Anna King Shahab: Why we need to learn to trust food again

We need to teach our kids where food comes from and how to prepare it with care and respect. Photo / Thinkstock

Here in the West, there's no question we're looking down the sawn-off barrel of an epidemic of diet and sedentary lifestyle-related disease.

We know the steady increase over the past few decades in the consumption of processed foods, and the subsequent disconnect with growing, preparing and cooking our own food is doing nothing good for our health.

As a counter to this depressing phenomenon, we now have a constant stream of food theories being touted, promising to save us from death by doughnut if only we give up foods x, y and z or eat every meal in an "optimum" ratio of protein, fat and carbohydrate.

In between the ignorance about food and the obsessing about diet, we're forgetting the middle ground. It's time to look to moderation as the (very achievable) goal, and to repair the damaged reputation of food as something that can't be trusted.

We need to learn, and moreover teach our kids, where food comes from, how to prepare it with care and respect, how to listen to our taste buds and to gain a silent understanding of the nutritional and calorific makeup of foods, so that we can make informed decisions about what we eat.

Sound simple? Not really - a worrying number of adults, let alone kids, know nothing much about real food.

Garden to Table is a not-for-profit initiative that works within the school curriculum for children aged 7-10. GTT aims, in the words of founder Catherine Bell, "to improve food literacy so children grow up understanding what good food is and how to enjoy it".

Bell finds that unless kids have gained an education around food at home, there is often "a total disconnect with where food comes from", and this reality crosses all socio-economic groups.

"Many don't connect milk with a cow, or know that a potato comes from the ground."

And yet, with by getting stuck in to planting a vegetable bed, harvesting produce and learning how to cook and share simple, good food, believes Bell, "learning the skills that were second nature to people just a couple of generations ago will have long term impact on the health and wellbeing of our country."

Just to recap, if kids don't know what a potato actually is, perhaps now is not the time for us adults to promote a fear of the potato based on whether it's a 'good' or 'bad' carb, whether our Paleolithic ancestors had access to potato or whether said tuber was plucked from the soil under the light of a new moon. Perhaps we should just encourage the eating of the potato. The growing of the potato and then eating the potato, even more so.

Healthy Food Guide editor-in-chief and Herald columnist Niki Bezzant strongly agrees that the currently popular intense scrutiny of food groups not only unnecessary, but potentially damaging to society as it detracts from the type of balanced diet that's proven to be a good safeguard against disease.

"We know what we should be doing to be healthy; we know enough to actually reduce the risk for chronic disease and premature death by 80 per cent. There's really not much debate about it, and it's really not that hard! The healthiest, longest-living people on the planet do not spend their time fixating on a particular diet theory, food, or nutrient. The traditional Mediterranean diet and the traditional Japanese diet are very different in terms of what's being eaten, the proportions of nutrients and so on".

Michael Pollan famously summed up a game plan for a healthy diet in just eight words: "Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants."

Bezzant points out that healthy societies "give importance to food in a social and community setting: people make time to eat together, enjoy each other's company and interact. Food is not just about fuel; it's an important way for us to connect with each other in meaningful ways, and that it turn contributes to our overall health and wellbeing".

And be cautious about spending your hard earned money on any number of superfoods, wonder ingredients or meal replacements - no matter how "lovingly crafted". A 2003 Harvard study showed that the rate of cooking in any society directly predicts the rate of obesity - so engaging with real food in your own kitchen (and teaching younger family members to do the same) rather than reaching for the diet shakes and supplements, is what will help us out of this big fat hole we've dug ourselves.

As Avril Lavigne once pondered, "Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?"

Let's all get back to basics when it comes to eating - cut the processed rubbish which nobody is arguing is going to kill us, and learn to enjoy all the rest of it - by the seasons, knowing which things should be left for occasional treats, and sitting down together to eat and converse about what we're eating.

Let's lead the next generations by example, lest we lose for good the vitally important knowledge of how to eat well to survive and be happy.