Unlearning what we had learned
- By: Qwaider
- On:Thursday, April 01, 2010 1:56:08 AM
- In:Thoughts
- Viewed: (4727) times
- Currently 4.6/5 Stars.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Rated 4.6/5 stars (84 votes cast) Thanks for your vote!
Over the past century or a little more. The human race has gone through a dramatic shift in perception and culture. The world started to shrink and tremble at our growing knowledge and our growing mastery of the elements. We have grasped technologies so delicate, it is unimaginable. While harnessing some of the most powerful and violent natural phenomena. To put it shortly, we have come a LONG way in so little time.
But with all our achievements, certain areas have actually suffered, many things that humans have learned over thousands of years, passed by generation after generation started to get forgotten, and many were left to decay away from human consciousness. It might take us hundreds or even thousands of years to re-learn what we have lost
To be completely honest, this is not the first time this has happened in human history. The burning of Alexandria library had such catastrophic results. Where the amazing work of thousands or even tens of thousands of scholars reducing the complete human knowledge was lost. The same thing happened again with the burning and ransacking of Baghdad over a thousand years after that.
Luckily, with modern technology, these things are a thing of the past. Or at least, let's hope they are.
Over thousands of years, humans have learned to live off the land, to cultivate it. Raise herds of domesticated animals and faced with the realities of a world with no electricity, no artificial cooling. People had to invent ways to keep their food in plentiful times, to use in times of need.
It's quite disheartening to see how in the past 200 years, all new preservation techniques focused on one thing, not changing the shape, color or taste of things that need to be preserved. (While keeping it edible of course). Sadly nothing new was introduced. At least, I don't know of anything new.
Sure, Canning, freeze drying, and even pasteurization are preservation methods, but they all try to work in a way that the original ingredient doesn't change properties. Unlike say, smoking, where a new flavor is introduced to the item being preserved. Be that meat, cheese (smoking and "cheesing" are two preservation methods), fish or even vegetables. Although those last ones always prove to be difficult to preserve.
Now, everything with preservatives has to have a 28 letter word meaning some form of chemical substance that is used for preservation, worse, some of these "poisonous" materials might break down to very dangerous compounds and react with containers in very nasty ways.
Culturally speaking, it's sad that we forgot things our ancestors knew by heart. When we can navigate our way around the Internet, asleep and blind folded. With the exception of Wine (and other spirits) we have no collection of anything that gets better with time. Or even remains edible after that "expiration" date has passed!
So what does that expiration day means?
To be continued...
Memories....