Arts & Culture Soul food

Now that spring is finally here, there is definitely room for improvement in your pantry.  Some spring cleaning of sorts, starting on the outside and ending inside the body and the soul.  I can only imagine that the cereals and flours in your food pantry are all bleached and super white, the sugar is white, oh let's not mention the tonnes of salt crowding out everything.

Just about everything else is some combination of chemical laden, highly-refined, and nutritionally barren.  Ouch, the poor organs have to endure this kind of empty and dangerous way of eating.  Blame it on winter?  I don't know about that.

Take heart the good news is that eating is right within everyone's reach because natural and organic ingredients are increasingly available in supermarkets, food co-ops, and the good old farmers' markets in villages and towns alike.  And please don't be shy to drop a new ingredient into your grocery basket this time around.  Adventure is what keeps us alive, especially with food.  Someone once said that there is no better pleasure than food.  I agree 200 percent, gosh I love good food!

There are simple and different ways to bravely start swapping those more healthful better tasting ingredients into your everyday cooking.  I am always amazed at how limited most diets are, so much so you can easily tell what they had for lunch and what they will have for dinner.  Geez how boring is that?  No wonder the kids find the meals from next door more exciting.

Okay, let me keep you suspended.  sHere are five simple ways to revamp your pantry and your diet;

*Expand your food pantry with whole and natural flours (whether it's maize, wheat or rice flour), oils, fats, sweeteners, and spices.  You are better off mixing your own spices because then you are sure they have fillers and additives.

Stay away from those common ones that every Motswana thinks are the staples - you know what I'm talking about, the usual suspects such as barbecue, chicken, fish spice etc.

* Think outside the box and experiment with alternative local and exotic grains and cereals such as quinoa, teff, and amaranth.  Did you know that certain species of amaranth grow wild here in Botswana, and most of us grew up knowing valuable nutritious crop to be a weed and with amaranth you also eat the green leafy part as a vegetable?  Now how's that for a super food.

* People, people, people please understand the importance of eating from a colourful plate.  It's a very logical rule; more colours mean more variety, which means more nutrition across all food groups, especially the essential vitamins, minerals and those phytochemicals, which are the buzz word nowadays.

* Start playing a food police - in a good way - with your family and self by getting acquainted with powerful, nutrient-rich superfoods.  Most beans, fruits, especially berries, leafy and cruciferous vegetables, nuts, herbs and spices are the important categories of super foods.

While at it remember other foods high in fiber. No fiber, no digestive and gut health - in normal speak that spells out constipation, hemorrhoids, potential colon cancer and sluggishness.  Who needs that?

*Branch out from using white sugar just like you did with wheat and from table salt to sea or rock salt.  But make sure that the salt is fortified with iodine i.e. iodated for better thyroid gland health, brain development, and prevention of birth defects.

The more you stick by these suggestions the better you will start enjoying meal preparation, and better health through optimum nutritious ingredients.

Many make the argument that our bodies find it easier to utilise the whole foods that our species have been consuming for thousands of years.

Do you know that the body does not recognise as food some of the modern highly processed products and convenience foods that have been introduced into the food supply in the last half a century?

And worse still some of these "foods" are actually highly damaging transfats being an excellent case in point.
Transfats are the stuff margarine, and other solidified fats are made up of.  Butter is natural so it is free of transfats.  No wonder I have always loved my butter, in moderation though.

Another particular problem nowadays is many of the meat substitutes, which can be packed with salt,preservatives, artificial flavours, and genetically modified soy.  So the key is to seek out foods that are as close to their natural state as possible.  Live long and well with nature.