Preserving
the Taste of Yesterday to Meet the Health Needs of Today
By Kindy R. Peaslee, RD
Today’s Dietitian
Vol. 7 No. 9 P. 60
For centuries,
growing, preserving, and cooking food was a major part of family
life for most Americans. Today, American families are “food
consumers,” and family life is spent acquiring food at supermarkets
and restaurants. As dietitians, we have witnessed this evolving
food lifestyle of families eating fewer meals together, contributing
to the decline of the American diet.
Consumers are looking for convenience both when
eating out and at home. Here’s the challenge: How can
convenient, reasonably priced, high-quality food from a trustworthy
source be made available to today’s families?
In the March 2000 issue of the Archives
of Family Medicine, a study of more than 16,000
children aged 9 to 14 showed that children who always ate at
home consumed, on average, nearly one more serving of fruits
and vegetables daily than children who sometimes or never ate
at home. Sadly, dining at home is a neglected practice in this
generation. Yet, what choices do busy families have to satisfy
the growing desire for quick but healthy meals at home?
One choice is the popular cook-and-carry food
companies that have opened in many neighborhoods. Last year,
The New York Times featured an article
on the gaining popularity of companies such as Dinners Ready,
Dream Dinners, Super Suppers, and Dinners By Design. Now, one
year later, the concept is growing and thriving as a mealtime
answer for busy families.
These companies provide healthy meals and try
to avoid preservatives and artificial ingredients in their recipes,
yet few are using local, organic foods due to their alliance
with national food suppliers, which often cannot provide organically
or locally grown foods economically.
So how can fresh and locally grown food be preserved
and still provide families with both taste benefits and high
nutrient value? To explore an answer to this question, we must
take a look at historical methods of growing, preserving, and
freezing foods and compare those with modern modes of food preservation.
Foods of Yesterday:
Farm Grown
The Sensible Cook: Dutch Foodways in the Old and
the New World by Peter G. Rose (really a female
writer) is a translation of a 1700s Dutch cookbook used by families
in the Hudson Valley of New York. The author discusses at least
12 fruits preserved by many methods still used today. In that
era, fruit was preserved by adding sugar, syrup, alcohol, cider,
and cider vinegar, or the fruit was dried or candied.
Other foods that were available in the upstate
New York region included nuts such as almonds, chestnuts, hickory
nuts, and walnuts; meats such as duck, pork, rabbit, chicken,
fish, beef, and lamb; and grains such as rye, wheat, barley,
corn, and oats. At least 30 different herbs and flower varieties
were also available.
Rose writes that the sensible cook used spices
with restraint to enhance the taste of food rather than mask
it. At that time, spices such as nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, ginger,
coconut, vanilla bean, pepper, and cloves were imported from
the West Indies and Indonesia. Other foods available for cooking
during the 1700s in our nation were rice, sugar, salt, currants,
raisins, dates, lemons, oranges, and pine nuts.
Foods of Yesterday:
Preservation Techniques
Some preservation techniques available in the 18th century did
not promote what we consider healthy eating practices today—for
example, salting and high-salt pickling, using animal fats for
doughnuts and pastries, and using high concentrations of sugars
for preserving fruits. Other preservation methods of cooling,
drying, spicing, freezing, fermenting, and smoking were much
healthier.
Some of yesteryear’s whole food innovators
would make the farm fresh food into another food or form or
use natural processes to extend the fresh food’s edible
life. Milk products such as whole milk and heavy cream were
made into farmer cheese, cottage cheese, buttermilk, sour cream,
and salted hard cheese. Eggs would be hatched and butter and
grain products made into yeast breads, pretzels, cakes, cookies,
doughnuts, pies, pancakes, and waffles.
Examples of natural storing processes to extend
the edible life of food would be to keep food cold in water,
ice, a root cellar, or a cave. Another storing method, the canning
process, began in the late 1800s. Foods such as grains, nuts,
and beans would be kept in dry storage. Salt or spices would
be added to ham, hard cheese, sausage, corned beef, and pastrami.
