What I Choose to Buy...
and Why

#3 in a series of monthly articles from members of the HWFC Nutrition committee

Once upon a time in 1943, a New York family doctor visited a farmhouse where a two-year-old girl was near death. She had diarrhea and had not been able to keep any solid food down for a long time. There was nothing the doctor could do. Mother and doctor were resigned to the inevitable. However, that was not to be the end of the story. I am alive today writing this article.

I remember lying on the living room couch when this strange man with a mustache came into the house. After he left, I began to think about the cellar and the sauerkraut that my mother had made “with my help.” I called to my mother in the kitchen, “Mommie! Sauerkraut!” My mother called the doctor and asked if she should give it to me. He didn’t think it would do any harm. That lactofermented sauerkraut restored me to digestive health. If we are old enough or lucky enough, we all have a “whole food history”—but will our grandchildren?

In an article in the summer 2006 newsletter The Councilor, published by the NYS Nutrition Council, Amie Hamlin shared some insights about modern diets from Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book Disease- Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right. She prepared a pie chart to represent 1998 U.S. Food Consumption Patterns by Calories. Her chart showed that 42% of calories came from animal products; 52% of calories came from refined and processed foods; while only 6% of calories came from whole vegetables, fruits, legumes, unprocessed nuts and seeds, and whole grains.

How many two-year-old children of today, or their parents, have had (or will have) homemade sauerkraut in their food memory bank? They might find sauerkraut in a can on the grocery store shelf—digestion benefits destroyed by exposure to high temperature processing. They might find sauerkraut in a plastic bag in the refrigerated section with vinegar used in the processing, instead of lactofermentation (allowing the cabbage to ferment naturally in its own nutrients).

Or, if they are lucky, they might keep in their refrigerator a container of sauerkraut that was made by a local entrepreneur the way my mother made it. Our Coop carries such a product in the corner refrigerator by the café, Vermont’s Deep Root Organic Raw-Cultured Sauerkraut, as well as Daikon with Ginger.

Best yet, they could make their own lacto-fermented foods. Coop and Nutrition Education committee member Louise Frazier has written “Vegetables First,” a pamphlet available in HaBA, which describes how to ferment beets, cabbage, cucumbers and carrots in one’s own kitchen.

Minimal preservation processing of whole foods provides convenient access to a healthful plant-based diet filled with naturally occurring nutrients of fiber, anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals.

Whether we buy lacto-fermented vegetables or frozen and vacuum packaged local foods, or locally produced shelf-stable products, we can trust that whole foods that we recognize are on the label. If we do not recognize the ingredient or it does not naturally occur in the product, ask why the ingredient is in the product. We can find minimally processed whole foods offered at farmers markets, farm stores and food co-ops supporting local food-based businesses.

Our bodies were designed eons ago to take whole foods apart— not to put the parts back together. Don’t be fooled by the packaging and media messages of large-scale food processors. Food scientists are employed by large corporations to take whole farm foods apart in order to get patents on the resulting parts, which they sell to other large-scale processors. Their nutraceutical concoctions— many touted for their organic ingredients as well, are on store shelves everywhere. Few consumers can resist the media messages on television, in magazines or on the fancy packaging. We know better!

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