This week I heard Thomas Friedman, the journalist, author, and Pulitzer prize winner who writes extensively on globalization (market), environmental issues (Mother Nature), and the Middle East. He shared his perspective on these and more, as you can see if you check out the twitter feed I generated while I listened. I’ve been thinking a lot about one particular thing he said, which was this: “Culture really matters. People, God bless ‘em, have bodies and souls.”

We are all that has come before. We are connected to the fruit and the soil of the world of our ancestors. We share molecules with that fruit and soil. We are not heads with hands and feet. We aren’t nourished by HAL, or Watson. New research shows that babies direct their energy to grow differently depending on the amount of cortisol, a stress hormone, contained in their mother’s milk at the time of their birth. We are connected to our worlds in ways we cannot even imagine.

We evolved to thrive in the worlds from which our ancestors came. If your family came originally from Scandinavia, then learn about what that means. What did they eat for breakfast? Holidays? Is there any way to find out what were your ancestors’ favorite foods? Were there special foods they ate only in springtime? What if your family came from Greece, or Spain? While all of us appear to benefit from eating a Mediterranean diet of real food, some of us will probably benefit even faster.

Real food is a source of wisdom, and even beauty. Young Italian children return home every day from school with reports about how well they ate their lunch. Their culture is in their meals.

One of the many problems with the processed “food” industry is that it purports to be one-size-fits-all. One size does not fit all. Some slender people go back to refill their plates while others do not. Whole families dig into a dinner of nuggets, fries and mac’n’cheese, yet just one is heavy. I myself am small, the shortest in my family in at least 4 generations. My siblings have blue eyes while mine are brown. And these are just the things you can see.

What has it been like, in these past few generations, for the members of our society to move from a location-specific, culture-specific diet to one-size-that-does-not-fit-all? Count the ways.