Candied fruits, syrups, and jams would have sugar added to extend
what we now call “shelf life.” Vinegar was added
to pickles and herring. Foods such as ham, fish, and cheese
were often smoked and sauerkraut, cider, alcohol, and beer went
through a fermentation process. The winter season offered a
natural way to freeze and keep meats longer.
Modern Large-Scale Processing
and Preservation
Fast forward to the 21st century to a modern culture of eliminating
bacteria and keeping food fresh for extended periods of time.
Most large-scale processors today use heat to kill harmful bacteria.
Examples of this are pasteurizing milk, cider, and juices; blanching
vegetables before freezing; and canning fruits, vegetables,
and meat products.
Other current preservation techniques are the
nonthermal processes used to eliminate spoilage for faraway
shipments and the ability to offer “nearly fresh”
foods to consumers across the nation. Ionizing radiation (such
as electron beams, x-rays, and gamma rays) allows chilled, irradiated
beef to be sold in convenience stores. Currently, 40 countries
irradiate food for shipping all over the world to extend shelf
life. Ultra high-pressure processing disrupts spoilage and slows
growth of harmful bacteria. Additives such as sulfites in dried
fruits, vegetables, and fresh produce; nitrites in processed
meats such as hot dogs and bologna; and calcium proprionate
in bread promote a longer shelf life.
Other ways we see modern preservation methods
is in highly processed foods. Nitrogen is pumped into fresh
produce bags to prevent spoilage; chemical preservatives are
added to increase shelf life; synthesized antioxidants are used
to prevent color change; and meats are frozen and vacuum packaged
to reduce oxidation and prevent rancidity in fats.
After all is said and done with our large-scale
food processing techniques, do we even know the actual food
form we started with? Anna Dawson, retired home economics teacher
and founder of Hometown Foods, LLC in Kinderhook, N.Y., asks
that question often and is on a mission to step away from the
modern preservation techniques of today and use small-scale
food preservation methods to provide local farmers’ foods
year-round to families. In 1998, Dawson had a modern farm harvest
kitchen built to process regional foods 21st century-style using
a small-scale food processing system.
Modern Small-Scale Food
Processing and Preservation
Dawson believes one of the best ways to preserve fresh, local
foods today is to use freezing methods combined with vacuum
packaging. “Freezing does a great job of preserving the
quality of the harvest and presents an opportunity to design
healthier foods that are lower in salt, sugar, and portion controlled,”
she explains. “They can also be tastier since you can
experience the taste interplay of natural food flavors.”
Dawson’s research has found that most
of the current Web sites about freezing are old-fashioned. As
a resource, she recommends a newer book that was the basis of
her work, titled The Busy Person’s Guide to
Preserving Food: Easy Step-by-Step Instructions for Freezing,
Drying, and Canning (Storey Publishing LLC, 1995).
“Food preservationists should connect
with farmers at farmers’ markets so that they can arrange
to buy the food at wholesale prices for canning of fruits and
freezing of vegetables. Harvest overproduction is reasonably
priced at the farm gate,” says Dawson.
The China Study
A book that has greatly influenced and also confirmed Dawson’s
findings is The China Study: The Most Comprehensive
Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications
for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health by
T. Colin Campbell, PhD, and Thomas M. Campbell II. The report
has been called the most comprehensive study ever done on the
connection between nutrition and the risk of developing disease.
After reading the study, Dawson was encouraged that the seasonal
produce offerings and preservation methods accomplished through
her Hometown Foods organization do positively affect her customers’
health.
Campbell’s research project culminated
in a 20-year partnership with Cornell University, Oxford University,
and the Chinese Academy of Preventative Medicine. Surveys of
diseases and lifestyle factors in rural China and Taiwan produced
more than 8,000 statistically significant associations between
diet and disease. Campbell ultimately found that people who
ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease
and people who ate the most plant-based foods avoided chronic
disease and were the healthiest.
