Food & Eating
Our food and eating habits have a major impact on our health and productivity.
Food Security
The availability, access to and utilisation of sufficient quantity and quality of food that is both nutritious and culturally acceptable is a fundamental determinant of human health.
Open Synergy has collaborated with the WITS health promotion unit on ground-breaking research on food security in the context of Johannesburg. This research was coordinated by PUFS and AFSUN.
Access: Urban Agriculture
The production of foods by city-dwellers is a valuable way for cities to improve their resilience to climate change, poverty, and food insecurity. Research on urban agriculture is ongoing, and this phenomenon has many different local and regional aspects. The IDRC has published valuable online sources on urban agriculture:
FOR HUNGER-PROOF CITIES
Sustainable Urban Food Systems
AGROPOLIS
The Social, Political, and Environmental Dimensions of Urban Agriculture
AGRICULTURE IN URBAN PLANNING
Generating Livelihoods and Food Security
Utilisation: Consumer Foods & Eating Habits
As modern city-dwellers trapped in consumer lifestyles, we depend on the cash economy to supply us with foods produced by factory farming and industrial food processing systems - that is, if we can afford it…
As a result, our immune systems typically do not receive the fresh micronutrients and anti-oxidants required to maintain health, while our digestive systems struggle to cope with large amounts of refined simple carbohydrates and saturated fats, without sufficient fibre. Inappropriate eating habits and highly-processed consumer foods are giving rise to a host of illnesses, including sugar diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, cancer, heart disease, stroke and arthritis.
This is a result of foods and eating habits that are out of synch with the patterns evolved by our ancestors over millennia.
Re-aligning with Evolutionary Eating Habits
Open Synergy’s food and nutrition training aims to re-align our eating habits and foods with the patterns our ancestors evolved, and which our bodies are designed to thrive on. This was a seasonally diverse diet high in micronutrients, phytochemicals, essential fatty acids and fibre, low in refined carbohydrates. It evolved together with a highly mobile, physically active lifestyle.
Nutritional education and lifestyle coaching is complementary to permaculture in that it creates awareness and skills that promote health, and provides guidance in the use of organic produce. Training focuses on simple ways to increase the intake of fibre, micronutrients and complex carbohydrates, while reducing the intake of refined sugars, saturated fats, and industrial anti-nutrients.
This training is especially valuable for educators, health promoters, and human resource and corporate wellness managers.
