Category: Nutrition

Lessons from Medieval England: The Relationship Between the Sick Room and the Kitchen

March 15, 2020

Let food be thy medicine, and let thy medicine be food. ~Hippocrates Food and medicine, always intertwined in the human  imagination. Because – obviously – the earliest English settlers brought their food habits and medicinal beliefs with them to what is now the United States, I relish books that provide background to the English way … More Lessons from Medieval England: The Relationship Between the Sick Room and the Kitchen

Real Mayonnaise, Real Food? Or Just Sanctimonious Snobbery?

October 19, 2014

It’s not REAL mayonnaise. You know the one I mean. Mayonnaise – made with egg yolks, an acidic liquid, a dash of mustard, salt, and oil, usually olive – feels as smooth and soft as a silk pillow, sliding like thickened cream across the tongue. There’re no startled taste buds in the presence of too much … More Real Mayonnaise, Real Food? Or Just Sanctimonious Snobbery?

Starvation and Hunger, Humankind’s Constant Companions: A Pre-Thanksgiving Meditation

November 10, 2009

Now hunger and [Erysichthon’s] belly’s deep abyss exhausted his ancestral wealth, but still hunger was unexhausted and the flame of greed blazed unappeased . . . When his wicked frenzy had consumed all sustenance and for the dire disease provision failed, the ill-starred wretch began to gnaw himself, and dwindled bite by bite as his … More Starvation and Hunger, Humankind’s Constant Companions: A Pre-Thanksgiving Meditation

Celiac Disease — an Illness of Civilization?

July 11, 2009

Celiac disease now afflicts four times as many people as it did fifty years ago, according to an article in the July 2009 issue of Gastroenterology.** In patients with celiac disease, the presence of a protein called gluten from wheat, barley or rye triggers an immune system attack, damaging the villi in the small intestine. … More Celiac Disease — an Illness of Civilization?

Cooking and Eating: Some Harsh Truths

March 20, 2009

Food thoughts for munching … thanks to Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards, the originator of home economics, or domestic science. Nutritional psychologist Marc David states that Most nutritional assertions that originate from authoritative sources [like the home economics/domestic science movement that began in the late nineteenth century] have a brief shelf life. Our nutritional information is … More Cooking and Eating: Some Harsh Truths