Question: When is a good thing not a good thing?

Answer: When you desire too much of it.

When I think of too much of a good food, one of the thirteen virtues of Benjamin Franklin comes to mind: temperance.  Of temperance, Franklin wrote, “ Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.”  Now, you might be thinking that ol’ Ben is just a guy who doesn’t appreciate a good time.  Well, Franklin’s social life might be a topic of a different post, but on the issue of how a health food becomes harmful, he is right on target.  Here’s why.  We live in a culture that embraces the pursuit of gratification for all our whims and urges, 24/7.   This pursuit is typified in the mantra “if a little is good, then more is better.”

This thinking leads to a lack of temperance, which is fueled by marketing that promotes the idea that our life is incomplete with out the new and improved – “whatever”.   Now let’s apply this thinking to health and wellness.  The American culture has this insatiable desire to maintain youthfulness.   My hope is that the intention driving this is to live to an old age with a youthful vitality for as long as possible.   I have my doubts about that, but let’s not go there now.  I do find that with our desire for youthfulness, anytime a particular food from anywhere on the planet is identified as having properties that enhances health, or reduces the risk for some malady, there follows an ensuing rush to get as much  of that food into our diets as possible.

For example, let’s look at the craze over the açaí berry in the mid 2000′s.  Açaí (pronounced ah-SAH’ee) is a berry from Brazil that has demonstrated benefits for digestion, healthy skin, and most importantly is high in cancer fighting anti-oxidants.   For generations, it has been and remains a major source of nutrition for the traditional people of the Amazon region.  By 2009, the demand for the berry from people in the United States created a strain on the supply of berries to the point that the local people, for whom açaí is a dietary staple, could not maintain a sufficient supply for themselves.  The rage for açaí came and went despite the fact that the supply of blueberries grown locally in the U.S. was abundant and that blueberries contain the same degree of anti-oxidants as the açaí berry.   The American desire for youthful vitality depleted the wellness of the Amazonian people.  I hope the Amazonians are recovering.

Since then attention has focused on the high plateaus of Bolivia and Peru where an obscure plant flourishes.  Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) thrives in the thin air of high altitude, low water and sandy soil, where other plants won’t even sprout.  For millennia this native plant supplied the majority of nutrition in the diet of the Andean cultures and yet remained unknown to most of the rest of the world, until 1993.

In that year, while researching appropriate foods for long-duration human space flight, NASA identified quinoa as a super food and decided to include it in the dietary mix for astronauts.  The reason that NASA, and since then a whole host of dietary conscious eaters, have become keen on quinoa is because it is low in fat, high in protein, gluten free, and is the only plant food that contains all 10 of the  amino acids essential to the human diet.  The United Nations has gone so far as to declare 2013 the International Year of Quinoa.  Hurray for quinoa!

Not so fast!  Here is how this super food becomes harmful.  The price of quinoa has tripled since 2006, as rich nations like the United States and those in Europe and Asia are willing and able to pay a high price for youthful vitality from their food.  This has produced a financial boon to the people of the Andes who are now enticed to sell all of their crop for cash and are no longer holding some back for their personal consumption.  The result is that the local people are eating less and less of their traditional food and are beginning to suffer the effects of malnutrition, where there once was none.  Ironically, the diet that has led to diminished health in the west,  is now becoming the diet of the Andean people who can afford processed and non-native food.

But just like the Amazonians, the Andeans are making this choice for themselves, in the pursuit of gratification and the resulting loss of temperance.  It’s a funny thing about money, as you gain more you want to abandon the traditions that sustained you, until you amass enough financial wealth to realize the folly of your pursuit, only to return to the traditions that you once abandoned.  It reminds me of the story of the fisherman and the businessman, but that too is for another time.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not trying to diminish the nutritional value of quinoa, or the açaí berry.  I only wish to point out the instability of our practice of obtaining more and more food from beyond our local region.  Quinoa and açaí are very good high nutritional foods for the people of those regions.  I believe that we must do a better job of eating the food from the region in which we live, during the seasons when those foods are available.  The growth of local farmer’s markets is encouraging to me.   In these markets, not only do you buy locally grown foods, you get to meet the person who grew it!  What a wonderful way to create a personal relationship with the food you eat.

To me, this locally grown food should be our main supply of nutrient, from which we can add foods from beyond our region from time to time, rather than the other way around.  If you don’t believe me try this exercise.  Assuming you live in the continental United States, when was the last time you ate a banana?  Then ask yourself, when was the last time you saw a banana tree growing near your home?  The truth is that banana likely traveled at least a thousand miles to get from the tree to your mouth.  If you like bananas, perhaps you are better served by living where bananas are grown.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a long way to go toward fully adopting this change for myself, but you have to start somewhere.  I invite you to start today.  Care to join me?

Resources:

The Guardian:  Quinoa brings riches to the Andes

The Guardian: Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa?

The Guardian: Eating quinoa may harm Bolivian farmers, but eating meat harms us all

Time: Quinoa: the dark side of an Andean superfood

Time: Slow food: can you eat well and save the world?

Dr. Andrew Weil: Acai: a better berry?