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Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD, is the director and founder of Comidas que Curan, an independent education initiative to promote the value of traditional foods through research and film. Her documentary Raspando Coco (Scraping Coconuts) received several awards and was presented at film festivals in the United States, Europe, and Japan.
This episode was pulled from the archives and aired initially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Although it may feel like the woes of this time are behind us, Pilar’s message is evergreen: traditional foods are essential to the health and well-being of all global cultures.
Revisiting this episode may be a stark reminder for some how quickly we’ve forgotten that our current food system is fragile and why we must remain vigilant in protecting small family farms and regional food systems.
Pilar also reminds us that if we are recommending diets that lack culturally appropriate foods, it leads to poor adherence and unhappy people.
In this episode, we discuss the racist narratives developing around traditional foods, how more people are returning to the foods of their heritage, and why culinary justice is an essential part of transforming our broken food system.
Rather watch this episode on YouTube? Check it out here: Episode 254: Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Resources:
De mi Rancho a Tu Cocina (Mexican Grandma)
Pilar’s blog post: In defense of traditional foods.
Connect with Pilar:
Website: Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Instagram: @pilareguez
Film: Raspando Coco
Episode Credits:
Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connolly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Global Food Justice Alliance members, and listeners.
If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join.
This podcast was made possible by LMNT, my favorite electrolyte company. The all-natural sugar-free powder tastes great and gives you the perfect amount of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to keep you perfectly hydrated.
Check out my Salty Grapefruit Limeade made with their limited-time grapefruit flavor. Plus, you can get a free flavor sample pack with any purchase using my link: sustainabledish.com/LMNT
Transcript:
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connolly, who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal-source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now, on to our show.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Hi, everyone; Diana here, and because I’m doing so much travel for the Global Food Justice Alliance, I’ve dipped into the archive and selected some of my favorite shows for you in order to keep my content flowing on a weekly basis. If you’d like to keep up to date on the travel and advocacy work I’m doing, please join my growing community. You’ll get access to a discussion community, ad-free podcasts, exclusive interviews, and you’ll be helping to spread the word on the importance of livestock to our global food system. Visit sustainabledish.com/join, and thank you so much for your support.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome back to the sustainable dish podcast, everybody. Today I have with me a friend that I met many years ago, Pilar Equez. Pilar, why don’t you introduce yourself to everybody? And then I’ll go through kind of how we met and give you know. Why don’t you talk also about the work you’re doing?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Awesome. Hi, thanks, Diana, for inviting me to your podcast. We met at the ancestral health symposium was it I forgot, like five or six years ago, and I presented there my work on traditional foods. I’ve been researching about traditional foods in Ecuador. For the past six or seven years, after I finished my PhD, I found a postdoc fellowship. And I use that to start – jumpstart this project called Comidas que Curan – foods that heal. And it’s really a research project to investigate and also try to raise awareness about the value of traditional foods, and also promote and make sure that people know about it through my research, written research, but also films. So I’ve made several documentaries. And the latest one is about coconut. So we can talk about that, too.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yes. And we were also at the Just Foods conference together too.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Right. At Harvard. So yes, you told me about that one. And it was a great conference, and unfortunately, I don’t think they’re doing it anymore. But um, yeah, that was great. That’s where I present it, actually. Kind of like a summary of all of my work. I did some commentary, yam, and quinoa, coconuts, and also the microbiome research that was being conducted at the time amongst Hazza people in Tanzania. So yeah, it was a great conference.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I loved it. And one thing I remember because there was another woman that was sitting with us, and she gave an amazing presentation. She’s from Atlanta, and I’m not remembering her name. What’s that?