The latest Survivor episodes made for fascinating watching. As always, food and how people react to food have played a vital role in the lives of the South African Survivors.
Home cooking
The power of comfort food, or how we as human beings are psychologically attached to well-known and trusted foods, was powerfully illustrated in a recent episode.
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The Rana Team, who were hardly ever winning a challenge or a reward and who were pretty demotivated and down, managed to pull off a reward challenge and win themselves a true South Africa braai. Juicy steaks, wors and mielies cooked over the open coals.
What more could you give any red-blooded South African? And boy, did this "home cooking" and the power of comfort food make a difference to the Rana team. They were ecstatic. Zahn got positively poetic about the sausage – a change in topic for a sports journalist!
Watching those Survivors tucking into their meal, which brought them the comfort of familiar and well-loved food, was a treat in itself. And what a difference this affirmation of their South African roots had on the Rana Team. The previous losers were suddenly galvanised into winning two reward challenges in a row, thus preserving their team intact. This will give them a great deal of clout when the merger happens.
Greek cooking
I also recently experienced that traditional foods are powerful and motivating. I was privileged to spend two weeks in Greece, a country renowned for wonderful cooking. In addition, Greek food has been singled out as the healthiest of all the Mediterranean cuisines.
Many health websites refer to the "Greek diet" as the most balanced and wholesome food in the world. This is not surprising, as Greek traditional menus are bursting with fresh salads, freshly caught fish, yoghurt, garlic, olives and olive oil.
The Greek diet is, therefore, rich in protective antioxidants, monounsaturated fats, allium compounds and dietary fibre – all nutrients that help to prevent heart disease, various cancers, diabetes and other degenerative diseases.
But after 10 days of eating this healthy diet, I also started longing for a plain, home-cooked meal, like a good old South African braai.
Emotional factors
The food that we eat at our mother's knee develops an emotionally charged component. This type of food represents love, comfort, safety and familiarity. It is not surprising that people who are ill will crave the simple foods they ate as children.
Then there is the question of nationality. Certain foods embody our national heritage. This is why serving a traditional braai to the Survivors, who are facing all kinds of challenges to their beliefs and threats to their comfort zone, was such a powerful motivation. Hats off to the producers of Survivor SA – they knew just how to push the competitor's buttons.
The Aguila Team, who lost out on the braai, were devastated. Their loss was much greater than just missing a protein-rich meal. They did not get the benefit of having their national pride reaffirmed. They were more than losers and it showed.
The Aguila Team lost two challenges in quick succession and have been decimated. I won't be surprised if this one precious SA meal will eventually determine who wins Survivor SA. We will just have to wait and see.
Pelican anyone?
The three recent episodes of Survivor SA that I watched when I returned from my trip, also illustrate another aspect of food and eating. Top marks to the Aquila Team for catching, cooking and eating those two pelicans.
As an avid bird watcher, I am not normally in favour of people eating our feathered friends. But when you are faced with starvation and are eating a monotonous diet, catching birds becomes a matter of survival.
Only South Africans would have the gumption to catch and eat a pelican and I give Mzi the credit for seizing the opportunity. Mzi is the ideal Survivor. He makes fire, catches the fish that is keeping the Aquila tribe alive, makes fish hooks out of female jewellery and saw the wounded pelicans as a source of food.
He is probably the only member of the Aquila Tribe who stands a chance to win Survivor SA. He is a true hunter-gatherer – versatile and resourceful. Mzi would never starve, no matter where he finds himself.
This is another reason why humans have survived for millennia. We are scavengers and will eat practically anything.
The American Survivors may have had problems with eating anything out of the ordinary, but South Africans are still nearer their roots. After all, humans are believed to have originated in Southern Africa.
The reason why they took over the world is that we as a species are not limited to eating only meat like carnivores, or grass and leaves like herbivores. We will literally eat anything we can lay our hands on. This has paid off in evolution and also stood the Survivors in good stead. Well done, Mzi!
I am looking forward to the next episodes of Survivor and will be interested to see if that one traditional SA meal will make the difference when it comes to finally winning the coveted prize. What's that song again? "Sunny skies, braaivleis and Chevrolet!" What could be more truly South African?! – (Dr Ingrid van Heerden, DietDoc, October 2006)
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