06/18/2015
Food in Translation
June 18, 2015
Good Food House
I just had to put down my tea cup and start laughing this morning. My familyâs already laughing at me, they claim I canât finish a paragraph without the word magnesium in it. Should I start a new paragraph?
Magnesium.
Magnesium, This is a kinda complicated thought stream but here goes... . The other day I was reading my Alumni magazine from Evergreen, I like to look at the âGreeners Todayâ section to see if anyone I know is there, usually not, but I caught a piece about Eve Rickert, a 2006 graduate who runs an organization in Vancouver B.C. called â Talk Science to Me Communicationsâ, her organization translates scientific information into stories through writing, editing, illustration, design and web development.
Wow, what a great idea. First off I thought of my son Pan and what a great fit this would be for him. But, then I also saw myself, and that Iâm always trying to translate food science into stories for people.
The way I recently described it to Pan is that so many websites and articles about food and nutrition give us the code behind what they are trying to say instead of the text face. Iâm sure youâve had it happen, where your computer frizzes out and gives you the code for a page instead of the English text. Itâs not helpful or usable, maybe interesting, but useless to the average reader.
Thatâs how I feel reading about the magnesium blah, blah, blah online.Iâm being given the clockworks instead of the clock face. We need the clock face to actually tell the time, although the clockworks spur the clock face on.
I have some science background, so I do understand some of the clockworks of magnesium, but still itâs not very useful to me, as far as real life choices that Iâll make about my diet and life.
Somethingâs become twisted up in our culture around communicating information. We are wired for stories, especially stories that touch us, that we can relate to. Weâre not wired for science speak. Itâs like looking at code nonstop; we weary, lose interest, zone out quickly--it taxes us. Whereas a story that translates the information for us, can touch us deeply, and create true understanding. We will change our habits from a story. Science speak just runs right through us, without our extracting its minerals. We donât retain it, literally weâre not wired to care in that way.
Yet, because we have been trained throughout our educations to worship scientific facts, to treat them as emotional content, and lead our lives based on the research--everyone thinks they must write and present things in this way, or they wonât be taken seriously. If youâve ever had to write a research paper, itâs completely in a style that distances and pretends objectivity- through its choice of words. Itâs not really objective, because it canât be...itâs all pretend, a show to create worth.
So this is where I start laughing at myself, because Iâve been caught up in my own metaphor. One of the key points in Revisionist Baking is that by putting all baking through an overnight soaking, fermentation process-- the minerals, including magnesium, will become more available to our bodies.
By putting science through a translation process, by creating usable story with it. It also becomes more accessible and available. We are able to see the real point, and make use of it because now itâs working with our story life, which is where we are actually influenced and make real lifechanges from.
So here is the final twist in my story---An important character of our life story is Magnesium.Magnesium is the eighth most abundant mineral in the Earthâs crust. Itâs the third-most abundant mineral dissolved in seawater. And a form of magnesium--magnesium iron silicate is the most abundant mineral on Earth.
Yet, 56%, and some sources say up to 80% of the U.S. population does not meet the RDA for magnesium.
Magnesium, so abundant in the earth and sea is essential to us. We fall apart without it--
Some of the effects of not getting enough magnesium in your food is feeling stressed, anxious, and fatigued. You donât feel right, you canât think well, and you wonât make the best choices. Choices for yourself, your children, your job, your life but also about the Earth and Sea.
You have to eat the earth and sea, to be able to think right about the earth and sea. ( Read that line several times until you get it. Itâs so simple that itâs profound.)
We are made out of the same stuff as earth and sea.
We must eat what comes from the earth and sea to be whole. We must be whole to be helpful.
Yet, somehow, somewhere, not too very long ago⌠we stopped eating what we need from the earth and sea. And we stopped being so helpful to the earth and sea.
We processed what was good out of our food, and we made it white, convenient and special instead.
We thought we were clever, so special and beyond the earth that we stopped listening. âWe are too clever to need to eat earth and drink salt waterâ we said.
But, we started to weaken, sicken, and not feel right in our guts and heads. In droves, and droves--we sickened. Our children now needed drugs to go to school because they felt so anxious, and confused. We needed drugs to because we were so tired and stressed.
But remember, we need to eat the earth and sea to think straight about lives because we are made of earth and sea.
It was the plants who saved us, and it was the stories that helped us to remember to listen to the plants.
âLook for our dark green leaves, and cook them with butterâ they said.
â Eat our nuts and seeds and grain, but soak the nuts, seeds, and grains with time, and warmth and our friends the good bacteria who live everywhere around you.â they said.
âYou will start to sleep better. Life will begin to be right, and as you heal remember to give back to us and feed the soil every time you plant--put the minerals back into the soil.â they said.
â As you feel well, you wonât need to strive to be so clever, you wonât need to pour clever chemicals on the ground and into the water.â
â Youâll want to spend more time enjoying the beautiful earth, making love, art, and music. You will want less things, use less things and stop hoarding and destroying everything and one around you, because you feel so small and fearful.â they said.
And so it was that the people began to wake up, and before it was too late they realized with the last pieces of sanity, that they are part of this beautiful all giving planet, and need to live by its rules or perish.
Help Heal Humanity ---Eat your Magnesium
Best sources are dark leafy greens, nuts, seeds, legumes, seaweeds, and whole grains.
Iâll have to work on my storytelling but you get the point. Iâd be interested in hearing what you think of this idea of translating science into story.
