The perfect recipe for a celebration of food

The days of eating only traditional specialities from the surrounding area are over. Travel and migration offer us a world of new tastes and flavours and there’s no going back.

Who would want to anyway? Variety is delicious. But we might want to think about going back to tradition in another way – how we prepare food. From far-flung exotic to tried-and-true local, it is the best of both worlds when what we cook draws from wholesome foods produced locally and largely left intact.

However well-intentioned, slathering a spread that claims to have a buttery taste means instead of a single ingredient, churned milk, these imitators can contain nine bewildering components, including emulsifiers, flavourings and colourings.

As local nutritional therapist Rowena Paxton points out, what we eat and what we do to food has changed dramatically – blasting oils at super-high temperatures so they sit nicely for a long time in a plastic bottle for example – but the way our bodies use food hasn't. When thrown these curve balls of chemical alteration, or huge quantities of sugar, our bodies do their best to compensate but dealing with an overload of calories, sugar and vitamin-free foods leading to obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Saving money by buying cheap food or spending more on highly processed ones offers a short-term gain in cost and time but there's a price to be paid nonetheless.

On this last Thursday of harvest month, and last on the food and health theme, I leave you with some food for thought from Rowena: 

- Aim to have a plate dominated by a variety of brightly coloured vegetables

- Don't be afraid of fats but do choose those which haven't been treated to the point of being pointless 

- Spend a bit more money and time on food.

“The possiblities are fantastic,” Rowena enthuses.

“Nourish your cells, it will repay you.”