The History of Fresh Produce - Newsletter #9

Happy Friday!

While we may be in between episodes that doesn't mean the history stops. This week we are bringing you some history on the prescription of food. With increasingly more doctors and health-care providers prescribing fresh fruits and vegetables we had to ask how new is this concept really... Spoiler alert: It's not that new at all.

Food as medicine

It turns out that food prescriptions stretch thousands of years back into human history. The first record of food being used as medicine can be found in the Ebers Papyrus, a medicinal text from ancient Egypt from the 2nd millennium B.C. Honey in particular appeared in 500 remedies.

But it was in the 5th century B.C. that Hippocrates of Kos, considered the father of Western medicine, wrote about the connections between food and health. Hippocrates drastically changed the way people thought of disease and health. Before Hippocrates, the ancient Greek world believed disease was of supernatural origins, resulting from the gods inflicting punishment or from demonic possession. Healing was also considered to be a gift from the gods. It was Hippocrates that established the humoral theory of medicine.

Hippocrates believed disease was derived from the imbalance of bodily substances (known as humors). It was believed that the human body consisted of four essential substances (humors): yellow bile, black bile, blood and phlegm. These humors would have to be in equilibrium for the body to be in good health. These humors are affected by what an individual consumes, basically "your are what you eat". Some foods produced good juices and other bad juices. The key was to be in balance.

One such food that proved of great importance in ancient Greece was legumes. People in the Graeco-Roman world consumed far less meat than we do today and therefore, legumes were a necessary source of protein. Of all legumes, the lentil appears most frequently in Greek and Roman literature. Medicinally, Hippocrates recommended lentils as a remedy for ulcers and hemorrhoids.

As is often the case in human history, old practices will resurface but enhanced through modern understanding and technology. Food prescriptions is another example of that. There's a lot more history to uncover on this subject so perhaps a topic for a future episode.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Did you catch us in the news this past week? We were featured in several fresh produce industry publications. Excitement is building on learning the origins of different produce items and the impact they've had on history. Check out the articles below:

Podcast series discusses history of fresh produce

History of fresh produce explored in new podcast series

New podcast series about the history of fresh produce

History test

Calling all Olympians (or fans of the Olympics)! Did you participate yet in this week's History of Fresh Produce trivia?

Click?here ?to test your knowledge!

Thanks for reading, and please drop us a line in the comments or email ([email protected] ) to let us know what you think of the newsletter and all things HOFP.

-John, Patrick and The History of Fresh Produce team