We know that we have a perfect organic system. But how does it work?
During a long sabbatical period in Italy, Dr Tom Tobè, a Dutch doctor, attended some courses at Gigliocooking.
Dr Tobè is a cheerful and friendly person; his attendance, as well as being pleasant for the other students and for myself, was informative and gave food for thought.
The practical lessons at Gigliocooking are preceded by a theoretical explanation, which can be historical-cultural, or biological-nutritional, based on the type of course.
The theory of “what happens to various nutrients” during heat exposure is often combined with “what happens to nutrients in our bodies”.
Imagine beating an egg and making it “scrambled” in a saucepan. The protein albumen is mixed with the yolk, which contains more fat; then the egg coagulates and takes on a color which is neither the white nor the yellow of the yolk.
Proteins denature, i.e. the amino acids that compose them detach from the chain and free themselves. Their elements recompose, re-coagulating in new forms. Our body knows what it needs and rebuilds blood cells, skin cells, muscle cells, hair cells and so on.
Or think of butter, which melts in a pan. Left out of the fire, according to the ambient temperature, it re-compacts. It needs about 38 degrees celsius – 100 F – to melt and the temperature at home isn’t that high… except in the sultry Florentine summers. Here, in our body there are not even 38 degrees – 100 F -, unless we are sick. Thus the butter recompacts itself and creates lumps which can be harmful. Be careful, don’t demonize butter: it is a carrier of vitamin E. It also gives us great pleasure on the palate, which should not be overlooked: pleasure is health.
Now let’s try to think about more complex food compositions and what our body can do with them.
The title sentence, The human body is a pot, is by Dr. Tom Tobè: he had been silent all the time, he listened to the explanations together with the other students and checked the pots in the kitchen; the sentence came out spontaneously.
We stopped, laughed a little and thought about it.
We are pots!
All together we are a beautiful battery of pots.
It’s a beautiful, extraordinary thing: we are capable of transforming ourselves at every second, of maintaining optimal heat, of using calories for our functions and because the “pot” always cooks the cells we need to perfection.
We think we are not up to it, that we are not capable of…. but, just think: there is no pot – made of steel for cooking without fats, non-stick, terracotta, enamelled cast iron, copper or stone – that can in the least equal the pot of our body. A pot that is capable of forming – among other things – brain cells, which is then able to think, and thought can become the builder – the cook, if you like the term more – of a society that really works like the human body: perfectly.
Just between us: at the moment more than cooking, we are cooked. Gradually, like the boiled frog of the Overton window .
But I am optimistic that we will succeed in reversing the verb from passive to active.
What do you say: will we ever get there?
Marcella Ansaldo © 2023