Eat traditional foods for health, function

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Connection to nature is vital in our understanding about what to eat.

Too many of us have lost touch with the earth and that disconnection is destroying our health.

We place our manicured feet in fancy shoes that press on gas pedals rolling fast over paved streets.

We walk on varnished floors in slippery heals.

We ride escalators and elevators and spend our days floating above the earth.

We sleep stories up on beds perched upon hovering floors.

We eat food that has been processed to such a degree that it no longer reveals any semblance of the earthly product it once was.

No wonder life feels so precarious.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the the shiny packages and obscenely colored, artificially flavored foods we consume.

A corporate marketing ploy is more likely to shape a person’s food decisions than deep-rooted family history, long standing ancestral knowledge about food and health, or connection to what the earth provides.

No matter how civilized we may become, humans can not outgrow or outsmart the need for natural, wholesome foods.

Renowned health researcher Dr. Weston A. Price proved this when he travelled the world in the early 1900s gathering data about the health of primitive people eating natural versus modern diets.

He found that when people transition from their native, natural diets to a diet of modern, processed foods especially high in white flour, sugar and marmalades, they suffered physical deformity, rotting teeth, severe arthritis, tuberculosis and more.

It has become clear that the experiment with processed foods has failed to provide the health that we all have the genetic capability of achieving. We need real food but what does that mean?

It is impossible to understand what real food is without understanding how food grows and where it comes from.

Observing nature and its ecosystems is vital in making wise decisions about what to eat.

Fall is the time when hunters and foragers connect with the primacy of survival. Fall is the time we head for the mountains and search for food. Fall is the time we assess how well the ecosystems did this year.

One rarely feels more close to what it means to be human on earth, to be grounded and fulfilled, than when bringing in baskets of wild mushrooms and berries, stalking an animal, or harvesting our gardens.

Securing the bounty of fall is human work of the highest order. We know that the earth’s food connects us to the wisdom of the past.

We know, we are prepared for winter. We know, the ecosystems made it another year. We know, our bodies have real food to eat and that is just what they need.