‘We seek for play, fun, intimacy, romance, love, achievement, success, art, music, self-expression, leadership, excitement, adventure, and spirituality’ – Joshua Rosenthal
Concepts of Primary and Secondary foods
All these elements are essential to our wellbeing and they come under the concept of “primary food”. These can translate into a spiritual practice, a fulfilling career, enjoyable physical movement, and relationships that feed our spirit and spark our zest for life.
The food that comes on our plate comes second (secondary food).
Spiritual traditions that encourage its followers to fast, do so partially so individuals, by reducing food intake, create space to allow for a greater awareness of spiritual nourishment.
The more primary food we receive, the less we use secondary food to try and fill up the space that can only be filled by primary food. The opposite is also true. The more we use secondary food in the place of primary food, the less we are able to receive the nourishment of life. Think about this: have you ever been so in love that you simply forgot to eat, you were high on life and your primary food tank was overflowing, your awareness was heightened, so much so that you didn’t even remember to eat until your stomach was growling.
On the other hand, when you felt a little down, stressed perhaps and opened the fridge to see if there was anything that “took your fancy” in there when what you really wanted was a hug or someone to talk to.
The Roseto Community
The Roseto community studies1 can illustrate another great example of this concept in the 60’s. Roseto was a community-based in Pennsylvania, that originated in Italy. They attracted the attention of medical researchers because they had very little or no cardiovascular diseases (CVD) compared to neighbouring communities. They seemed to be dying of old age. Researchers went to investigate the causes of such low rates of CVD, believing it was probably due to the Mediterranean diet.
After finding out that that was not the case, in fact, they couldn’t really afford Mediterranean pantry staples such as olive oil and inversely ate foods seen as “unhealthy” such as lard for cooking as well as drank large amounts of wine. Scientists then went to investigate the Roseto’s genetic lineage. They searched people from Roseto in Italy, who moved to other parts of the US, and had different lifestyles and found that their rates of CVD were much higher when compared to the Roseto community of Pennsylvania, hence, they ruled out that genes were responsible for the communities’ good health.
Subsequently, the scientists watched closely how the members of the Roseto community in Pennsylvania were living on a day-to-day basis. They noticed that although the women worked in factories and the men in slate quarries, they had very close relationships among themselves. They would return from work and go over to their neighbour for a glass of wine (without the need for an invitation), their homes were very close to each other and they helped take good care of each other’s children. Their parents and grandparents lived with them or very close and they had regular spiritual gatherings and celebrated special occasions together.
After many years of observing the community lifestyle, they concluded that their secret to health and longevity was community living and the sense of security, support and belonging this proportioned.
The researchers then went on to follow this community for around 50 years and found that, sadly, as their children grew up and moved to other cities where a sense of community living was uncommon, their rates of CVD rose and their life expectancy shortened.
Today it has been well established that social isolation and lack of support have a direct link with health decline.
Making time to cultivate friendships, participating in gatherings and celebrations, and joining a group activity you enjoy are all great ways to support your health.
For varied group activities in the UK visit:
References
1 – Egolf, B., Lasker, J., Wolf, S., & Potvin, L. (1992). The Roseto effect: a 50-year comparison of mortality rates. American journal of public health, 82(8), 1089–1092. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.82.8.1089
