A recent documentary called 'Soul Food Junkies' caught my eye at the local library. I had to at least try to see what was on it. It was actually a good snapshot on the history of what is colloquially referred to as Soul Food. Food from the south. As in the southern United States where slavery was abundant only a while ago.
The narrator and director is an African American called Byron Hurt who did a good job of taking the viewer on the origins of this cuisine and highlight both what was good or bad about it. It showed the migration of food as part of the culture of the people who were imported to the American landscape from points in Africa. The word Gumbo for example meant Okra in Senegal where they used it as part of their local diet. Today it is a fixture of Louisiana cuisine.
The bad was both literal (in terms of bad for your health) and racial (in that it was considered the food that was fed to the slaves so they could stay healthy and perform their duties to their overlords).
The good was that the folk that lived as slaves figured out how to make a delicious meal from what little they had. Inevitably it included lot of carbohydrates and all parts of an animal like a pig that provided the protein for a hard day's work. The real Soul of the Soul food was the family getting together to enjoy a meal that they likely cooked together.
Today with the lifestyle changing and becoming more sedentary the style of cooking has not changed and that is the cause of the problem.
Add to that industrialization and the need for cheaper food choices and the economically disadvantaged folk can only find greasy proteins and high salt products to be a mainstay of their meals. Soul food in an upscale sort of way is indeed tasty - I personally like Oxtail or Bacon as well as grilled shrimp and corn or ribs done 10 ways. But all that fatty food can cause long term issues. The director narrates his dad's story who grew up loving this food and it was shared at the Sunday dinner table with all the family. As his father grew older Byron realized that he had not scaled back what he ate and seemed to enjoy southern food just as much as he did years ago. The effects were telling in terms of his weight gain but eventually he died of pancreatic cancer.
Now if there was a direct correlation to what he ate is hard to figure but research does point to higher incidence of carcinogens in fried and grilled foods especially meats.
The takeaway is that enjoy any food in moderation but certainly try all that the world has to offer. Once.
The narrator and director is an African American called Byron Hurt who did a good job of taking the viewer on the origins of this cuisine and highlight both what was good or bad about it. It showed the migration of food as part of the culture of the people who were imported to the American landscape from points in Africa. The word Gumbo for example meant Okra in Senegal where they used it as part of their local diet. Today it is a fixture of Louisiana cuisine.
The bad was both literal (in terms of bad for your health) and racial (in that it was considered the food that was fed to the slaves so they could stay healthy and perform their duties to their overlords).
The good was that the folk that lived as slaves figured out how to make a delicious meal from what little they had. Inevitably it included lot of carbohydrates and all parts of an animal like a pig that provided the protein for a hard day's work. The real Soul of the Soul food was the family getting together to enjoy a meal that they likely cooked together.
Today with the lifestyle changing and becoming more sedentary the style of cooking has not changed and that is the cause of the problem.
Add to that industrialization and the need for cheaper food choices and the economically disadvantaged folk can only find greasy proteins and high salt products to be a mainstay of their meals. Soul food in an upscale sort of way is indeed tasty - I personally like Oxtail or Bacon as well as grilled shrimp and corn or ribs done 10 ways. But all that fatty food can cause long term issues. The director narrates his dad's story who grew up loving this food and it was shared at the Sunday dinner table with all the family. As his father grew older Byron realized that he had not scaled back what he ate and seemed to enjoy southern food just as much as he did years ago. The effects were telling in terms of his weight gain but eventually he died of pancreatic cancer.
Now if there was a direct correlation to what he ate is hard to figure but research does point to higher incidence of carcinogens in fried and grilled foods especially meats.
The takeaway is that enjoy any food in moderation but certainly try all that the world has to offer. Once.
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