THE EIGHT TRICKS OUR ANCESTORS KNEW ABOUT PREPARING HEALTHY FOODS

8 Tricks Your Ancestors Knew About Preparing Healthy Food

Traditional food preparation techniques do more than just preserve food. They remove natural toxins and increase nutrients, as well as the body’s ability to fully use them. 

 

They fully utilised their   mental, creative, and physical faculties  to create wholesome nourishing foods with all the love and affection they can for the entire family.  In all such efforts by a housewife,   she was ably  assisted by her neighbours, neighbour's children,  their own children

and other kith and kin  who stayed nearby.  By such a collective effort the following benefits to community  was conferred:

A greater bonding amongst members of a family as also their neighbours  and other kith and kin.

This lead to mutual respet as well as  a greater  scope for mutual sharing of  household chores

which is too much for  a single housewife.  Mutual help within a community was  so very

common  and  was voluntairly offerred.

 

The next benefit was the free training the younger children were getting whilst joining such mutual  help exercises.  They learnt social skiills,  social etiquettes,  knowledge and skills about  preparing variou dishes , like  the proportions of the various ingredients  to be used whilst preparing a dish

and much more.  

 

Traditional homes were thus excellent training grounds for many a social and household skills 

which  no   modern schoiol can teach by way of a classroom .

 

 Modern day housewives just buy readymade things from shops and eateries  anbd miss the very essence of  the fun and  fellowship our  ancestors enjoyed whilst preparings dishes at home .

 

 

 

Photo by Paul Dunn.

1. Fermenting
Acetic acid, lactic acid, and alcohol act as natural preservatives. Improves digestibility because microbes have predigested. Can create new nutrients, especially B vitamins. Adds helpful bacteria.

2. Soaking
Improves digestibility. Reduces phytic acid, allowing absorption of more minerals, such as iron and calcium.
Soaking grains breaks down phytic acid, a substance that prevents the absorption of minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc.
Also, as grains soak, vitamin content increases, especially B vitamins.
3. Sprouting
Deactivates enzyme inhibitors, making the sprouted seed more digestible.
4. Nixtamalization
Soaking corn with lime (calcium hydroxide) or wood ashes (potassium hydroxide) increases digestibility and bioavailability of niacin, protein, and calcium. Decreases phytic acid and harmful mycotoxins.

5. Pounding
Removes the bran or hull of a seed or grain, which contain most of the antinutrients. Increases digestibility.

6. Drying
Removes moisture, slowing bacterial growth.

7. Salt curing
Draws water out of cells, killing microorganisms and preventing spoilage. Salt denatures meat proteins and produces glutamate, which enhances flavor.
8. Smoking
Dries meat and adds phenolic compounds that bind to the surface of the food and act as antioxidants, preventing rancidity.

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This article originally appeared in How To Eat Like Our Lives Depend On It, the Winter 2014 issue of YES! Magazine.