avocado = happiness
gastronomic trends. We sensed something when we said "more organic, closer": Wines, meats, vegetables and even organically grown ice cream . Products free of pesticides, without transgenics and without antibiotics. from local crops, from here, very close . And it's been a long time since this choice has much more to do with pleasure -authentic aromas and flavors- than with that outdated hippie good-naturedness. But there is more, because today things are not so much about pleasure but about happiness. There is nothing.
CAN FOOD MAKE US HAPPIER OR MORE MISERABLE?
TRUE? Lie? What does it matter, if the hypothesis has already abandoned the field of the possible to pay for the topics, that is, more clichés, those that only serve to bore the hands of the clock and sweep silence under the rug at family gatherings. "Spinach makes you stronger", "women do not know how to read maps" or, of course, "chocolate is a good substitute for sex".
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TRUE?
Drew Ramsey, author of The Happy Diet and a professor at Columbia University says it without a trace: highly processed foods with high amounts of sugar and toxins not only cause obesity but also depression. And for dessert he gives us a headline that is a monument: “do not eat anything that comes from a package” . Suck that, Mercadona.
Mood Food. Or the kitchen of happiness , as Miguel Ángel Almodóvar (Editorial Oberon) also calls it, in short: certain foods activate brain neurotransmitters related to pleasure and good humor. Bananas, avocados, pineapple, chickpeas, or strawberries . The list is endless (and necessary). But are we talking about witchcraft or science? Almodóvar insists: "This is not a pseudoscience. In the mid-1980s, scientists from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in the United States demonstrated that a handful of cherries is better than any antidepressant medication for its nutrients".
In reality, of course, the agents that unleash our -supposed- happiness are not the cherries but the amino acids behind these foods: resveratrol (from wine), tryptophan, theobromine, phenylalanine, tyrosine or the much-desired serotonin . That is to say, the great champions of Mood Food (Ramsey, Almodóvar or Dr. Jesús Román Martínez, president of the Healthy Food Foundation) they are not talking about the pleasure of eating. More of a chemical consequence . The next step, obviously, is to sell that happiness in pill form, in convenient food supplements. And I don't go there.
And it is that either I am very misconceived (which is possible, why kid ourselves) or the Visit the Farmacy section of Drew Ramsey on his website smells a bit like that. Or that the other book by Almodóvar is called The 10 essential nutritional supplements after 40. I don't know.
PLEASURE AND ERRORS
I know what you are thinking. What a disgusting life and what a disgusting circus, this one where you don't know what to believe anymore, where you are what you buy and "what you call love, was invented by guys like me to sell stockings" (thanks, Don Draper ) . And what do you want me to tell you, it's not so bad that it is. Because when you think about it, what if good food really only served what it was born for? What if gastronomy actually only provided us with pleasure, secrets, desire, culture and emotion?
What if there were no more reasons to eat and drink than the five reasons expressed by Jacques Sirmond, confessor to the King of France, Louis XIII? The arrival of a friend, the thirst of the moment or future thirst, the goodness of the food, and any other reason.
What a job, right?