There’s an intrinsic link between Nature and nutrition. And as we divorce ourselves from Nature, we are also moving away from real food and its nutrients that sustain. Health pros say when you’re closer to Nature, here’s what’s bound to happen…
Need, not want, will determine what we eat
When we lived in the forest, we were hunter-gatherers, says Dr V Mohan, Chennai-based diabetologist. “People would run after animals to catch them. And then, they may not have eaten for many days, surviving on berries and nuts,” he says. Today, we’ve lost connection with the concept of eating when hungry because of the artificial concept of time by a clock. “People didn’t say, ‘Oh it’s 4 o’clock: time for tea.’”
We’ll work for our food and eat it minimally processed
Even until a few generations ago, people did physical work to grow their own food and then minimally process it to extract the best out of it. For instance, rice was grown and then hand-pounded, so it retained all its essential nutrients: the fibre, vitamin B, the phytonutrients. Dr Mohan says that with the advent of mills, rice became whiter, more processed. “Every study says that we eat too much carbohydrates and this comes from refined cereals. You can only eat a little hand-pounded rice; it fills you up. Merchants are happy because it doesn’t get rancid and it’s less susceptible to pests.”
Local and fresh will be our cornerstones
In an ideal world, we would all be growing veggies, plucking them, and cooking them immediately, says Sheela Krishnaswamy, Bengaluru-based dietician. When you store fruits and vegetables for long durations, vitamin C is most easily lost as it’s heat-sensitive, she says. The freshest ingredients are tastier and don’t have all those carbon miles associated with them (no waxed apples from Washington). A study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry , showed that beta carotene in carrots, peas, spinach suffered a 50% loss when put into cold storage. The ones stored for the longest duration had the lowest levels.
Grapes harvest. Farmers hands with freshly harvested black grapes.
Supplements will only be for when we’re sick
Healthy people don’t need to take supplements. You just need to eat regular, home-cooked balanced meals. “Eating nutrients in isolation is never a good idea, unless you have been prescribed them,” says Krishnaswamy. “For nutrients to be bio-available (easily available for the body to use) and assimilated, it needs the environment of all the nutrients interacting with each other.”
Less pollution and tension
The pollution and stress in the city causes the build-up of cancer-causing free radicals in the body, says Ritika Samaddar, Regional Head – Dietetics, Max Healthcare, Delhi. This results in hormonal imbalance: there’s a lot of adrenalin and other stress hormones pumping, while serotonin and other good-mood-producing hormones are depressed. We are more likely to reach for unhealthy, packaged foods than apples and oranges, pushing up the risk of disease. “The moment we are near Nature, the pace is unhurried, hence stress levels reduce, digestion gets better, which increases nutrient absorption, leading to a stronger immune system that fights diseases better,” says Rachna Chhachhi, nutritional therapist and certified cancer coach.
Seasonal produce will rule
We live in an air-conditioned environment. Those in basement offices don’t even know whether it’s sunny or raining outside. This slows our metabolism, for starters, says Dr Prasan Shankar, who practises Ayurvedic medicine in Bengaluru. It puts us out of touch with our bodies’ demands and what’s right to eat seasonally.
We’ll preserve gut bacteria
The gut is our second brain — both are connected through neurons, hormones and chemicals that provide feedback to each other. When we eat highly processed foods, the microbiome changes, says Dr Shankar. Fad diets and packaged foods are unnatural. Think about it: when you see a potato on the plate, you should be able to trace it back. You can imagine the potato in the kitchen, the soil from which it was taken, the farmer. A bag of chips? Not so much. “These unnatural diets are associated with a bunch of non-communicable diseases (irritable bowel syndrome, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease),” says Dr Shankar. A gut that is unhealthy has also been associated with mental-health conditions.
We’ll start cooking
In the city, we don’t have time to carefully select produce and cook ourselves, so we choose ready-to-cook foods full of preservatives or plastic packaging. “While processed foods wrapped in plastic can get cancerous by exposure to the sun’s heat, for fresh fruits and vegetables the sun is energy. Unless the food has rotted or been tampered with chemicals to make it look good, 80-85% of fresh produce retains its nutritional value even after travelling long distances to reach your market,” says Chhachhi.
Gratitude, not greed will drive us
Being mindful of what we eat is easier said than done: so many of us eat at our desks. “When we eat mindfully, we become attentive to the food — who is making it, its source, its constituents and how it affects the body and mind. We look at something deeply: the sunshine, the water, the soil, the farmer,” says Shantum Seth, a mindfulness and meditation teacher based in Dehradun. Unfortunately, if you ask a child in the city to think of these things, it may be a little difficult. “Children think Nature is a place for a holiday; it’s consumptive in some way,” he says. But eating slowly, chewing food and feeling grateful prevents overeating and helps in digestion, hence nutrient absorption. We will also stop chemicalising and hormonising our food in the pursuit of profit.
