Dick Wolfsie
I read a great deal about the evolution of early man. When I go to a museum, no matter the city, I enjoy seeing depictions of our ancestors with names like Rampithecus, Australopithecus, and my favorite, Samburupithecus. Even millions of years ago, people had cus words.
These representations are often life-size, showing them hunting, gathering, and occasionally cooking. The first thing the prehistoric man did two million years ago when he discovered fire was to try to put it out. It was already hot in Africa. Who needed it? This was years before Johnsonville Franks.
I have noticed in these museums that you never see prehistoric people smiling. Ever. They always look very grumpy. What’s to be grumpy about? No traffic, no outrageous prices at the supermarket, no tax deadlines. And especially the men. What’s their problem? Maybe their wives were driving them crazy? Go to your man cave.
According to an article I read recently in Prevention Magazine, prehistoric man had superior food, far richer in vitamins and minerals than modern-day fare. How beneficial could it have been? Those humans had a lifespan of only 22 years, which meant they never had to raise a teenager. So, it wasn’t stress that killed them. It was a wooly mammoth.
So, why were they unhappy? The author makes it clear: “Generations of agricultural manipulation took the medicine out of early man’s food.” So, prehistoric men ate strawberries that tasted like Lipitor. Yuck! That would make me grumpy, too.
The writer is a bit obsessed with how corn has diminished in nutritional value over the millennia. She claims that corn is much too sweet nowadays. (That’s a common complaint you hear at the farmers market on a Saturday morning.) The author instructs the reader on how not to cook corn, advising against “ripping off the husks, stripping the silk and putting the naked ears into the water.” This is the most risqué paragraph ever to appear in Prevention, besting by far Martha Stewart’s guest column: “Sex in Your Eighties.”
Other fruits and vegetables have also declined in nutritional value. An apple once had 100 times the antioxidants that most fruit has today. Sadly, someone has already eaten that apple. Adam lived to over 900, so don’t believe all that bad PR the apple got in the Old Testament.
The author says salad is today’s biggest loser. It must be prepared properly to ensure its full nutritional value. “Lettuce is our friend,” she claims. With friends like that, I don’t need kale. She recommends we pull the lettuce leaves apart, soak the leaves in water for 20 minutes, and spin them dry. Then, place them in a plastic bag with 20 evenly spaced pinpricks. I hate kale, but it‘s starting to look better and better.
I asked Mary Ellen to tell me what she thought of the article. She was cautious in her assessment, not wanting to dissuade me from eating healthier food.
“Dick, I don’t want you to think that I’m not anti antioxidants,” she told me.
I have no idea what that sentence means, but I think four negatives make a positive.
Television personality Dick Wolfsie writes columns for The Daily Reporter. Send comments to [email protected].
