It’s fascinating to learn that some of the trendy “health foods” actually date back to ancient times, before green-washing existed, and to know that these foods are still out there, available to us modern consumers. Curious what some of these foods are, those that were consumed far before “green” was in? Read on.
You’ve seen in in the refrigerated “fake meat section” of the health food store, next to the tofu products. Tempeh typically comes in 8-ounce packages as a long, rectangular block, with flavors ranging from original to vegetable to multi-grain. It’s used as a replacement for meat, practical both as an appropriate culinary substitution and as a nutritious alternative for vegetarians. Its thick, chewy texture makes for a suitable meat-like quality, and the fact that it is rich in protein and bio-available vitamin B12 makes it attractive for those who don’t consume meat. But what is tempeh?
Tempeh is made from fermented legumes, usually soybeans, that have been formed into cakes and enhanced with vegetables, grains, or spices. The result is a completely whole, natural food that has no chemical additives. This traditional method of preparing legumes dates back possibly a thousand years, with the first written reference dating 1875. Tempeh was created in Indonesia as a means of making legumes more digestible, as well as supplying essential nutrients in an otherwise meat-scarce diet.
Americans started paying attention to tempeh in World War II, when almost the entire Malay archipelago was brought under Japanese control. During this time, prisoners of war that were fed tempeh remained some of the healthiest POW’s in any camps, as the fermented bean product supplied ample nutrients to the prisoners. American scientists began studying tempeh for its health benefits and application for nutrient-deficient populations, and by the 1960s it had hit mainstream.
The first American tempeh shop opened in Los Angeles in 1962, and by the 1970s, when Americans took a strong interest in natural foods, tempeh had expanded to most health stores around the country. Today, look for tempeh at your local health food store, or on the menu of your local vegetarian restaurant. It makes for one delicious bacon-free BLT.
All vegetables first grow with a sprouting seed -- the tiny seed begins to germinate, and within a few days up to a few weeks, the seed turns into a green shoot, which soon takes root and forms a new plant. The sprouts you’ve seen in the produce section of the health food store might come from a number of plants -- from beans, from nuts, or from green vegetables like broccoli or radishes. These, and other edible sprouts, are cultivated for culinary purposes, as they taste great and supplement vital nutrients and phytochemicals for the diet. But sprouts have been around as long as plants have been growing on the earth, so when did humans start cultivating them for culinary purposes?
Cultivated sprouts date all the way back to 3000 BC, when the Emperor of china heralded the therapeutic uses of sprouts in a medicinal herb book. He claimed that sprouts cured a number of ailments, from cramps to digestive disorders. Over the following thousands of years, several Chinese authorities have written about sprouts as a medicinal and culinary use in their culture. Other countries that have similarly eaten sprouts in their traditional culture include Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
World War II was once again the era when Americans began exploring this food. Scientists at Cornell University took an interest in sprouts for their incredible amounts of vitamins A and C, as well as their ability to make beans and nuts highly digestible. They provided a source of inexpensive food that people could cultivate in their homes, provided they just had access to clean water and seeds. Today, sprouts are shooting up at restaurants and in grocery stores -- from you take-out Pad Thai to the pre-packaged box of broccoli sprouts at the supermarket, sprouts have become a part of our mainstream food selection.
Would you think to pay five dollars for a single bottle of chilled tea at the store? Normally, the answer would seem an obvious “no,” but in the case of kombucha, a popular fermented tea drink, consumers are saying “yes.” The current explosion of mainstream interest in kombucha erupted in the early 2000’s, and by now, it’s not uncommon to find several different brands of the drink in the health store, with varieties of fruit blends, herbal infusions, and tea starters.
Although companies will tell of lore that kombucha dates back to ancient China, the recorded history began in Russia in the late 19th century. Literally “tea mushroom,” kombucha is likely a newer rendition of kvass, a fermented drink that has been consumed in eastern Europe for thousands of documented years. Kvass, traditionally made from whole grains or beets, is a non-alcoholic fermented beverage that -- as early as the year 989 -- every man, woman, and child consumed daily, as the resulting beverage was often cleaner and less toxic than the normal village drinking water. Particularly when beets and vegetables are made into kvass via lacto-fermentation, the result is a nutrient-dense drink with all the purported benefits of fermentation, including beneficial bacteria and ample B vitamins.
Even if you don’t personally eat it, odds are that you’ve at least heard of, probably even tasted at one point, tofu. Perhaps America’s most widely known “health food,” tofu is another traditional food that dates back to Chinese origins. Also known as bean curd, tofu is a soft white food made from coagulated soymilk which has been pressed into the blocks you see at the store. It’s used as a replacement for meat, cheese, milk products, and can easily be transformed into recipes for puddings, quiches, mousses, casseroles -- its versatility is likely what makes it such a prolific and widely consumed food.
It’s possible that tofu was invented in Northern China in 164 BC during the Han Dynasty, but without verifiable records of these accounts, that remains purely speculation. Certainly, however, tofu was a commonly produced and consumed food by the 2nd century BC -- still quite some time ago! By the 12th century, Japan had incorporated tofu into its staple foods, and by the mid 1800s Americans were consuming the bean curd. The first tofu company in the United States opened in 1878, and tofu maintained just a fraction of American cuisine, until the mid 1960s, when vegetarians and natural foods enthusiasts took to it and helped it to become the pervasive health food that it remains today.