Cordova/We are living in an “absolutely Machiavellian” moment in which many influencerswith “wonderful” marketing techniques they manipulate youth and give them wrong eating patterns and which in some cases “even harm their health,” the writer and expert in the History of Food in Cordoba, Almudena Villegas, explained to EFE.
This occurs, for example, in the case of people vegetarian or vegan that it is an option that “seems more like a fad” and that, sometimes, if it is not “well carried out” it can damage a person’s diet forever, according to Almudena Villegas.
In his opinion, being vegetarian or vegan is “an option that I respect” but that entails the use of drugs to compensate for iron deficiencies or lack of vitamin B and, therefore, the interest of the pharmaceutical sector is to continue increasing the number of followers of this food option.
Almudena Villegas writes a critical essay on this and other food practices in the book The threat of food (Almuzara), through which he questions and warns of how harmful the modern food practices that are being imposed and the loss of heritage that they entail can be.
Meat since the Paleolithic
For the expert, nature has given us the ability to consume and extract the substances we need from food, and that “we have also been consuming them for many years, because We have been eating meat since the Paleolithicfor example, which was fundamental for the development of our brain.”
“Its intake ended up collaborating in the contribution of fatty acids and providing us with greater intellectual capacity,” he added, “look at what type of society we are in, that we are voluntarily but unconsciously saying no to what makes us healthier, stronger and more vigorous,” insists Almudena Villegas.
The threat of food analyzes products that are distorting our balance and that, according to Villegas, we must recover by paying attention to the tips which is included in this guide that teaches you how to find the path to conscious, healthy and happy eating.
Return to culinary roots
Reconnect with the wisdom from our culinary roots; to recover that time shared around a meal; to know the hidden dangers that we face every day at the table, as well as to warn of the danger of the growing influence of technology and biotechnology on our diets, are the main objectives of this book.
Try to explain what have been the causes that have led human beings to maintain this new relationship with foodand how to recover the old healthy and intelligent eating patterns.
For the Food History expert, it is “interesting to see how we live in a time in which we have more food, more abundant and more varied than at any other time in history, and yet we are playing with our diet.”
In his opinion, if we stop cooking the traditional recipes updated, “lightened, fresh, whatever you want” but if we abandon the Mediterranean diet “to which people are no longer adhering, we have a serious problem.”
And that is why, he explains, the subtitle of his book is When eating became a problem because “it is possible that we are living in that moment, with serious problems not only for us, but for our children.”
Therefore, it is necessary to “make a critique, reflect and in some way incite people to revolt against a food system that is crushing usbut one that we can escape from” and which consists of a healthy diet based on the Mediterranean diet.
Comfort before cooking
Almudena Villegas says that we have reached this moment in which eating has become a problem “for convenience”, because “we have stopped tryingand we prefer to lie around watching cooking shows on TV while eating a low-quality burger brought to us by a delivery man, instead of looking after our health and actually cooking.
To return to a good diet, we must spread, “from good knowledge”, that there are “some feeding patterns of Mediterranean populations have been very devoted”, and suddenly “we are involved in a world full of rush, without time to talk, without time to cook, without time to be outdoors, or to move.”
In his opinion, what should be done is Putting the intelligence of appliances and technology at our service“We have the best means in history” to develop the kitchen in our favor.
Gastrification
Another danger that today’s diet faces is the ultra-processed or ultra-elaborated foods in which the first thing that occurs is a process called “gastrification” which means that “a food tastes the same anywhere in Spain and sometimes in the world” because it is “pre-prepared by large industries that supply the rest, since whether they are domestic buyers or restaurants. This means that native cuisine is losing “personality, authenticity, history and heritage.”
This gastrification occurs on the street, but also at home and, Almudena Villegas added, “it is terrible that children are suffering from that loss of identity, for example the story of that grandmother who made a cake for her birthday.
Now, however, we are going towards the McDonaldization of food“Everything tastes the same, all children eat the same things and we lose the history and the inner history of the family and we lose that value of the human. And this is also very serious,” he concludes.
