The Missing Ingredient
by Herbert
Dreyer
zone3
You may not have noticed but there is a certain ingredient missing in
the foods we eat which could wreck your life. Take asparagus for example.
Now what could be missing? I am a chef, I can help you.
I know. I know. Vegetables that are purple are in and you buy your
purple passion asparagus farm fresh. None of that stuff that’s transported
1250 miles on average from factory farms to reach the produce shelf,
exhausted, at your market. Nope. You get the good stuff, organically
grown, from the farmers market and cook it the only approved, right and
correct way; you steam it (according to a recent study in the Journal of
the Science of Food). Good.
Then you sample it and it tastes kina good. So, what’s missing? Maybe,
your chef suggests, you add a little Meyers lemon butter, some French sea
salt and imported, fresh ground black pepper. Now it tastes really good,
you gourmet with a personal chef. But something’s still missing?
Now you read the fine print and find out most of the essential nutrient
folate or vitamin B9 is just not all there and whatever was there was lost
when you cooked it (according to the USDA). And to make matters worse, it
doesn’t matter where you bought the asparagus or even if it is purple,
white or green. Because the only thing The United States Department of
Agriculture knows for sure it that it probably does not have an adequate
amount of folate for you in the first place. Read on.
All right. So folate is colorless, something you cannot taste and it is
something you cannot live without. In fact you and I and whatever colored
asparagus you're eating have something in common: none of us can live
without folate (Andrew D. Hanson, Horticulture Sciences Department,
University of Florida, personal communication). By deduction we know that
the asparagus made enough for itself, but maybe not enough for you. So how
do you know enough of it there or not there?
You don’t, period. Science could tell you, but try and find that
answer. Of course you could have a nutrient analysis done before cooking
and after cooking and you would find out for sure. But that would set you
back a lot of lettuce, if you get my drift. And the asparagus would not
plate up very pretty and I would quit as your chef.
You say, so what? I knew that was coming. Your life without adequate
folate or vitamin B9? If your primary source of folate was asparagus then
you could end up putting yourself at risk for a host of devastating health
problems. Here’s the short list: heart disease, birth defects, retardation
of development (in children) and low levels can lead to anemia in adults
along with added risk for colon cancer. Oh, your body absolutely needs
folate to make new cells and genetic material. Darn details.
But don’t throw out the asparagus, yet.
As science built the story of this missing ingredient, study by study,
and discovered what happens to us when it is not all there, the Federal
Government stepped in to help fix the problem. But first science proved we
were not getting enough folate from our natural foods. In fact about 50 or
so years ago science proved that food richest in folate is (or was)
asparagus, but it is also found in other green leafy vegetables, eggs and
beans. All this has been published by the USDA and the FDA. However, in
1998 the Food and Drug Administration began requiring certain grain
manufacturers to fortify their foods with folic acid, a synthetic form of
folate.
And low and behold folate deficiencies are becoming rare, according to
nutritionists (that’s what most every licensed nutritionist you can
contact would most likely say—contact a few and see).
But the levels of folate in our naturally occurring foods are still to
low to sustain our health and we must have our diet fortified or suffer
the consequences. We know this for sure because science has established it
beyond doubt and with agreement of the Federal Government. In addition, no
less an authority than Harvard University ( at Harvard’s Department of
Public Health) says fresh fruits and vegetables alone cannot provide us
with adequate nutrition—we need supplements to fill in the missing
ingredients in our foods.
So we now know there are ingredients missing from our foods that were
there but are not now and we do not know why: the baseline for getting
adequate nutrition from our foods has shifted.
As your chef I recommend it is probably best to eat your asparagus,
steamed and sauced along and pop a vitamin supplement rich in folate (a
daily dose of 400 to 800 mcgs is recommended by the FDA—check it out with
your doctor before you start).
Of course, if you do not like looking for missing ingredients in your
foods you can eat some cereal fortified with folic acid and other yummy
ingredients.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Herb Dreyer is the critically acclaimed chef at Good Friends &
Company home of fine American foods
and a writer on the controversial baselines in American food.
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