The Fountain of Youth Isn't Filled With Processed Foods

By Leslie Quan

In season 1 episode 6 of Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted on National Geographic (one of my favorite shows), Gordon travels to Alaska's panhandle to learn more about Alaskan cuisine and culture. On his journey through Alaska, he learns how to cook a seal with a native Tlingit elder. During a conversation with Gordon, the Tlingit elder mentions someone in his tribe who lived to 122-years-old.

Based on the episode, it seems like the Tlingit people, who live in a remote area of Alaska, maintain a hunter-gatherer diet. In order to put dinner on the table, they have to go out and hunt for seals and forage for herbs. Processed foods are luxury items in Alaska that are usually too expensive to ship over, especially to remote locations. Therefore, the Tlingit people, as well as native Alaskans, must use the land as their main source of food.

As I watched the episode, I realized that I may never live to the ripe age of 122-years-old. I began to think that my chances of living past 100-years-old are pretty slim due to my constant exposure and consumption to processed foods. While I value fruits and vegetables and eat them on a daily basis, it's often inevitable that I'll eat some sort of processed food within the day. Whether that be a granola bar, chips, cookies, or even canned or jarred foods, sometimes I feel like I can never outrun processed foods.

The cost of eating and staying healthy, whether that be purchasing vegetables from a farmer's market or regularly going to the gym, is simply too expensive for most people. In the contiguous United States, we have equated wealth with health. However, in places like Alaska, their health is derived from their will to survive off of the land.

Even though we know processed foods are bad for us, we keep coming back to it because it's cheap and it tastes good. In the contiguous U.S., we're all just trying to survive off of the land too, but oftentimes that means submitting to processed foods. At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, does the affordability and convenience of processed foods outweigh the health risks?

I think it's time that we truly live out the farm-to-table mentality instead of insisting upon the need for organic and sustainable food labels. Many people in the U.S. don't have the means to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. However, expanding community garden efforts and educating people on the benefits of food gardens would greatly reduce the need to consume processed foods.

I'm not saying that we all should get a hunting spear and walk barefoot in a forest foraging for food, but I think that it's important for people to learn about the health risks that are attached to eating processed foods. Even if we can't take action right now, at least we are aware of the risks and we can make small improvements every day in order to add days or even years onto our lives.