My husband Topher always teases me about the lunches that I take to work: he says that I like to eat "lots of little things," which is true.
I never pack just one dish for lunch. I usually bring quinoa salad, baby carrots, a small bag of almonds and Craisins, and a banana. Or some tuna salad, a piece of cheese (like
Mini Babybel Light), and some arugula. Or an avocado, an apple, and a soft-boiled egg. Or a few slices of roasted turkey, a few slices of Swiss cheese, and some dried apricots. And my hubby makes fun of me.
Well, now I have some ammo with which to defend this strange little eating habit: eating lots of littles plates is apparently quite healthy, because it gives you more nutrient variety throughout the day, which promotes
food synergy.
What is food synergy? It's the way that foods interact with each other in a recipe or dish, thereby increasing their nutritional value.
For example, "cooking with olive oil allows micronutrients such as lycopene in tomatoes and beta-carotene in carrots to be more easily absorbed by the body" (p.106 in The Jungle Effect). The same is true of eating greens with a light dressing of olive oil and lemon juice, which increase the availability of the greens' antioxidants (p.122). Or treating tortillas with lime, which enriches the corn with calcium, niacin, and amino acids (p.23).
Even without knowing all the molecular, biochemical reasons for these interactions, some ancient cultures adopted the practice of eating multiple small plates as a meal. In Mediterranean countries, these small dishes are called meze; in Spain they're known as tapas; and in Okinawa, Japan, they're called okazu.
Although they're similar in size to our appetizers, they're not eaten as a way to start a meal; they're eaten as a meal themselves. And depending on how many people are eating, a single meal could consist of 5-10 different dishes. Most of them are mostly-vegetarian soups and salads (they might contain some fish), with only one or two containing a heavy animal protein like pork or beef.
So instead of being weird, maybe I'm just cosmopolitan. Yeah, let's go with that: I'm cosmopolitan.
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