Foods with a healthy legacy in your cupboard
By DEAN DODSON I have often thought that it's interesting how items we are familiar with and use today may have started out with a very different purpose. The other day, while digging through the food cupboard, I realized how true this statement is. In many instances the original purpose is being rediscovered today.
For example, take Kellogg's cereals. Most of us have had a bowl of Kellogg's Corn Flakes or eaten granola for breakfast or a snack. Have you ever wondered why we have them and for what purpose they were originally created?
William Keith Kellogg and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg are two of many notable people who influenced health and healthy eating in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They were both interested in nutrition and healthy food. Dr. Kellogg operated the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which advocated exercise, hydrotherapy, fresh air, sunshine, good posture, and healthy food. Dr. Kellogg wrote that "foods abound in vitamins, and vitamins are the real elixir of life discovered at last in this twentieth century" (written around 1880). Dr. Kellogg developed granola in 1877, corn flakes in 1897, and, along with his brother, many other health focused concoctions. Will, or W. K. Kellogg, as he was known, was the person who founded the Kellogg's Cereal Company that we know today. The roots of the Kellogg brothers' products were founded on philosophical principles of health and nutrition.
Another item in the cabinet that I ran across was a bottle of Bitters. You don't really hear too much about the use of "Herbal Bitters " from the mainstream press today. The little bottle reminded me of why we had it in the cupboard.
Several years ago my wife and I were on a rushed trip to visit family in Seattle. We were scheduled to eat lunch with our daughter at a nice seafood restaurant and we both had an upset stomach due to lack of sleep and a lot of travel stress. We knew we were in no shape to eat lunch and were just going to order tea when our waitress spoke up. She was listening as we talked about how we felt and said, "I think I have just the thing to help you two." She returned to our table a few minutes later with two glasses of a mixture of bitters and soda water. In less than a minute we both felt better and ended up enjoying a good meal with our daughter. There are those who would say it was the soda water that solved our difficulty, but my wife and I are convinced to this day it was the combination of soda water and bitters that did the trick. The alkalinity of the soda water helped settle and open up the flow from our stomachs to the intestines and the bitters got all the necessary digestive juices flowing to move things along. Bitter herbs have been around a long, long time but are mostly ignored today. I know this event convinced us how quickly mild stomach upset can be resolved in short order with an old-time treatment.
Next to be pulled from the cupboard was a bottle of fruit juice. This reminded me of an article I had recently read about mental acuity and aging. The crux of the article stated that in late May and early June of last year an interesting study was discussed at the 38th annual scientific meeting of the American Aging Society. The study that I refer to was led by Robert Krikorian, Ph.D., of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. The great thing about this study was that it involved a phytonutrient-rich fruit juice that each and every one of us has easy access to. The drink was pure Concord grape juice. The study suggested that those drinking the grape juice, with its natural polyphenolic antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds, showed improved short term memory, spatial memory, and a greater ability to recall detailed lists of information. This study is just another that shows the importance that phytonutrient-rich foods play in the aging or anti-aging process.
Foods and the types of foods we eat really are important. With a little research in regard to what is in your cabinet you might discover some interesting facts of which you may not be aware or may have overlooked.
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