Excerpt from the HEC Book.

(for HEC book Free download as pdf file - click here)

2.2.2 Food Culture and Cuisine

Long-standing food cultures have generally been tried and tested for their risks and benefits, through careful observation and through trial and error. They will have allowed the survival of a particular ethnic group, at least through the reproductive years and, usually, to allow the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom through longevity.

However, some groups have been isolated enough not to have appreciated that further improvements in the food-health equation were possible, so that less than optimal health was considered to be "normal". For example, people living where there has been iodine deficiency may have accepted a certain proportion of the population with iodine deficiency disorders, including goitre, low thyroid function, cretinism and mental retardation. The introduction of iodine-rich fish, algae (seaweed) or salt into the foods of such communities produces a radical change in health, especially for the next generation.

Examples showing how food culture can give us clues on how to "optimise health"

We are still learning about new ways in which food confers health and there will be more to come. For example, in the late 1980s our research group postulated that, in part, the menopause was not an inevitable physiological state in women and depended on what women ate - there were differences between food cultures, especially between those that ate soy or its products and those that did not.

Example 1: The menopause

We were the first to show in a paper, published in the British Medical Journal (Oestrogenic Effects of Plant-derived Foods in Postmenopausal Women) in 1990 that soy, linseed (flaxseed) and red clover sprouts had the capacity to offset the oestrogen deficiency of the menopause, as though food was an extension of the body's endocrine (or hormone) system. Indeed, the menopause can, to some extent, be considered to be a food deficiency, when one takes a broader eco-nutritional view. This is now, within a decade of the discovery, a widely appreciated point of view.

Example 2: Skin wrinkling

In 2001, we have shown that some of the differences in the ageing of skin, may be explained by food culture, and that certain foods appear to protect the skin against ageing.

We suggest that particular attention be paid to those food cultures associated with the best life expectancies, especially where they are also associated with the least disability (see Table 1).

Food cultures associated with longevity include:

Oriental
Okinawan (Okinawan ethnicity, Japanese nationality and Okinawans in Hawaii)
Japanese in general
Chinese (especially in Hang Zhou and Hong Kong)

Scandinavian
Iceland
Sweden

Mediterranean
Greek (in Greece and Australia)
Italian (Neapolitan)

Indigenous
Andean (the Sacred Valley of the Incas near Cusco and Maccu Picchu, Peru)

The HEC provides an opportunity to consider one's own food pattern alongside these benchmark cultures.

For the combination of longevity and minimal disability, the WHO (World Health Organisation) now recommends a measure referred to as DALES - disability adjusted life expectancies. The nations who perform best in this respect are:

1. Japan
2. Australia

The reasons for these two rather different nations, one culturally rather homogeneous, and the other quite culturally pluralistic, performing similarly well are not altogether clear, but important common food denominators are:

a) an Asian dimension to the diet (including rice and green vegetables- the Fan-Tchai principle, but also legumes or lentils.

b) great food variety (in Australia this is mainly attributable to successive waves of migration from different cultural groups).

c) low levels of poverty-driven hunger (except amongst indigenous Australians)

These observations about average life expectancies and DALES (Disability Adjusted Life expectancies) do not deny ongoing, food-health inequality in advantaged societies and the opportunities that remain for further improvement.

View a table of long-lived cultures and their dietary characteristics.