About
“Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine he thy food” advised Hippocrates more than 2,000 years go. And certainly a sensible one given that food is the source of all of the components that make up the human body. But the famous Greek physician’s dietary prescriptions were hampered by a lack of understanding of the chemical complexity of food and the intricacies of human physiology.
Throughout history, advances in nutrition came about more or less through chance discoveries. Jaeques Cartier’s second voyage to. the New World in 1535 is a typical example. Many of Cartier’s men came down with scurvy, a potentially deadly ailment for which c the French explorers had no solution. But the Iroquois did! These people of the first nations of North America showed the sailors how to strip leaves from a white cedar tree and boil them into a tea that was rich in vitamin C. Today we know why drinking the tea had an almost miraculous effect. Scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C, which is present in cedar but was almost nonexistent in the explorers’ diet while at sea.
By the 10th century researchers had discovered a number of links between diet and health. In addition to vitamin C, it
became clear that 12 other vitamins, a host of minerals, and a proper blend of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins were
required to prevent deficiency diseases.
