Nutrition

by Adelani Aderemi

Created on: December 01, 2009

Let me confess quite early that I am neither a food scientist nor nutritionist but I love to join this debate and say the little I know about health food.

When it comes to health food, taste is a good factor and very attractive but nutrition is more important. Of what use is food that placates your palate but serves little or no good purpose for the body nourishment? It is junk food.

The Palate

I discovered that children are born with a natural indifference to bitter and sweet tastes. As they grow, the food we feed them with conditions their taste buds and before long, they start showing their preference to sweet foods. Early in his life and because of his frequent constipation, I started giving my son Tayo (he is seven years now) a product called Swedish bitters and garlic. Now he takes those things and other ones with tastes as unpleasant with relish.

Bitter is Necessary

Again, it has been discovered that bitter ingredients have disappeared from our diet. They have been replaced by the sweetness of junk food. Even the bitter vegetables are washed until the bitter nutrients are gone and we end up eating the pulp. Without the bitter ingredients in our foods, the body is thrown out of balance. An example is a shrub which found in Nigeria called Ewuro (Ibadan, Nigeria) or Etidot (Calabar, Nigeria). The Botanists call it Vernonia amygdalina. The leaves of this shrub tastes very bitter but if cooked as vegetable spiced with melon, it prevents the development of diabetes and if one is already a patient, eating this soup helps to prevent further complications.

Style Gourmet (http://www.stylegour met.com/articles/020 .htm ) says that The (bitter) irony is this: science has proven that a wide array of bitter foods are, pardon the clich, "good for you." Dr. Adam Drewnowski, Director of the University of Washington Nutritional Sciences Program, discovered what Popeye the Sailor Man has known all along: bitter foods like spinach, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, mustard greens, radicchio, and dark chocolate are all rich in dietary phytonutrients, which may serve to prevent many diseases, cancer included.

Examples

My father was an African Herbalist and I grew up knowing about herbs. Early in life I discovered that the herbs that help promote body health the most have the most unpleasant tastes. Few examples are Garlic (Allium Sativum), Ginger(Zingiber officinale), Bitter Kola (Cola nitida). You may wish to visit http://www.garlic-ce ntral.com/garlic-hea lth.html to read the health benefits of garlic. Self indulgence is a big issue in choosing types of food to eat. One must practice and get sufficiently adapted to eating foods with other tastes than sweet if only for the reason of promoting good health. If we eat too little or no bitter things, the bile is not stimulated to work optimally, then the blood does not get adequately cleansed. When there is too much of sweet (sugar) in the blood, the pancreas is forced to produce more insulin to break it down. If this continues, this vital organ may wear out because of pressure of overuse and that may cause the development of diabetes.

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