Food Matters

This week on Between You and Me we talk food allergies and food preferences.  What's yours?  comments@kaxe.org  Here's Guido's story...


Food Matters 
by Steve Downing

            For three-plus decades, my weekday lunch has not varied: a sandwich, on burned toast or a bagel, consisting of peanut butter, pickle and tomato. I’m sure I’m not the only one who favors this combo, but I have yet to meet a soul who doesn’t give me the total-face-wrinkle and some sort of vocalized rebuke when they hear about my blackened bread, peanut butter, pickle, and tomato sandwich. I’m okay with that. Or was.

            I recently had a full one-on-one Ayurvedic counseling session in Minneapolis, during which I learned (among many other things) that I should not be eating peanut butter, pickles or tomatoes, and the only bread I should eat ought to be yeast-free.

            I kidded my counselor that this gave me license to switch to potato chips and beer for lunch. I was joking and she laughed, but neither of us was amused. I suppose I’d gone into immediate denial-anger-depression about my lunch, and she was probably feeling a little defensive about Ayurveda. We both recovered quickly, I’m happy to report, and the session was back on track.

            Ayurveda is a healing science so old it pre-dates written history, and it accurately predicted enough about me that I’m still marveling. Assessing. Ayurveda predicted my single-mindedness, not to say tunnel vision; I concede I’m no stranger to the odd tunnel. It predicted my sharp, sometimes over-heated cerebral curiosity, with all of the pulse and blood pressure implications therein. It predicted my oily skin. It predicted my wild white hair.

            As you see: Ayurveda understood the gene pool millennia before Charles Darwin boarded HMS Beagle and sailed into world fame. You can sidestep much in this life; you will never get out of the way of your genes.

            I’ll have more to say about these matters. But first and foremost: what to do about lunch for the next three decades?