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Carla Casas, she’s, yeah, she’s Colombian, Filipino. And she also has a project called Dichos de la Casa, which means popular sayings about food. And it’s, she was doing a study, looking at all of the sayings, popular sayings, you know, surrounding food, and what it tells us about how the, you know, how populations around the world, and in particular in Latin America have nourished their children and, you know, their families, what kind of principles you know. So it was a really interesting, it’s a, she does really interesting work in Atlanta. She works with youth and mothers, especially immigrants.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. I remember though, she was talking. I was in my dietitian program, I think at the time, and you know, this I don’t think there were… there was maybe one or two women of color in the film. No, I mean… in the film… in the program, and I remember her talking about the farmers markets down in Atlanta and saying like, the last thing we need is some skinny white girl telling me eat more salad. And the celebrity chefs coming down and all that and she was like, what we need is, you know, people telling us it’s okay to eat our traditional foods. So that really resonated with me a lot. I still remember.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah. I think you know, that’s the thing that we’ve seen in our work that there’s all of these diets out there, and they all say something different, but most of them I think they agree on this idea that the best place to get your nutrients is in plants. And that’s not true. It’s simply not true. And I mean, it’s so I mean, I respect you know, whatever you want to do with your diet, but then you know that’s not okay to, you know, go around and promote these ideas, I don’t know where, where they come from really because, for example, in my work in Ecuador in Esmeraldas, that’s where I shot my film. And we can talk about that if you want. But I found that, I mean, it was pretty amazing how, you know, this is an area in the coast in north of Ecuador, and, you know, it’s a tropical area. So and, I mean, just, there’s so much diversity of foods. And even before, like, in as part of my research, I talked to older adults, and, you know, grandmothers and older men, and they told me how before, you know, that this urbanization, you know, created the cities, basically, this was an area where, basically people hunted, and they hunted their meat and, and so for that reason, they were eating so many different kinds of animals, from the mountains with, or, like, from the land, and also from the sea. And, you know, their, their diet was amazingly diverse. And, they had, in addition, they have all these local vegetables that they can, they have available, and they’re part of their local cuisine. So that’s the thing that you have your local foods, and then you have these recipes that are, you know, 1000 or more years old, like 1000s of years old, that have been tested, and they’re delicious. They’re not just healthy, because they’re made with the foods that are grown in your surroundings, they’re not coming from China or another, the other end of the world, but that you harvest them that you know, you hunt them you go and fish, and then you create these delicious foods. And, to my surprise, you know, what my, what I found is that people are being told not to eat their local foods. So it’s the part of the dietary recommendations because, you know, obesity is on the rise and chronic diseases are on the rise, diabetes, etc. And their prescription is to avoid all of these foods. So one of them is coconut, because it’s a high in fat, high in saturated fat. So we’re still going Ecuadorian doctors are still going with the, you know, with this obsolete idea that that saturated fat is giving you heart disease. And, you know, people in my documentary I interview, they tell me and they testify, you know, the doctors are telling us that coconut is going to kill, they’re going to it’s going to kill us. So of course, they’re afraid to eat coconut. And if this is I mean, this is a characteristic of the traditional food, the regional cuisine of this area to use coconut, so they add coconut to everything, you know, they put it in soups, they put it in schools, they make smoothies with it, so many different things, and they use the coconut for so many other things. And this is what they’re told, and not just the coconut, but other foods as well. So fish and seafood, and they’re told to avoid seafood, and they’re told to avoid the local vegetables. And they’re told to instead eat tomatoes and lettuce and carrot which, you know, they don’t grow there, I mean, some lettuce that comes in a bag and I was just amazed that you know, how narrow-minded you know, this recommendations can be because there’s there cannot be anything worse. I think that than a diet that is prescribed and doesn’t take into account the cultural specificity of the people that you’re dealing with. So I think that’s, that’s a problem with a lot of the diets that you know, they impose, you know, notions and ideas that may work for some people, but they’re not sustainable and they’re just going to fix maybe a problem for a little bit. You know, they may make you feel better for a little bit, but they’re not sustainable because you’re not going to stick with them. They’re they don’t mean anything to you. And that’s the thing that you know when you give people diets that have foods in them that don’t have any meaning to people, then, you know what are the chances that they’re going to stick to this diet? And people are gonna, they’re very unhappy. They’re just, you know, it’s just that’s what, one of the things I found by talking to all of these older adults, they’re, you know, they’re sick. And they have vegetable oils in their kitchens, and they can’t eat their traditional foods because they’ve been told to avoid them. And they’re miserable. You know, their life is miserable.