Features

Food for life

We need to re-assess our attitude to food for the sake of our health and well being says Enda Conneely.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

If we want to get our hands on wholesome food that has some life force left in it we have to go out and look for it. No amount of paper generated by various organisations supposed to be hired to protect us from ourselves is a substitute for common sense. We were designed by nature to smell and taste what is good to eat. Furthermore we were given the faculties to reason and learn from our environment and from all information that had been gleaned and recorded by others.

No cheap food

There are a few basic hints to guide us when foraging in the modern world.

Firstly if something seems cheap it is so for a reason, always has been, and it is usually that the energy put into it by someone along the way is not being properly compensated for.

Secondly we should stop using price as a guide for buying food. Nobody would dream of buying the cheapest fuel for a car or the cheapest software for their computer yet food, advertised as being cheaper than the competition, is seen as something that we should support! I am not advocating expensive food but we now buy TV programs about people who are eating themselves to death. When all health costs are added into the equation the cheap food becomes expensive.

We should feel full of energy, ready to meet the day and have lots left over for fun but this is difficult to do on processed food alone.

We add value to food by processing it but this value is measured in monetary terms alone - we are in a sort of housing boom of food affluence but it is our bodies which will pay the price when the bubble bursts, and not our wallets.

Local is best

Thirdly we should try and buy food that is locally grown.

This has a few benefits or us:

1. The fresher the food is the better it is for us
2. The less it travels the less transport costs are involved
3. The money spent is into the local economy
4. The fewer steps between us and the primary producer the less chance of any dilution of quality.

Fourthly it is important that we support an indigenous farming community so that we are not dependant on imports that can be subject to the vagaries of world weather and politics.

Access for most of us to wholefood is through genuine farmers markets and box schemes where they operate. Health food shops carry lots of whole grains nuts and pulses as well as quality condiments and sea weeds. There are some around who know how to cook these foods we must find them and learn.

Food for well being

We have the best equipped kitchens in the history of the state but we rely more on ready made convenience foods than it is possible to imagine. Cooking is a kind of celebrity activity with mad TV shows about ill tempered cooks catering for guests who seem to me to be spoiled brats in the main.

We need to cook for life as well as for entertainment and we need to grasp the concept that food is our main source of energy; if the energy is not in the food we will become weak, our immune systems will break down and our psychological well being will diminish.

This is a serious issue that is personal to everyone who is serious about their life and ultimately about the whole of humanity.

Spring is a time for new beginnings and every journey starts with the first step. This is a lonely furrow only until more of us come along. Welcome aboard!

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