The value of nutrition

When we were youngsters our parents were obsessed with vitamins. PHOTO/FILE

What you need to know:

  • When we anticipated that a strong human body would be useless for everyday living in the world of mechanisation and automation, who knew that there would one day be a gym at every street corner and that the whole world would be trying to develop the cave person shape, or something as close to it as we can?

  • As for the presentation of food, who could have predicted that entire television channels would be devoted to preparing as many different types of food as there are tastes and cultures?

When we were youngsters our parents were obsessed with vitamins. Someone had drummed it into their heads that if we did not ingest our daily, alphabetical quota, bad things would happen: Our teeth would fall out, our hair would radiate with rainbow-coloured tints, our legs would resemble a matched pair of parentheses and we would be unable to see beyond our noses.

As a result, they not only stuffed us with various vitamin-rich foods (usually unpleasant-tasting ones such as spinach, carrots and potatoes) but every evening we were lined up to be dosed with vitamin-enhanced emulsions, syrups and oils. (Pity... now I have to go to a hairdresser and pay a fortune to achieve the rainbow effect on my crown!)

As a result of this family concentration on things nutritious or otherwise, the younger generation spent quite some time speculating on the future of food.

One day my brother sat us down and explained that in a few years human beings would stop eating all together and rely on an intake of three balanced capsules ever day to provide all the nutrients they needed to live.

My big sister supported him by saying that one day humans would evolve into creatures with very small bodies and large heads because robots would do all the work and human beings would only need intelligence in order to live.

This bleak picture of the future of humans gave me nightmares.

EVOLUTION OF HUMAN FOOD

It is said that incomplete knowledge is dangerous.

The evolution of human food, bodies and habits has developed very differently from the scenario anticipated by the early vitamin gurus. In the days when we believed that only the right nutrients were important we did not know the importance of fibre and bulk in the diet – otherwise called a lot of nutritional nothing whose only function is to push the rest of the food in the right direction!

When we anticipated that a strong human body would be useless for everyday living in the world of mechanisation and automation, who knew that there would one day be a gym at every street corner and that the whole world would be trying to develop the cave person shape, or something as close to it as we can?

As for the presentation of food, who could have predicted that entire television channels would be devoted to preparing as many different types of food as there are tastes and cultures?

Nothing could be further from the vision of the food capsule as the gastronomy of the modern world.

Prophecy has never been easy as the 450 Biblical prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who were used to dining at Jezebel’s table discovered. (Obviously Jezebel had quite a long table!)

I guess they wish they could have discovered which countries were about to abolish capital punishment and arranged to move there before their prophecies were discovered to be false.

However, now that capital punishment is losing popularity, the risks of prophecy have not deterred various pundits, especially economists, who continue to predict the future!

Well it’s not exactly about prophecy but I found the following joke about choosing your future at www.thespringharvest.com:

Adam was moping in the Garden of Eden and God asked him, “What is wrong with you?”

Adam said he felt lonely. God offered to make Adam a woman for companionship.

He said, “This person will gather food for you, cook for you and clean for you. She will always agree with every decision you make. She will bear your children and care for them night and day without your assistance.

She will not complain and will always be the first to admit she was wrong when you’ve had a disagreement. She will never have a headache and will freely give you love and passion whenever you need it.” Adam asked God, “What will a woman like this cost?” God replied, “An arm and a leg.” Then Adam asked, “What can I get for a rib?”

The rest is history...

Stay in the present this Saturday.