34 - Sunday, January 6, 1991 - North Shore News LIFESTYLES ‘Real food’ best way to stay alive to 105 NOT LONG before Christmas, a lady phoned for help with her holiday pickled eggs. Either she didn’t know I had leapt out of the frying-pan into the sea of gerontoiogy, or she knew and assumed that once a cook always a food enthusiast. Quite right. My guru’s robes have been cut up for dusters, but food's still daily. First you establish the cholesterolic profile, then you wonder if it’s on your list. After all, food's a really pivotal concern at whatever age, a social expression, a power tool, a com- forter, a gesture of love, and, for the seniors at the table, a proper labyrinth of rigid dicta and unstable opinion. The day I left the cardiac ward there were stern instructions about coffee, which must be decaffeinated and that by the water method. Last fall that precise product was publicly declared to be haz- ardous to one’s health. Another heavy stricture was laid on choco- late, almost immediately blown out of the water by the Atlantic magazine, called by some an unimpeachable source. It published an article recom- mending eating chocolate as one way of lowering cholestero! levels! There obviously are no exact facts, certainly none that apply indiscriminately to me and thee. We all have different cellular structures, different metabolism rates, different lifestyles, and therefore there are many paths to healthy old age, as there are many paths to paradise. A recent forum of American chefs and nutritionists admitted the pressure tactics about red meat — bad! —- and oatbran — good! — were not making for better food habits. Rather they were frightening people into extremist diets. Their final option was as limp as boiled celery —- “good eating habits should start at birth, and, what’s more, should include all manners of foot except fat. Eat. Gel the family together and eat. Don’t be afraid of food.’? Now what can we make out of that outburst? Canada’s long-touted Food Guide, our dieticians’ Bibic, has been attacked for toadying to the powerful food industry. Also for WHAT’S ON — SENIORS MONDAY dan. 7-Ongoing. N.S. Neighbourhood House. Keep Well free drop-in pro- gram for adults over 50 yrs, Exercise, relaxation, counselling 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Walking Club meets at 9 a.m. Hands-on program at 10:30 a.m. Hot lunch at 12 p.m. Guest speaker today: Neil Mcintyre. Topic: Learri to be mote assertive. Info: 987-8138. TUESDAY Jan. 8--Music lectures for srs. 11 a.m. at Van. Academy of Music. Continues as long as interest. Mr. Goldberg of Van. Academy co-ord. Info: 987-0670. eee Jan. 8--Ongoing. N.S. Caregivers Support Soc. Weekly support for peo- ple caring for ill or aging relative. Meets every Tues. 1:15-3:15 pom. at N. Lonsdale United Church. Info: 983- 2141. Eleanor Godley {eS Se THE VINTAGE YEARS failing to establish and recom- mend a diet that will maintain good health and prevent diseases such as cancer and diabetes. These are the pecple who have always said they know best. : In my collections of focd- related clippings, one especially tickled me. It was a surprising salute to radishes, of all things. “The slaves who built the Egyp- tian pyramids,’’ it stated, boldly, “were fed a steady diet of radishes.”* . Really. The pyramids, those massive conundrums, are centuries old. How did the indomitable food sleuths identify remnants of chewed radishes in intestines of such antiquity? Is carbon dating that capable? Or were the re- cording tableteers that meticulous? This isn't just idle curiosity on my part. For close to 50 years, I personally have kept company with 2a radish freak. I had never wotted of his potential as a pyramid-builder. He’s husky, sure, but gosh! Of course his obsessions with daily doses of tasteless little tubers was not revealed before I'd married him. Pre-nuptial conversations have litle to do with the minutiae of diet, though it is my firm belief a lot of marriages would be saved if it were. Take my side of our con- tract, with a mother who loved to adventure with garlic and curry and fungi and game. Plunk that down beside a chap grown up on a sensible regimen of sturdy Scot- tish country cookery, no foreign nonsense there, certainly no game. We were on a collision course from day one. Our first serious fight was ignited by my offering seis peers Jerusalem artichokes as a change from potatoes. Potatoes don’t need a change, baby. Everyone knows the three big- gest hazards to stability in mar- riage: money, relatives and food. Do they teach about the land- mines disguised as broccoli or braised tongue or tripe-and-onions in those courses they offer before the vows become irrevocable? Well, temporarily irrevocable? | fear not. We've all just fought our way through the most reckless food- consumption period of the year, reeking as it does of fat, sweets and alcohol. Avoidance of it could only have been achieved by having your jaw wired shut or by setting out for China ia a rowboat full of hard- tack. Some of those rich flaky left-overs are still lurking in the refrigerator, stupored with fumes of sherry. You and I are the ones who have the secret, in fact. We've come a long way on a foundation of what can only be called ‘‘real. food.’” Our mothers brought it from the store or plucked it from the garden and cooked it fresh, sauced and seasoned it their way. They also ‘‘put down’’ a lot of fruit and vegetables and meats against the winter. But none of it came out of a foil container or was pried out of a package in which it had been treated and manipulated to preserve colors and fend off old age. We grew up with food that was neither fast nor convenient, in the present sense, but with identifiable ingre- dients controlled by the cook. A lot of us still prepare that kind of food because we like the taste and know how it was made. We don’t need to cook in 30 se- cond segments, but can spend a whole day brooding over a stew or a casserole, filling the house with delicious smells. And real left-overs, unlike the imitation kinds, make the best soup in the world. We'll hope to keep hanging around the kitchen, making cook- ies and muffins with stuff out of the pantry. Along with our other old-fashioned ideas of thrift and honesty and modesty we'll cling to our old-fashioned notions about good ingredients and straight- forward seasonings, ard stay alive to 105. With a side-order of radishes, just in case. 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