As a scientific understanding of the microbiome, and its role in our mental and physical health and general wellbeing, it reinforces the value of food culture.
Since us homo sapiens came on the scene, and our ancestors prior to that, there has been the development of food culture – the acquisition of knowledge around food consumption and production through simple trial and error, rather than a rigorous scientific approach.
Our gastronomy gradually evolved from what berries can and can’t be eaten, to the cultivation and domestication of once wild varieties of grains, some 11,000 years ago, and from the use of fire to cook meat, to the preserving of food for later use and its subsequent fermentation.
This knowledge has been developed over millennia, yet for the past few decades we have largely turned our back on it.
Instead we have put out faith in ‘food scientists’ and their reductionist approach to nutrition and diets.
We turned our back on the likes of butter, in favour of margarine, and on home-cooked, seasonal dishes using local produce, in favour of highly-processed, microwavable convenience meals. The ‘scientific’ and the industrial processes we have embraced have undermined the food culture we developed over countless generations – knowledge we all once had of our food and how it was produced.
But the food produced by the industrial system has been making us ill, and in response more and more people have been seeking an understanding of how to eat healthily. In their explorations they come across kimchi and kombucha, sourdough bread and Emmer wheat, kefir and raw milk cheeses – all of which are products of our long food culture.
Science, which is really just in its infancy, is finally catching up, as we start to learn about the existence and understand the workings of gut bacteria and the microbiome. The studies are showing the detrimental impact of highly-processed food with its synthetic additives, and the positive impact of fermented foods in nurturing healthy gut bacteria.
So it seems we have come full circle, and the all but discarded knowledge we had of our food is being relearnt, and valued once more. For me it is an indication of how we should value and respect food culture more – and the indigenous or old knowledge and practices required for food’s production – and call for our food system to function in a way that is conducive to a healthy body and mind.
This call must come very soon – before soil nutrition is lost completely, before genetically modified seeds cause the decimation of native species and loss of knowledge of their cultivation, essentially before the industrial system strengthens its grip on how our food is produced, by which time any call for change will have come too late.