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, I wonder. I mean, this is reminding me of when I was doing the research for my book, I looked at the… there’s a new Novick. I don’t know if I’m even saying that word, right. But there’s an Inuit population in northern Canada. And they took, instead of a food pyramid, they took an igloo. Have you seen this?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
I’m seeing it now.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So here’s this igloo. Okay, so the traditional diet for these people is way up here in red. These are the foods they must limit – all the native foods that they have lived on forever, that are so nutrient-dense. So we’ve got Canadian geese, and eggs. We’ve got local fish, which are all in the red category, the worst possible thing. We have some kind of, you know, reindeer or caribou kind of thing. And so these folks are told that their traditional food is in the worst possible category, they must limit it. But then here down in green, we have bananas, apples, cereal, orange juice, can you believe it?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Who is telling this to them?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Canadian dietitians.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Wow.
Diana Rodgers, RD
So this is…
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
I’m not surprised, actually. Because it’s just, I mean, I don’t know how it gets… Maybe it’s taught at medical schools, nutrition schools. That’s I mean, you’re trained as a nutritionist, so maybe you know what… this is the standard kind of thing that you get at the school.
Diana Rodgers, RD
It totally is, yeah. When I was becoming a dietitian, and I was already kind of sold on ancestral eating. So it was really hard for me when I was going through this program, because when I would recommend when I would ask, you know, what about just cutting out processed foods and just telling people to eat whole unprocessed foods? Oh, that’s orthorexia. That it’s gonna cause an eating disorder, everything in moderation. And the funny thing about this, everything in moderation is there was a study that asked people how much they liked food. And then what was the moderate amount, right. And so the more they liked pizza, for example, the more pizza was moderate. And everyone was always doing better than moderate. It’s like asking an alcoholic how much beer is moderate? You know, like, there is no definition of moderate. Right? And so yeah, it was, you know, still must be low fat, heavy in grains, you know, absolutely took in… not into account of any sort of cultural differences, or regional differences with how people have traditionally grown food or anything like that. So that’s why I loved your documentary so much. Will you talk a little bit more about the process of making it and other things you learned?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Sure, yeah. It took me forever to make it because I didn’t get a lot of funding for it. So I was just basically doing as much as I could, and just going back to the field, every, maybe twice a year. So it took me like around four years, between the time that I started and then going back and forth, and getting all the material I needed. And then, you know, the post-production was endless. I worked with Cuban editors, I met because I, you know, I’ve been working in Cuba for my PhD. So I knew some people there. So we were, you know, basically doing it remotely, like back and forth, you know, send me this cut, and, you know, take a look and then send them back the feedback. And, I mean, they’re great. They really gave the documentary. You know, that the creative aspect of it. They put all of it together. I mean, we work together but I really liked the way it came out. It has a really nice rhythm. And it’s entertaining. It’s not boring at all.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I know. It was so so good.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah, that’s what people tell me that, you know, they don’t get bored just because, you know, it’s entertaining. It’s informative. And I think, you know, most of all, I was very, very happy to show it to the people in Esmereldas. I don’t know if I mentioned that majority of people there are of African descent. So I’m not of African descent. So I took it really seriously, you know, I really need to make sure that they are telling their story. I’m not, you know, putting words in their mouth or just speaking for them. Because I’m not part of this community, even though I’m Ecuadorian, but they were so happy, you know, they were so happy when they saw themselves represented, I tried to, you know, really put together or like, put them in a positive light, like, really, it’s a positive representation. I mean, I could have really integrated a lot more negative stuff, like, you know, all of the bad stuff that is going on, like so much racism, specifically surrounding food, you know, like,
