Why did our ancestors have their diets different than ours now? To answer this question, let’s go back only a hundred years. As a matter of fact, our ancestors generally ate from the land producing mostly organic produce. The land was kept natural. Farmers and gardeners fed it with essential nutrients by mulching, adding manure, and crop rotation.

When I was growing up in southeastern Europe, I watched how my grandfather did exactly the same. He used these simple, natural means which benefited his land and the crop, and served to maintain the quality of the soil. As a result, the plants, fruits and vegetables on our fields grew natural and full with nutritional ingredients, and so the cows, pigs, chicken and other animals that fed on.

The same way farmers operated almost everywhere in Eastern European countries. They did not have any other choice. Industrial plants were destroyed during the war.  Local manufacturers could not continue to produce any chemicals and  did not have any reserves of these poisons left. Fortunatelly, farmers did not have hard currency to buy chemicals from the West. There was really great, healthy time for consumers who could benefit from eating pure, natural foods because farmers were forced to fed the land with natural means, in  the old-fashioned way.

Modern society in the West has long forgotten this natural treatment and  and respectful attitude to the land. Modern society went through massive urbanization, which led to a  move away from fresh, natural foods coming from farms toward processed foods. All started after the World War II. American companies that had once produced weapons for the war, could not sell them anymore after the war, so they started selling their chemicals to use in fertilizers. These clever marketers promised farmers that this was a solution to minimize the harm from insects and to maximize the volume of their crops.

Statistics tell, today U.S. farmers use 3 billion pounds of pesticides on their crops. Too bad. These chemicals end up in the food chain, and then in our digestive system provoking many complicated diseases in people. Experts estimate that up to 45% of vegetables on the market contain traces of pesticides.

 I have a big glass bottle with organic vinegar on my kitchen countertop near the faucet. I spray the vegetables and fruits with this amazing liquid, and then carefully wash them several times trying to get rid of pesticids they may contain. It helps to clean up the fruits and vegetables before I can eat or cook them, but a real problem with “sticky” chemicals still remains unsolved.

Chemical fertilizers rob the soil of its natural, essential ingredients we need as supply for our survival and wellbeing. It includes:

  • calcium to keep our bones healthy;
  • magnesium for our muscle function and energy overall;
  • selenium helping our heart to stay strong

 Now you understand that if chemical fertilizers strip the soil of these valuable ingredients, they are absent in the foods that grow in them. These commercial foods have 40% less of minerals that they had almost 50 years ago, scientists say. To make matters worse, today farm foods end up in transportation hustle and food-processing. When we go to our supermarkets, we don’t know how long it takes for food to reach our kitchens and dinner table. Transportation time varies: the longer it takes to rich storing facilities, then supermarkets shelves, the fewer natural, essential ingredients there will remain it it.

The most important vitamins A and C in fresh produce that suppose to sustain our health, degrade even over little time. The same affect processed meat. The levels of vitamin B6, essential for our immunity and normal brain function is reduced by at least 70 %. If you buy freezing meat, it already “dead” product because 50 % of vitamins B1 and B2–important energy nutrients are simply destroyed. Many people don’t realize these sad facts and don’t feel they can give up on consuming meat, as some call it a real food. Some people I spoke with said that they cannot exist without eating meat which gives them energy.

They are right in their own way to believe that meat is a real food to be included in their everyday diets. Can they continue to consume meat or other foods that don’t contain important, essential nutrients? I don’t think so.

 Beginning with Hippocrates, “The Father of Medicine,” food scientists, naturopaths, dieticians, nutrition experts always said that you are what you eat. There is no new discovery. It may be a cliche, but will you object that it’s true? The main point is: to clean up your thoughts about it, acquire knowledge, and come up with a smart diet and clear understanding about what you put into your body and how right or wrong products can affect your health, youthful look and wellness. Read our next post about a smart diet.

 Source: Text by Svetlana Konnikova; Photo of Wheat by Peter Kratochvil

Copyright 2009.