped off before the rice, or wheat, or any other grain reaches our table. The minerals we miss out on because we eat white rice, or white – or whitish – bread need to be replaced in the form of tablets or powders – food supplements – which we pay extra to buy.

Would it not make more sense to buy the entire product – the rice or wheat corn including the skin – in the first place and eat that?

Industrially processed food presents another problem, too. The various treatments that cheese and meat, vegetables and fruit – or indeed herbs and spices – have undergone by the time we put them in our shopping trolley at the supermarket have resulted in the food being contaminated by a cocktail of chemicals: preservatives, food colouring, a host of "E"s, anti-biotics and other medicines (in the case of meat) and – most recently – possibly genetically modified elements.

 

It is not surprising, then, that the number of people who develop food intolerances or are allergic to certain foods is rising steadily. What you get is not simply what you see – it is what you don’t see that gets to you. In reality, it is not the food that people react to – it is the multitude of artificial substances that are added. Common sense lets one arrive at the conclusion, I believe, that simply adding more artificial substances – namely food supplements – is not going to solve the problem.

In my opinion, a step towards solving the problem lies in buying organic produce. Visit your local heath food shop and see what they stock – you might be surprised. The range is vast – fresh fruit and veg, meat, breads, grains, sweets, bread spreads, cheeses, even fast-food … you name it. Many people shy away from health food shops because they fear the costs. For one thing, the health food shops and supermarkets nowadays have special offers of the week – just like any other supermarket. If you buy the fruit and vegetable of the season, very often you pay hardly more than what you would pay for conventionally grown/produced stuff. And if you think of what you save because you don’t have to buy the food supplements, and because you don’t have to pay for treatment for the food intolerances or other conditions induced by chemical food additives, things look much different already. Plus the organically grown and produced products taste so much better – that you may not believe until you have tried it. Even if you replace only part of your weekly shopping at the supermarket with food you buy at your local health food shop, the first step is made.

I think it is a step well worth taking. Think: When you buy a new DVD player, or oil for the engine of your car, or a new mobile, you go for quality, too. Why act differently when what you eat is concerned. After all, you are what you eat

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