Diana Rodgers, RD
In what way? Can you talk about that a little bit more?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah. So I interviewed several doctors in the area, that actually blame the people for their own disease, because they’re black, basically. So it’s basically meaning that…
Diana Rodgers, RD
What does that mean, though, like, they’re like, they’re inherently just going to get sick, because or…
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
It’s because of their preferences, though. So like preferring your traditional foods is going to get you sick. And it’s basically a racist statement, you know, very racist statements, you know, talking about how Blacks like coconut and Blacks like plantains and, you know, local foods, and they really love to eat this food, and there’s like, a lot of merit, like really racist narratives around surrounding food. And then, you know, on the other end, like, what are the foods of the white people and like, the better foods are bread, and, you know, white bread and white rice, you know, that’s a matter the subject of a whole another documentary, really, because it’s just really sad. But I really, you know, I had to make a choice really, and I want… I really wanted to use this opportunity to have them talk about themselves and for themselves, about their culture, and what they remember when they were younger. And basically, what they remember is that they were eating coconut, every single meal, sometimes several times a day, every single day, and nobody was getting sick. Nobody was fat or obese, or had the diseases that currently we have. So that’s, I think that’s the, you know, that’s kind of like the format, or I guess, the methodology I’ve been using, like, you know, we have this older adults, that because of these demographic transition, and epidemiological transition, they’re leaving all longer lives, but they’re with more disease, you know, they’re more sick with diseases, but we can actually talk to them, we can actually talk to a lot more than like, I actually got to talk and interview my grandmother until she was 94 years old. And I got to learn how was her life when she was younger, and what kind of foods they ate, and what how were they preparing the foods because I think not only the foods are important, but also how they were prepared. So you mentioned grains, and legumes and cereals that are like, you know, we’re being told to eat a lot of them. But most people don’t know how to prepare them in a way that is going to be…
Diana Rodgers, RD
Maximize their absorption and also not damage your gut.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah, because that’s what happens when you eat a lot of these cereals and bones and your diet is like, you know, if we follow the pyramid, basically, we’re going to get sick very soon, because we don’t, if we are not being taught at the same time, how to prepare this, like soaking and, you know, sprouting them and fermenting them, then and this is something that my grandmother did, and my mum did, and, you know, all these people used to do so I think part of my work is also to bring, you know, bring to light, this knowledge, the knowledge about the how they did it, not just what they ate, how did not just how they prepare it, but actually the context in which in which they ate so a lot of these older adults, they told me, they emphasize a lot like how we used to eat we you always have someone to eat with, you know, it’s we always sharing a meal with somebody. And then you know, the moment that we are eating is a moment where we do more than just eating. We’re just exchanging ideas. We’re talking about how we’re doing. There’s there’s this intimate intergenerational connection that happened during the mealtime. And there’s also what happens after the meal is done. You know, we sit and chat for like one or two or three hours. And in Latin America, we say that’s the best part of the meal. Because you know, it’s not just… it’s not really about the food isn’t the conversation. So that follows, you know, and what happens when we are talking is we are resting, it’s part of our digestive process, you know, it’s brought up is the moment where we are digesting our food, we need to be relaxed for that. So I think all of that matters a lot when, when it comes to food and culture, really, really learning about how where this food is, I don’t know is placed is within a context within the culture within the community within the region. You know, also the animals are closer, you know, the animals are… we have a lot… they had a lot closer contact with the animals, and with the environment. And as you know, that matters a lot.