Community Food Compact
Coming alongside Hometown Food’s vision of eating seasonal
local foods year-round is the pilot Community Food Compact project
in northern Columbia County, New York, which is currently in
the process of being established. Through this experimental
food project and collaborative community effort, a local food
system is supported and dietary health promoted.
Similar to what many small farms across our
nation have experienced, agriculture has also been declining
in Columbia County for many decades. The Community Food Compact
is a new kind of local food cooperative that brings together
farmers and other food providers, consumers, RDs, chefs, and
community sponsors. This is just the type of community food
system that must be in place to keep farms alive and make organizations
like Hometown Foods successful and profitable.
One facet of the compact is to have a certified
chef teach families how to cook with local foods by presenting
cooking demonstrations at community gatherings and creating
seasonal menus with recipes and cooking ideas. The RD monitors
food nutrition standards for the program, collaborates with
the chef, and provides nutrition education for the participants.
This is a way for dietitians and other medical providers to
reach the community with nutrition information and at the same
time address dietary public health concerns.
Through this type of community project, local
farmers and other food providers gain new access to local residents,
thereby increasing local food consumption. Terry Dix, founder/organizer
for the project and owner of Food Express, a small home delivery
business specializing in local and organic food, says, “The
pilot project’s food is sold directly to local residents
through the Internet, and the food inventory offered by an organization
like Hometown Foods is used as part of the product list.”
Local health providers receive new ways to impact people’s
eating habits and the community benefits with both better food
and health.
For consumers concerned about food quality and
the environment, the local foods are grown according to the
highest agricultural standards practiced today. According to
Dix, “The prepared foods are made according to centuries-old,
safe, artisan methods and new small-scale processes appropriate
to local sustainable agriculture, offering a ‘type of
new revolutionary eating.’”
Cooperative Community
Kitchens
As dietitians, we hear our patients lament that they would purchase
healthy local foods if they were more reasonably priced and
easier to acquire. But what are consumers willing to sacrifice
to be able to experience fresh, nutritious, local ingredients?
Will they invest their time, money, and commitment to a community
effort?
Take the Dinner by Design concept a bit further
and the idea of “community-supported kitchens” evolves
into cooperative kitchens that prepare foods from the local
harvest and help families create meals that were once made at
home. Local fruits and vegetables can be frozen, fruits and
tomato sauces can be canned, and herbs and other fresh specialty
foods can be grown in kitchen gardens. The community kitchen
can prep foods such as salad mixes and repack foods purchased
in bulk, such as cheeses and dry goods, into smaller quantities.
Hometown Foods has pioneered many of these methods
in upstate New York. Dawson grows a kitchen garden; freezes,
cans, and vacuum packages local foods; and has developed frozen
prepared meals and food products that can be ordered on the
Hometown Foods Web site. Hometown Foods goes a step further
than the popular cook-and-carry companies and educates the consumer
through a sampling of workshops on freezing and vacuum-packaging
techniques, food tasting demonstrations, and a class for families
on how to custom freeze.
Healthy Local Foods
Year-Round
Hometown Foods is just one example of modern “whole food
innovators” who turn frozen and vacuum-packaged farm foods
into healthy, convenient meal components for families. Its mission
statement is to create healthy convenience foods and provide
nutrition information to consumers.
Dietitians can easily support this vision and
teach clients how to freeze and vacuum package local foods.
The goal is to inspire consumers to get involved with local
farmers’ markets and to freeze the harvest as it occurs
in the summer for healthy eating throughout the year. Retail
stores have vacuum packagers that individuals can purchase and
use either in their own homes or in a community group setting
to process local foods in community kitchens in firehouses,
churches, or schools.
Jennifer S. Ellsworth, MS, RD, daughter of Hometown
Food’s Anna Dawson and an RD in Ann Arbor, Mich., acknowledges
that in the United States there has been an explosion of people
who have developed high cholesterol, hypertension, and diabetes.
