Читать книгу The Italian Reset Diet - Dario Polisano - Страница 8

The year 1492 is a very important date, not only because of the discovery of this “new” land, but above all due to the ensuing consequences. The European colonists immediately understood the enormous potential to exploit this “new” territory: the flora and fauna were almost completely different compared to those of the Western world. The American food products we find on our tables today include:

● Borlotti and cannellini beans, which, because of their yield, went on to substitute cowpeas, which then started to gradually go extinct;

● Peanuts, which unfortunately partially substituted Mediterranean dry fruits/nuts;

● Corn, which is used as the main ingredient in polenta;

● Prickly pears;

● Pineapples and other types of fruit;

● Hot peppers, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants, and potatoes, which belong to the same plant family, the Solanaceae, (and we will see how they can cause serious problems for those who suffer from autoimmune diseases);

● Chocolate/cocoa, which was consumed in its bitter state by the American Indians. Yet the Spanish deemed it better to mix it with sugar, thus giving rise to the chocolate that conquered all the cafes in Europe. (And speaking of sugar, it was the very expanse of American soil which led to the great sugarcane plantations and then allowed the spread of the “sweet salt” in all of Europe.)

As you may have come to understand, when nutritional “experts” recommend a “healthy” dish of pasta with tomato sauce, deeming it the perfect “Mediterranean” dish, you get a pretty good idea of how “educated” they are. I certainly would not even let them write me up a Saturday cheat-night menu.

I hope that, at this point, a question has sprung forth in your mind: “But does the healthy Mediterranean Diet exist at all?” My answer is that it is called the Mediterranean Diet solely because when you are eating your pasta with tomato sauce you may be eating it in Italy; if you were on an island in the Atlantic if would be the Atlantic Diet. Joking aside, alas, the “Mediterranean Diet” no longer exists, but that does not mean we cannot honestly revive it again, making sure not to back the idea that in the “Mediterranean Diet,” one must eat a little bit of everything. Let’s just say that many experts love to be a little too egalitarian when it comes to food. I, on the other hand, love to improve people’s health, and if a particular food must be eliminated from a diet then it must be eliminated, period. Today, not even wheat is Mediterranean because of all the genetic selections that have taken place. Neither is milk, as its chemical composition totally changes because of pasteurization. Nor are many types of fruit, created by man through cross-breeding—genetic splices that would never occur in nature. What you eat every day is the fruit of human intelligence, which can think up of so much but seldom spares a thought to the unpleasant consequences that come with usurping Mother Nature’s place. Nature is very unforgiving.