Diana Rodgers, RD
You mean the animals that they eat?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah. All kinds of animals, but just you know, more in touch with the Earth, you know, just having more contact with the outside world. And that really adds to our microbial power, you know, we, the more you know, the more diverse the closer we are to the animals. So, many things that we can learn from older adults. And it’s been a privilege for them to work with, for me to be able to learn from them in this way. Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD (LMNT Ad)
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Diana Rodgers, RD
Now you’re a professor, can you talk a little bit about where you teach, and what kind of courses you teach, and what really resonates with the college students that you’re working with?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah, right now, I’m not teaching in a college I have in the past, but not right now. I’m involved right now with an organization called a red, they want to be honest, is imagers with which means seats, guardians, they’re the seeds, Guardians network. And there are many an organization based in Ecuador. And their work is focused on basically very similar, they’re, they’re focused on rescuing or saving, saving the seeds of the foods that are being lost or forgotten. So there, there are certain kinds of vegetables that are not being cultivated anymore. They’re, they’re not being grown. And because, you know, the diet has become standardized. And so we’ve lost a lot of diversity. So they’re, they’re, you know, they do great work in that sends in training other people on how to grow these foods and also saving the seeds in order to, but they do a lot more than that. And so, these past April, they were supposed to where they were supposed to be a big festival, called the mother seed festival. And it was supposed to be in Ecuador, so I was supposed to travel there, after I present my film in Atlanta, but then, you know, the pandemic erupted, and I had to stay. And they, you know, they kind of like relocated the festival, and they made it all online. So they had an amazing turnout. You know, I don’t think more than maybe 500 People would have attended there in color. But since they did it online, I think altogether for all of the workshops they offered was 17,000 people, because there were people, you know, logging in from all over the world. And it was all in Spanish, but you know, there’s, you know, migrants all over the world. And so as part of this festival, I taught a class with a heavier Carrera who is coordinator and he and we taught a class called, it would be cooking to strengthen your immune system. So basically, what we taught is how to cook traditional foods. Because, you know, they, they have all all the elements that we need to have a strong immune system. And it was a really satisfying because, you know, so many people participated. It was almost, we created a Facebook group, there was there were videos, and also some talks online. And it’s almost 800 people that participated. And there’s people from different, you know, different continents, or there’s some somebody in Turkey and Ecuadorian, in Turkey that was participating, and a lot of people from Latin America from in Spain, and I think the US also, and it was really, really, I mean, I love to do this work, because it’s a way to get people closer to their culture. That is very, very, it just clicks, it clicks, because people are so confused about what to eat, you know, everybody says something different. And there’s all this information out there. And I mean, that’s how I was, I mean, I was really confused. You know, I started getting sick and I don’t know why and I start trying all these different diets and going vegan or whatever. And then you know, Still not works for me. And when I found, you know, this path, because it was really bad, like it really clicked to look at my heritage, you know. And that’s, I think the best way to go, I think just looking at what, what, what’s near you what’s growing in your surroundings, but also what’s meaningful to you. So wherever you wherever you are in the world, if you’re a migrant, in the US or wherever, I mean, it’s not just, it will not be fulfilling only to just eat a lot of foods, you will just you will need to also you need a vital to prepare the foods from your country in order to thrive. So yeah, and then going back to your, your initial point, we reached a lot of people in rural areas. And that was, I think that’s the most impactful work that we achieve, because these are the people that, you know, we’re told that vegetable oils are going to save them, you know, that they’re going to get them, you know, that they’re going to be healed with these that they’re better for them. And they’re raising pigs. And they’re not using lard because they think that is bad for them. So here we come. And we tell them, you know, like, there’s all this research and all this history, because people tend to look at just the studies, but the studies are just isolated, in comparison to our history. You know, if you look at our history, that’s an evidence, very strong that nobody’s looking at, people forget to think about, you know, where we come from, what our ancestors ate. And so when we come in and tell them, you know, this is what, what it is, you know, this is what has been proven throughout the history. And, you know, it’s actually good for you. And it’s delicious. So it was amazing to see, you know, they’re all we gave, we taught them some recipes, but also, and some, you know, some theory and also, you know, recipes that they could do, but I’ll embed they started coming up with their own like, questions, how do I make lard, you know, I have my own pigs? How do I make lard, they have access to, you know, fresh milk and cream? How can I make my own butter? Instead of buying, you know, the margarine that still doctors tell them that is better for them? So in that sense, I think, you know, it was kind of revolutionary, because nobody expected to have this turnout. And I just thinking about, you know, what I’ve been taught at universities. And I mean, the impact that you can have is, it’s nothing compared to something like this, you know, just we did it over two weeks, and we reach so many people around the world, we reach people that we wouldn’t have been able to reach in at a university or a specific location, you know, these people in rural areas, and they’re all calf. Direct change in their lives. It’s, they’re immediately putting it in practice. They’re there, you know, and they’re also very inspired because they’re, they’re looking at what their grandmothers used to cook. They’re pulling out all the recipe books and sharing it in the group and just amazing, you know, an amazing community that has come out of this.
