By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
I asked my daughter “What do you know about food?”. She said, “Hmmmm, that’s a complicated question.” No baga, the question has a lot of subquestions under it . But when I asked her “What is food?”, she answered “That’s an easier question. Food is what we eat.” Okay, now the next question is directed to you, dear reader. “What is the problem with food nowadays?”
You don’t have to answer the question at this point. Let me first relate a true-life experience of my friend. My friend is a doctor who teaches Nutrition Epidemiology in graduate school in Manila. A young nutritionist enrolled in this subject and my friend asked her about her work. This nutritionist related that she taught about nutrition to the Aetas in a mountain area in Central Luzon, two hours like from the highway. She related that the Aetas met her team in the lowlands, carried their baggages and run up the mountain. Let’s continue listening to their dialogue in class.
Professor: “How about you?”
Student: “Gumapang kami” (That’s a Tagalog metaphor for great difficulty in walking to a place.)
Professor: “Oh, what about nutrition did you teach them.”
Student: “About protein and calories for strong bones and muscles.”
Professor: “Tayka, balikan natin yong sinabi mo kanina. Noong sibalubong kayo ng mga
Aeta sa highway, binitbit nila ang karga ninyo at tumakbo paakyat ng bundok.
Kayo, gumapang. Who do you think has stronger bones and muscles?
Student (after some thought): “Ang mga Aeta po.”
Professor: “So sino dapat ang magturo tungkol sa nutrition?”
Student: “ I am confused po. Kasi according to WHO standards, deficient ang diet nila sa protein and calories at maliliit po sila.” (Cut)
How about you, dear reader, are you confused as well? How come that the business of food and eating has become so complicated and confusing? This is because of what the world has defined “nutrition”. According to Wikipedia, “nutrition is the science that interprets the interaction of nutrients and other substances in food in relation to maintenance, growth, reproduction, health and disease of an organism. It includes food intake, absorption, assimilation, biosynthesis, catabolism and excretion.” What a mouthful! Sa definition pa lang, overwhelmed na ako.
Simply put, “nutrition” is the study of food and how it affects out health. Well, humankind has been doing that since time immemorial. People have experimented with food and farming and life since time immemorial. It is common sense, It is survival. It is not only people dressed in white gowns in sparkling clean laboratories that do “research” or “science”. Your mother and my mother and those before them experimented in the kitchen and in the farm long before laboratories came into being. Those of us fond of Bible stories in childhood would remember the story of Daniel. That was one food experiment – Daniel told the guard “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables and water to drink.” (Daniel 1:12). And wonder of wonders, after 10 days, Daniel and his companions appeared healthier and better nourished than the young men who ate royal food.
So whom are you going to believe? One that has been tested and tried in real life for many generations or one that was tested in a sparkling clean laboratory for not even one lifetime? When the Igorots or Chinese or Indians say that etab and other legumes are best to increase breastmilk, are we going to say “It is not scientific” when all Igorot moms in the past ate legumes and never ran out of breastmilk. They even had surplus that could feed babies of other moms in the tradition of “lang-ay”! Beat that!
And when we say “Cow’s milk is best for baby cow but not good for human baby”, do you say “It has no scientific basis because the laboratory says that cow’s milk contains such and such nutrients. Where will the baby get calcium?” I was amused and yet sad when I heard a nutritionist ask me “What’s wrong with cow’s milk?” What has “education” (supposedly) done to us?
We have been confused and continue being confused because of what western nutrition or western science is constantly telling us. Western science is characterized by splitting a whole into parts and labels those parts in confusing language, mixes them in various combinations and sees its effects. It is like playing God. There are a lot of problems with this kind of science or experiment as follows: First, it is not real. Food does not work as parts like Vitamin A, protein or carbohydrate, etc. Food works as a whole- as kalunay, beans or camote, etc. I love to cut arguments short by saying that if God wanted us to eat food as Vitamin A, B, C, etc., then He would have given these as fruits. Imagine capsules of vitamins, color-coded, hanging in your vitamin tree! Hmmm, interesting, but apparently, it is not the design of our Creator. Our Creator has mixed these all up in intricate combinations in the colorful plants around us. This brings us to the second problem which is that our present gadgets, no matter how hi-tech they are, cannot measure these intricate combinations in nature and cannot measure all there is in nature. Who can discern the mind of God? Not even Einstein. Partly, perhaps, but not wholly.
So please don’t be fooled by high tech gadgets, numbers and opinions and advertisements out to confuse you and get your money. Just bear in mind that our Creator loves us and doesn’t mean to confuse us. In fact, He is so loving that He gave the food we need right in our backyard, in the Garden of Eden. We should have no problem with food because we don’t have to calculate how many grams calcium, how many calories, etc. He spared us the effort and did it Himself. But, of course, He, and only He, knows what our body needs… because He designed us. And if our ancestors survived and flourished all these centuries (think about that, thousands of years!), and were not exterminated by disease then they were doing all right. Meaning we already have enough knowledge in this world about food and nutrition to be healthy and well.
We just have to trust our Creator and believe that He loves us so much. Or would you rather trust the factory and the high tech gadgets and laboratory of western science?***
**
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
