Newsletter, May 1, 2002
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Lydia Jensen, Editor: Lydiajj@get2netdk
Lars Jensen, Webmaster/Publisher: Lars@Eclecticcooking.com
For this week's edition, you may visit:
www.eclecticcooking.com/CookingRecipes.htm
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=> Article; A Natural Diet: What is it? Dr. Clifford A. Adams
=> New Recipes of the Week
=> Hot Tip
=> NEW: Coffee Corner!
=> Fruit/vegetable in focus
=> Joke/Story of the Week
=> Next week's Issue
=> How to Be Featured as our Guest Writer
=> Subscribe/Unsubscribe information
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Note from the Editor:
Like most of you, I have read many articles about food,
nutrition and balanced diets. I was, therefore, very pleased
when Dr. Adams contacted me and sent me the following
article. Although it is a little longer than some of our other
articles, I think you will find it very interesting. Hopefully,
it will clear up some of your questions about a balanced
diet. I hope this articles will give you ³food for thought.²
Let us know your thoughts and any suggestions you may
have about nutrition and what you think a natural diet is
or should be.
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A Natural Diet: What is it?
Dr. Clifford A. Adams
In our modern world we are continually bombarded with dietary
advice as to what is good and what is not good. In recent years
there has been considerable emphasis on "natural foods" and
"organic foods", all of which are supposedly better for you than
conventional foods, whatever that is. We are told to reduce
consumption of red meat, eggs, fat and salt, to eat more white
meat, fish, fruits and vegetables, to drink modest amounts of
red wine, and to eat lots of carbohydrates in pastas and cereals.
Drinking tea or coffee may be good or bad for you depending
on the latest results of some nutritional study somewhere.
All this dietary information overload provoked the questions:
What is a natural diet ?
How can we define a natural diet ?
First, we can look back into our evolutionary history and follow
the progress of our diet over time. We, as modern humans,
belong to the genus Homo sapiens which first emerged about
90,000 years ago. For about 80,000 years humans obtained
food from hunting and gathering in the wild. Only in the last
10,000 years of this period has agriculture become the dominant
way of providing food. A period of 10,000 years represents
about 500 generations, and in this relatively short period in
evolutionary time, there will only be minor genetic differences
between modern man and hunter-gatherers. Consequently,
if we are what we eat, then we are also what our ancestor
hunter-gatherers ate. Our digestive physiology is still attuned,
not to the food on the supermarket shelves, but to those items
on the hunter-gatherer menu.
So what did they eat ?
Before the agricultural age, human hunter-gatherers depended
on wild animals, fruits, vegetables and nuts. Curiously enough,
in contrast to modern diets the hunter-gatherers consumed very
little cereal grains. It seems that the diet of hunter-gatherers was
16-25% plant foods and 75-84% animal foods. Nevertheless,
it would have been a very diverse diet and contained a good
range of macronutrients, micronutrients and of nutricines
(bioactive food components).
Life as a hunter-gather, however, was probably not too much fun
and it would have been difficult to ensure that adequate supplies
of food were available at all times. Also, the hunter-gatherer life
style is not suited to support large settled populations.
Nevertheless, a diverse diet was undoubtedly a valuable strategy
in times of uncertain food supply.
Some other ideas on a natural diet may come from comparing our
digestive physiology with that of other animal species on this planet
that still have a natural diet. For example, true carnivores, such as
the cats, have a simpler digestive system than humans, because
animal products generally do not require prolonged digestion
times. At the other end of the scale, plant-eaters, such as cattle
and horses, consume a large amount of cellulose which is not
easy to digest but which they must use as an energy source.
Vegetarian animals have evolved specially enlarged parts of
the digestive tract to digest this cellulose by fermentation.
This is the function of the rumen in cattle and the caecum and
colon in horses. The human gut, however, does not fit neatly
into either of these two extreme categories, which reflects our
omnivorous or diverse food habit.
Humans also have some important nutritional requirements.
For example, the omega fatty acids are important constituents
of nervous tissue. Plant foods are poor in omega fatty acids,
but they are quite common in animal fats and fish oils. An
adequate supply of these fatty acids is particularly critical in
the first five years of human life when brain growth and
development is completed. Proteins of animal origin, by and
large, are more easily digested by humans than are proteins
of plant origin. These observations are strong evidence for
an evolutionary adaptation to a meat-based diet for humans.
