Don Miguel de Cervantes said that “the health of the entire body is forged in the office of the stomach” and he said it right. He alone remembered what Hippocrates already confirmed 2,500 years ago, “Let your medicine be your food and food be your medicine”. Both the wise Greek and the brilliant writer would be dazed today seeing all the shit we eat. And they would tell us in unison, how are you not going to get sick eating so much crap?
We can’t blame the cook because he practically no longer exists, almost no one cooks properlyWe have fallen into the trap of food industry and on our menu every day there are more prepared and ultra-processed dishes, fewer pots and spoons. Many times not even that, subscribers to eat in restaurants where fifth-range industrial products reign and kitchens are limited to iron, microwave and deep fryer. At what point did we forget to eat well?
I know the justification. We do not have time to go shopping, cook, prepare the table. But we have plenty of time to do series marathons for hours, seasoned with junk food at home. This postcovid era has generalized the fashion of eat bad, bad and expensive. A Galician empanada or croquettes bought at the supermarket will never be better than those made at home, but how lazy.
I will always remember the my grandmother’s dishes and some, not many, from my mother. What flavors of childhood will our children remember? Pizzas and hamburgers ordered online. And our grandchildren? We should take food more seriously because behind it there is health. And if we choose local and local products unprocessed there is also a lot of health for the rural world. And a lot of future.