Speaker 2
and I'm just curious have we ever introduced such a new thing and it has been beneficial obviously talking about these things that have developed over a long period of time fermentation things like that how long are we talking before humans can digest newer foods or incorporate a newer food versus what we've done over the last couple hundred years that you those are all great points and great questions so there's a
Speaker 1
couple different ways to answer so let me start this way I thought a very quick story when I was teaching at Washington College I was teaching obviously anthropology department and most of my classes were focused on either archaeology, slas, evolution, like things or food related issues in a more modern sense and this one particular semester I usually taught three or four classes a semester I had a student that was in two of the two different classes one was in the ancient or some kind of archaeology that I remember what it was and one was a modern food issues class and about halfway through the semester she pulled me aside after class she said listen professor Schindler I got a question like I you know she was a great student took a lot of notes and she was and she was listening obviously what I was saying and she said I don't get it like in the prehistoric class when you say food processing like you're super excited like I'm animated anyhow it's like you're literally jumping around and you're excited and you know this but in the modern food class you say food processing you take on a whole completely different persona looks like somebody like ran over your dog with a car like you're really upset and pissed off like what's the difference and I looked at her and I realized that I do that like I say food processing and I could mean something two million years ago or food processing I could mean something two months ago and I mean completely different things and I said listen I know I do it you're right and I actually don't know how I define the difference I have to think about it get back to you and I thought and thought and thought and obviously again in the shower came out and I figured out so this is what I mean by and I think this is a great way to start to answer your question the first one is almost all prehistoric technologies obviously in the past the only food were focused on making the food safe increasing nutrient density and most importantly increasing nutrient bioavailability right overcoming our own physical limitations and taking this raw material that we have no business eating putting it in our bodies in a state that's already ready to safely nourish us safely and efficiently nourish us almost all prehistoric technologies something to do with that whether and then we can go through what they are in a second in a modern sense and the problem with modern food processing technologies is that most of them are focused on making somebody a whole lot of money and they do that by either increasing size increasing shelf stability increasing how long it can stay before it goes bad increasing uniformly so it all looks good you know in the grocery store they all look
Speaker 2
the same availability what's that? Valatability yeah
Speaker 1
all palatability increasing the sugar content and all of those things that make us buy more and become addicted to it and usually this is the big difference usually at the expense of one or all of the things that I mentioned the prehistoric technologies are focused on it's at the expense of safety and I know we think about food safety now of course we have all these FDA's trying not to you know make sure our food is safe it's unsafe in a different way which hopefully I'll talk about in just a second certainly nobody's interested in the modern foods not many people in the modern food industry or interested in nutrient density or nutrient bioavailability and all of those things that made it made the technologies in the past there it's more about flavor and look and you buying a whole lot of food and not worrying about getting you sick you know that sort of thing so that's the difference between food processing technologies and the question you know is there any food that's been wrapped up recently introduced or introduced quickly or I'm kind of adding your question but you know how long is it take for the human body to kind of adjust to this new food the answer is again I think we're thinking about it the wrong way with that question I think the reality is most of the foods that we eat we literally have no business eating without the assistance of some kind of technology if you ate and you're the great if you ate a red kidney bean how many people are listening to this I think about how how many do you eat beans like probably a few if not quite a few a raw red kidney bean if you eat three of them will land you in the hospital I think it's like six will kill you like so something the toxic load in a red kidney bean is off the charts but we can process it and the processing is simple it doesn't take somebody in a lab coat and test tubes and sensors futures I mean so literally we soak it overnight and then we cook it and the combination of soaking and cooking is with detoxifies or for the most part detoxifies those kidney beans if we ate a whole handful of wheat berries we would get incredibly sick but if we do things to those wheat berries especially if we're doing something like soaking and fermenting and some money from sprouting them then we're transforming them into something completely different and then our bodies can do something with it so it isn't that we've introduced new food and all of a sudden it takes a while for our bodies to deal with it although sometimes we do see that in prehistory what's more often the case is we introduce a new food in combination with certain kinds of technologies and those things together can safely and efficiently you know nourish our