In the last few years natural food is becoming increasingly popular , a symptom that human beings are reflecting on what is more correct to choose for the sake of their own health and (at best) that of the planet.
The mass 'magnetreccio' market is adapting to the demand and offers left and right inflated products of 'without' :
• unsweetened
• gluten free
• lactose-free
• without palm oil etc.
But are we sure that these labels are a guarantee of truly natural food, good for us and for the Earth?
Let's try to jump over the abyss of the 'without' to enter the dense jungle of ingredients . We will find ourselves making our way, with machete blows, among the thorny fronds of additives of the most varied features : sweeteners, colourings, thickeners, preservatives, hydrogenated fats, glutamate and the apparently harmless natural flavourings .
The food industry spares us absolutely nothing , neither in the composition of foods nor in their packaging: it provides opportunities for contamination in abundance, for our bodies and for the environment in which we live.
Without makeup and without deception
Natural food is the food of our ancestors, the food of its origins, the food that does not exploit but gives.
Natural food cannot have labels containing lists: at most it can show off a reputation, the story of a genesis, the narration of the events of a place, the portrait of the hands that have cared for and guarded it.
Natural food is the food of our ancestors, the food of its origins, the food that does not exploit but gives. It is a food that does not need 'withouts' to occupy its place in the world (or perhaps I should say in the kitchen): it defines itself, with shapes and colors that can be traced back to its roots, such as a hymn of imperfection magnificent and sacred .
To restructured soybeans, which I gladly do without, I prefer cowpeas or cannellini or borlotti or tondini beans, grown 5 km from my house and hand-picked by a father and his daughter.
There restructured soybeans it is a granular of soy first dried, then pressed, then reduced to powder, then "reassembled". It is contained in soy steaks, soy granules, croquettes and soy burgers.
For the corn flakes, which keep only the image imprinted on the box of the corn, I happily substitute homemade popcorn with my children, popping corn kernels whose origin I know.
Instead of cereal biscuits, I more willingly opt for biscuits (sweet or savoury) made by me with stone-ground wholemeal or semi-wholemeal flour and a few other ingredients.
The list could go on and on with margharine, various veg cheeses and vacuum-packed veg burgers with 0.05% spirulina.
Spirulina is a tropical algae labeled as a super food due to its high protein value and which is now stuffed everywhere, to disguise even the sole of a shoe as an elixir of life.
But it's not always easy to escape the seductions (read: shenanigans) of the market. The ready-made and processed meal winks at us , both for the rhythms of life that don't allow us to spend too much time in the kitchen, and for the distance from nature and the seasons, closed as we are in our golden urban traps .
The good news is that we can emancipate ourselves from the food industry and back to the authenticity of food by putting some simple precautions .
No natural food can come from a factory: real natural food, without tricks and without deceit, arrives on our table directly from the fields and from artisan workshops, it few transformations (all traceable), still carries within itself the heartbeat and breath of the earth.
We can choose if nourish ourselves with life and truth .
Which side are you on?