Is it food?

Several years ago, a friend of mine gave me a book to read - all about the history of the trade in tea, coffee, tobacco and sugar. The book (don't recall the title or the author - sorry), written somewhere in the mid 20th century, described these 4 commodities as narcotic, and the commerce around them as economic parasitism. I was somewhat surprised, never having looked at these things in this way, but the book made a strong case. A memorable example of the economic parasitism argument was the Boston Tea Party. The author proposed that the colonialist / imperialist / profiteering situation that gave rise to this event had not been appreciably changed nor resolved since then, but had simply gone into hiding behind front-businesses.

This feels too big for me to do something about. But what stuck with me was the peddling of addictive substances as food, creating a media-hype about the benefits of these non-foods: main-lining and normalising them into the thinking and lifestyles of people world-wide. Nutrition and medical media reporting still relates most "new findings" to our craving for sugar, tea and coffee. As tobacco became successfully demonised, so in the face of similar pressures on the other 3 culprits, we learn that it's OK to have coffee daily, that tea has anti-oxidant properties, that children need sugar for energy. The proportion of media messaging around these commodities it exaggerated compared with other foods and drugs. And, since as a race we are addicted to these substances, we are only too ready to have our consciences appeased.

On top of that sits the historical burden of the conditions of production of these substances, often resting on the shoulders of slaves, child-labour and the like. The string of middle-men is entrenched and long, and the end-user prices bear no resemblance to the cost of production.

So the book ultimately proposes this: that the business of bringing these commodities to market is all about creating a demand through creating addiction, then making as much profit as possible by driving prices up and forcing down costs of production.

This made me annoyed. I thought I would test the hypothesis that I was addicted to coffee and sugar (the others never featured much in my lifestyle). I went cold turkey on both. I felt horrible. I craved, I raved, I walked into walls, I shouted at people, I cried. Then after 2 weeks, I felt fabulous! I had energy to spare, I was wide awake first thing in the morning, my post-nasal drip disappeared, my acne improved, I slept well. I noticed that coffee and sugar were my comfort foods. When I was sad or tired, I craved cake and cappuccino. So I ate nuts, cheese, and watched movies instead. My favorite meal: stir-fried lamb tossed with fresh basil, avocado and olive oil.

Then I lapsed. A couple of years later I had systemic candida. I went on a diet to fix it - off the allowed list: sugar, coffee, tea, alcohol, starch, natural sugars of all kinds, meat from animals older than one season, ground vegetables  Added to my diet: Warburgia (Pepper Bark / Isibaha) tincture. 6 Weeks later I had lost 10kg and I was candida free - no more nasty mucus, no more acne.

I'm weaning my little children off sugar (the big ones have migrated there themselves to fix their own health issues). They are cross about it, but not when they're eating other good things.

Stevia was a great help to satisfy the remnants of my craving for sweetness, but my drug of choice is now a cup of chicory (25% coffee added) with a dash of lactose-free milk. And sometimes, expensive, thin slabs of chocolate.