On the other hand, the inability of humans to synthesise
vitamin C is also evidence for the necessity of foods of plant
origin. Leaves and fruits of wild plants are rich in vitamin C
compared to foods of animal origin and so humans have
probably adapted to a diet where vitamin C is supplied from
plant foods.
The development of agriculture meant that food could now be
obtained in greater quantities in a more dependable fashion.
However, this also brought an increased dependency upon
cereal grains as a major source of food. Paradoxically, an
increased dependence on cereal grains generally involves a
decrease in the nutritional quality of the diet, since the major
cereal grains are low or lacking in essential vitamins and
minerals and have low protein quality. Consequently, people
who rely on a cereal such as rice or maize as a major food
source often suffer various problems of malnutrition.
The widespread and reliable availability of food now allows us
Homo sapiens to choose our food items, but we still have not
adapted genetically much beyond the hunter-gatherer stage.
This suggests that increasing the consumption of animal products,
fruits, vegetables and nuts relative to cereal grains is probably
quite in line with the dietary pattern to which we humans are
genetically adapted. Perhaps, a natural diet is a goodly mixture
of everything from soup to nuts including plenty of meat, vegetables,
fruit and wine. Fortunately, this is a diet which I find quite natural.
Dr. Adams has also written a book:
NUTRICINES Food Components
in Health and Nutrition.
You may order your books through www.nup.com
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This week's edition, May 3, 2002
Article: A Natural Diet: What is it?
Dr. Clifford A. Adams
Recipes:
Onion Tart Snacks
Lemon Chicken
Spicy Corn
Panna Cotta with Apricot Coullis
For this week's edition, you may visit:
www.eclecticcooking.com/CookingRecipes.htm
This week's recipes:
http://www.eclecticcooking.com/whatnew.htm
You may also submit your recipes directly on to our site here:
http://eclecticcooking.community.everyone.net
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Hot Tip
Keep a small book with all your dinner parties, barbecues, or
other entertainment notes. Write the date, the occasion, the
people who came and the menu. Next to the items on the
menu, write the recipe, page number and the cookbook
you used. That way you can keep track of any special recipes
or particularly good recipes you used and if guests have any
special likes or dislikes.
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Coffee Corner
One of the popular forms of serving coffee is in the Stempel
Coffee Maker (Pressed Coffee Maker). American ground
coffee is ideal for this type of coffee maker as the coffee must
be coarsely ground. Stempel coffee is a fairly strong coffee
but very tasty. A couple of favorites are hazelnut or chocolate
almond coffees. To make stempel coffee, you need the special
coffee maker and follow the recipe below:
1 Tbsp coarsely ground coffee per cup (4 oz or 125 ml cups)
Place the coarsely ground coffee in the stempel coffee pot. In
a separate pot bring water to a boil and pour it over the ground
coffee in the stempel coffee maker. Place the stempel or press
into the stempel coffee maker, let the coffee draw its strength
for about 4 minutes, then push the stempel or press down until
it reaches the bottom of the coffee maker. Let the coffee rest
for a minute to let the grounds settle, then serve.
Stempel coffee is quite an impressive way to make coffee
and will not only entertain your guests but impress them as
well.
Don't know what a Pressed Coffee Maker?
http://www.eclecticcooking.com/CoffeeCorner.htm
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Our Health and Nutrition links:
http://eclectic-healthy-cooking.subportal.com/health/
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Fruit/vegetable in focus
The Mango is thought to have originated from the mountainous
regions of Burma and the Himalayas. It is also known as the tropical
peach and is round or oval shaped. The skin can be green yellow or
red and has a soft yellow-orange meat. The Mango can be used in a
variety of ways such as in first courses, desserts, main courses or
plain. Because of it's strong taste is should be used with chicken or
pork to enhance the meats flavor. If Mango is to be used in recipes, it
should be peeled and cut in cubes. In India, it is the basic ingredient for
traditional Chutney. Can last one week in a cool place or 2-3 days at
room temperature. Should be available all year round.
From www.online-cooking-recipes.com
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Joke/Story of the Week
Milk production
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and
force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are
surprised when the cow drops dead.
A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike
because you want three cows.
Next week Japanese and German milk production.
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Next Week's Issue, May 8, 2002
Article: What is it and why is it so good?
Recipes: Zucchini Soup
Yogurt Marinated Chicken
Warm Goat Cheese
Flambèd Bananas
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Copyright 2002 Eclectic Cooking
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