Ellsworth says, “Freezing locally produced whole fruits
and vegetables within minutes of harvesting retains the majority
of nutrients, and these foods need very little preservatives
to retain their quality. The foods are lower in sodium, higher
in fiber, and have no or little added sugar [compared with]
those typically found in the grocery store.” As an RD,
she knows it is possible for a dietitian to look at the nutrient
analysis of the foods, make specific recommendations according
to a person’s dietary needs, and then design a customized
diet for the person. Ellsworth believes her mother’s organization
is making a difference by promoting healthy food choices, especially
to those dealing with chronic disease.
The possibilities are endless when using these
whole food preservation concepts to educate and inspire patients.
Let’s keep challenging the preservation methods of today
and get a little old-fashioned and creative in preserving food.
After all, we are the food experts and it’s time to become
revolutionary food innovators—RDs educating today’s
consumers on preservation techniques from yesteryear with a
21st century-style nutrition twist.
— Kindy R. Peaslee, RD, is the founder
of Kindy Creek Promotions, an upstate New York-based marketing
firm specializing in the promotion of natural and organic food
and beverage products. She can be reached at kindy@kindycreek.com.
Visit her recipe Web site for parents: www.healthy-kid-recipes.com.
Benefits of Vacuum-Packaged Foods
• Stays fresh, healthy, and packed with flavor
• Harvested and vacuum packaged at peak
quality
• Locks in nutrients and flavor
• Meets nutritional requirements for healthy
eating
• No added sugar
• No artificial colors or preservatives,
0 grams of fat, gluten-free
• Makes favorite fruits available year-round
• Keeps the freezer stocked
• Fruits and blends available for any
event or season
• Adds flexibility to the menu and color
to any dish
• Year-round availability
• Reduces preparation costs and spoilage
• Fruit at its best without labor or waste
• No preparation time (pitting, peeling,
and slicing complete)
• Thaw only the portion you need and save
the rest
• Annual pricing (no seasonal fluctuation)
• Local alternative to today’s large-scale
food systems
• Delivers year-round harvest of healthy
food choices
— Source: www.hometownfoods.com
Partial Ingredient and Product
List From Hometown Foods
20-Minute Stir-fry Meals
Cajun Vegetable Cheese Medley
Curried Beef Stir-fry
Sausage Crumble Stir-fry
Sweet & Sour Beef Stir-fry
Chili Beef Goulash
Pork Stir-fry with Duck Sauce
Vegetables
Asparagus Gems
Corn Kernels
Cut Green Beans
Chopped Onions
Cubed Zucchini
Multi-Colored Chopped Peppers
Roasted Butternut Squash Cubes
Carrot Coins
Chopped Spinach
Savory Sauces
Curry Sauce
Sweet & Sour Sauce
Duck Sauce
Italian Tomato Sauce
Chili Sauce
Whole Fruit Sauces
Strawberry Rhubarb Sauce
Blueberry Rhubarb Sauce
Apricot Melon Sauce
Red Raspberry Nectarine Sauce
Red Raspberry Peach Sauce
Cranberry Peach Sauce
Resources
Books:
Preserving Summer’s Bounty: A Quick and Easy Guide to
Freezing, Canning, and Preserving, and Drying What You Grow
by Rodale Food Center and Susan McClure (Rodale Press, 1995)
The Busy Person’s Guide to Preserving
Food: Easy Step-by-Step Instructions for Freezing, Drying, and
Canning by Janet Chadwick (Storey Publishing LLC, 1995)
The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study
of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for
Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health by T. Colin Campbell
and Thomas M. Campbell II (Benbella Books, 2004)
The Sensible Cook: Dutch Foodways in the Old
and the New World by Peter G. Rose (Translator) [Syracuse University
Press]
Web sites:
The China Study
www.thechinastudy.com/about.html
The World’s Healthiest Foods
www.whfoods.com
