Eating Pre-Industrial

I recently heard a term that at the same time describes what’s wrong with the way we eat and how we should be eating.

The term is “pre-industrial.”

I picked it up while reading Silo, a book written by the chef of a restaurant by the same name. It is (was?) the world’s first zero waste restaurant. Chef Douglas McMaster uses the term pre-industrial to describe the “diet” (aka “cuisine”) at Silo, which is a blend of vegan and paleo principles.

I think it’s a perfect way to describe the type of food we should be putting on our plates and in our mouths. Typically when when I describe my diet I use phrases like whole foods, real foods, without added sugar, or nothing processed. But really what I’m trying to say is that I eat the way humans used to eat, the way my ancestors ate, before food became industrialized and viewed as a commodity. So pre-industrial is perfectly fitting.

Another reason I like it is because it doesn’t describe a diet with set rules to follow, and therefore eliminates the follow up questions about what’s allowed or not. Vegan. Paleo. Vegetarian. Whole 30. Keto. Atkins. Pescatarian. What are the rules? What can I eat and what can’t I eat? Red meat? Grains? Dairy? Pre-industrial encompasses everything the earth can produce in its un-adultered form.

Lastly, I like it because it eliminates the need to say “whole foods,” which has been co-opted by the grocery store of the same name, who sells more ultra-processed foods than they do real foods… But I digress.

I had family visiting this week. My sister-in-law was telling us how she loves to cook, and how they no longer keep processed food in the house. Her 16 yr old son came to her one day and said,

“You don’t have anything that’s just ready to eat. Everything has to be cooked.”

I thought it was so telling. In this post-industrial world we’ve become accustomed to having food ready on demand, requiring you only to open your mouth and shovel it in. Which I believe has as much to do with our declining health as the toxic ingredients in the food.

Because I’m of the opinion that cooking is part of healthy digestion, which is a vital to good health. That cooking is the ultimate “aperitif,” if you will, that primes the body and gets it ready to process the food you’re about to consume. That digestion begins the moment you begin preparing your food, and skipping it can cause all sorts of things to go wrong in the body.

Compare these scenarios.

Scenario one, you want to cook your favorite recipe. So, you go to the store and buy all of the ingredients. You bring them home, and unpack the groceries. You turn on the oven, heat a pan, and fire up the grill. You start chopping vegetables, and season your meat. You put some vegetables in the pan to sauté, while the others get placed in the oven to roast. The smell of veggies starts to fill the house. You step outside and throw a cut of meat on the BBQ, and it begins to sear.

While the veggies and meat are cooking you start to whip up a salad. You pick fresh greens, a tomato, and basil all from your garden, chop it all up and place it in a bowl before running outside to flip the meat and catch a whiff off the grill. You step back inside and give the veggies a toss, and check the oven. The salad gets dressed with olive oil, vinegar, and a couple of pinches of salt. 

With that the timer for the veggies goes off, so you pull them off the stove and out of the oven. Then you run outside and pull off the meat. While the meat is resting you set the table, and everyone gathers around to eat.

Or;

You open UberEats and order a burrito bowl from the sofa. While you wait you watch TV. Twenty - thirty minutes later you get a notification that your food is on the doorstep. You get off the couch, grab your food, remove it from the bag, take off the lid, and begin to eat.

I can’t help but think that there is something fundamentally wrong and unhealthy with the second scenario and something magical about the first. There’s a trigger that’s missed in the second scenario that is being activated in the first. A trigger that is prepping you for food. There is a connection formed by every cut, smell, taste while you’re cooking. The activation of your senses warm your stomach up, and prepare you.

Aside from just toxic ingredients you can’t pronounce or spell, foods made in factories at scale, in this post-industrial world, rob you of the opportunity to connect with your meal and get ready for nourishment. It’s a double dose of unnatural behavior that’s killing all of us.

By contrast getting back to a pre-industrial way of eating eliminates that deadly dose and promises good health as a result.

Why CVS and Senators Lie

I saw a CVS Health commercial today. It was a promotion patting themselves on the back for eliminating tobacco products from their stores 10 years ago. Bravo.

The problem though, is that’s not the only addictive carcinogen they sell. Alcohol and ultra processed foods that are laced with chemicals and added sugar, line their shelves and are just as deadly and addictive as cigarettes. This self-congratulating as a show of their “commitment to health” is so nefarious.

It reminds me of this clip where Senator Chris Murphy is standing in front of the closed USAID building with a group of people in protest. He says:

“The people get to decide how we defend the United States of America. The people get to decide how their tax payer money gets spent. Elon Musk does not get to decide”

Do we though? I don’t recall deciding, or agreeing for that matter, to send my tax dollars to fund a war and a genocide. There are many other places I and my fellow Americans would rather spend their money.

But that’s what these companies and politicians do. They tell you what you want to hear while omitting the truth. They play to our emotions. CVS is making us feel like, “Wow, the was a bold move. They must be really committed to health.” While ignoring all of the other harmful products they sell in their stores.

Murray is getting us angry at “Elon Musk who isn’t elected and doesn’t get to decide where our tax dollars go!” Leaving out the part that he and his colleagues decide, not us or Elon Musk, and their decisions are increasingly less aligned with the will of the people.

I just finished reading The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. Here’s an excerpt that stuck out on the topic.

“Teenage smoking is one of the great, baffling phenomena of modern life… To address that problem, then, we’ve restricted and policed cigarette advertising, so its a lot harder for tobacco companies to lie. We’ve raised the price of cigarettes and enforced the law against selling tobacco to minors, to try to make it much harder for teens to buy cigarettes. And we’ve run extensive public health campaigns on television and radio and in magazines to try and educate teens about the dangers of smoking.”

If we can do it for cigarettes. If we could demonize them, restrict them, and tax them, then why can’t we do it for alcohol and ultra processed poisonous foods that we know are killing us? Why can’t we make it just as difficult to drink or eat your way into an early death as we did for smoking?

If Chris Murphy and his colleagues can stand outside of the USAID building in protest, surely they can stand outside of Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Starbucks, Kelloggs, Kraft, Pepsi, and voice their concern over the increasing amounts of processed foods in American’s diets, the deleterious impact they hav on our health, and demand change!

He might say something like, “Big Food, Big Ag, and Big Beverage don’t get to decide what food we grow, how we grow it, and what ends up on our shelves, the people get to decide!”

But of course he would never do that.

Murray is no more interested in doing something so “controversial” as restricting alcohol or processed foods as he is telling us the truth about where our taxes go and who decides. It could mean career suicide. It would mean having integrity, doing what’s right, telling the truth, and helping the people you were elected to serve, even when it might cost you.

CVS doesn’t want you to know that there are other things in their stores that are just as dangerous as cigarettes. They just want you to think they care, and to think about them when you think about your health. They’re just looking for another way to convince you to walk through their doors, instead of Walgreens. Even though they all sell the same poison.

The only thing they are really interested in is filling your prescription(s) and having you buy something addictive to keep you coming back for more. Nobody is looking out for your health. It’s on you to do it for yourself.