The healthy plate

The link between our health and the con­tent of our food is an essen­tial ele­ment that has been con­sid­ered for thou­sands of years.

Our health begins with our diet

The old­est med­ical trea­tis­es found are already con­cerned with what the patient eats and give rec­om­men­da­tions for var­i­ous diets to improve or main­tain health.

What changes is not the pri­ma­ry con­cern, but the answers that are giv­en. They depend, of course, on the progress of sci­ence, but not only that.

The state of glob­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and per­son­al stan­dard of liv­ing play an impor­tant role, depend­ing on whether you live in a rich or poor coun­try, whether you are able to buy healthy prod­ucts or not.

Added to this are pos­si­ble per­son­al health prob­lems, which can be exac­er­bat­ed by pol­lu­tion, the type of food avail­able, igno­rance, etc.

In devel­oped coun­tries, there is no longer any inter­est in pre­vent­ing goitre and rick­ets, which were major con­cerns just over a cen­tu­ry ago. Allergies, lac­tose intol­er­ance and gluten intol­er­ance, on the oth­er hand, have become every­day prob­lems.

Finally, beyond the sheer quest for nutri­tion­al bal­ance, organ­ic and eth­i­cal issues have become essen­tial for many.

Modern developments: junk food, industrialisation, etc.

The rejec­tion of a type of indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture that has objec­tive­ly allowed famines to dis­ap­pear in times of peace is linked to its excess­es and to fears about the future of the plan­et. Eating bet­ter opens up to liv­ing bet­ter, cul­ti­vat­ing bet­ter and pro­duc­ing bet­ter.

From the "MacDonald's eater" to the rig­or­ous and moral­is­tic veg­an, the spec­trum is so wide…

It is dif­fi­cult, in some cas­es, to dis­tin­guish between what is most impor­tant: rejec­tion of ani­mal suf­fer­ing or bet­ter liv­ing? Do we become veg­ans out of moral­i­ty or out of con­cern for our well-being? The ques­tion is not insignif­i­cant, because this diet in par­tic­u­lar requires a great deal of dietary knowl­edge to be "healthy".

Youtube is the set­ting for a mer­ci­less war between the "nice" veg­ans, who are in favour of a grad­ual evo­lu­tion, the repen­tant ones, who have giv­en up in the face of real dif­fi­cul­ties, in par­tic­u­lar per­ma­nent stom­ach pains, and the "hard­lin­ers" who don't under­stand that one can eat any­thing derived from ani­mal exploita­tion, includ­ing even honey.

And then it all depends on where you live.

Here, we also think about our wallets.

The para­dox is real: it will be eas­i­er to eat "organ­ic", "healthy" and even "veg­an" if you live in a big city than if you are in a small vil­lage (and you are not a farmer). Here we touch on anoth­er dif­fi­cul­ty: eat­ing organ­ic and local is not always easy.

While it is easy to avoid major here­sies (such as straw­ber­ries or mel­ons brought in from the West Indies for Christmas), in France it has been a long time since vil­lages have had work­ing mills, and farm­ers, for rea­sons of hygiene, are no longer allowed to sell cer­tain prod­ucts direct­ly. In Morocco, on the oth­er hand, it is still easy to make arti­sanal prod­ucts, but the prob­lem is find­ing the right prod­ucts.

The cost of trans­port and its car­bon impact also play a role in glob­al pollution.

So what can we do?

First of all, be reasonable.

Do not con­fuse, for exam­ple, coeli­ac dis­ease, gluten intol­er­ance and prob­lems linked to the poor qual­i­ty of flours. In oth­er words, don't go on a "gluten-free" diet on prin­ci­ple, because it would be bet­ter for your health. Yes, for 4% to 10% of the pop­u­la­tion. No for the vast majority.

Set your priorities.

In a for­mu­la­tion that would make anti-speciesist veg­ans howl, Pascal said that "he who wants to be an angel makes a beast". In the mod­ern world, it is dif­fi­cult to fight against "every­thing", espe­cial­ly since some issues are gen­er­at­ed by indus­try much more than by the indi­vid­ual. Some objec­tives can even be con­tra­dic­to­ry (fair trade in organ­ic prod­ucts gen­er­ates, despite every­thing, sig­nif­i­cant pol­lu­tion for the trans­port of cof­fee, quinoa, etc.).

To be rea­son­able, you have to sort out what is real­ly impor­tant and the devi­a­tions you allow your­self… like in a weight loss diet. And this is a per­son­al decision.

Get informed.

Sometimes go look­ing for the lit­tle beast, check the com­po­si­tion of prod­ucts with­out being fright­ened by cer­tain acronyms that are only the cod­i­fi­ca­tion of com­mon prod­ucts. Be wary — on prin­ci­ple — of all mir­a­cle prod­ucts. Know the cycle of the sea­sons, so as to eat real­ly fresh prod­ucts. Organise your­self, per­haps, to grow herbs and veg­eta­bles at home… not easy, with­out a bal­cony or ter­race, but "doable".

Indulge yourself.

The first con­di­tion for eat­ing well is to enjoy it. Preparing meals, eat­ing, should be nei­ther a chore nor a duty, but a plea­sure and a moment that we offer our­selves, both for well-being and conviviality.

My dive into cook­ing was accom­pa­nied by an aware­ness of these com­po­nents of "eat­ing well". In addi­tion to the recipes, I want­ed to share these thoughts, the dis­cov­er­ies I have made over the past few years, my suc­cess­ful and failed attempts.

I am lucky enough not to be lac­tose or gluten intol­er­ant, nor to have any food aller­gies. I am a flex­i­vore, hav­ing great­ly reduced my meat con­sump­tion, with­out reduc­ing it to zero. I do, how­ev­er, have "eat­ing dis­or­ders" (to put it plain­ly, I am bulim­ic) and tak­ing the time to cook, pay­ing atten­tion to what goes on my plate, and vary­ing the flavours has enabled me to stabilise.