Diana Rodgers, RD
I’m thinking about I saw that YouTube channel, I think it was called the Mexican grandma. Have you heard of her?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
I’ve seen several ones. But there’s one yeah, that… I forget what her name is. But yeah, she cooks are different.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And but it’s all traditional recipes. And she’s got this massive, massive following. And she’s just this little cute grandma that’s just making traditional foods.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah, I have seen her. She’s great. Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. That’s so awesome.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Like you’re saying, like, you can go on YouTube when you get a chance. And actually, I cooked some recipes with my mom. So one of the things that, you know, filled my heart the most was to see how, you know, all these people around the world were posting pictures of my mom’s recipe. We made several recipes. We made our liver. But also, we made radish. It was like quick pickles. It’s a kind of a quick pickles that is traditional in Ecuador. And everybody loved it. And they’re all posting pictures of my mom and I just couldn’t believe it. You know? How many people you can reach, you know, with the Internet? It’s amazing.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. So have you run into any doctors at all that aren’t subscribing to the low-fat American Heart Healthy Western type diet down in Ecuador. Have you reached you know, have you connected with any that are pushing for more traditional foods?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Hmm, that’s a good question. I have one of my friends I interviewed. She’s a medical doctor. She’s on my documentary. And she obviously, you know, aligns with my view. And, you know, basically it’s about how much you value the traditional knowledge. And in this documentary, in her interview, she says, you know, we really have to respect the traditional knowledge because it’s been around for a lot longer than the modern medicine. So, you know, this is the reason why we should give it a lot more respect and a lot more credit. In Ecuador, I think, you know, people have a lot more options, maybe, I don’t know, maybe if here I haven’t had… in the US I haven’t had a lot of opportunity. And it’s also more expensive to get treatment with, like doctors that are not mainstream, but in color is a lot more embedded in the culture. And also, I have to say that, you know, even the, the mainstream doctors, they integrate a lot of the… they can integrate a lot more natural and traditional remedies. For example, I remember I used to have a lot of, like terrible, tonsillitis, like, horrible all of my life until I came here. It disappeared. I don’t know how, but I used to go a lot for these and the doctors always you know, in sometimes, you know, they give you antibiotics. Other times, they don’t. Not always they give you antibiotics, I think they’re a little bit less aggressive compared to the doctors here when they just you know, they want to fix everything with drugs, but over there doctors will give you for example, go and gargle with salt, do gargles with salt, or do gargles with – we call it panella which is unrefined cane sugar. And it’s that’s another remedy like gargle with that or garlic, things like that, you know, it’s chicken soup. But for me, it was a shock when I came here and you know, I went to my first time to the hospital. I was upset stomach and I asked the doctor, you know, should I eat something different? And he said, No, you can just eat whatever you want. And you can just take the medicine – just take the drugs. It’s very different. I think, you know, it’s a lot, I think people have to respect it a lot. And they consider it more. Because people just do it, you know, it’s part of our culture like we people have in their backyard, a lot of medicinal herbs is traditional to grow your own herbs. So you can make your infusion and you have a different one for different conditions. And your mom, my mom gave me a lot of remedies. My grandmother, I mean, they know a lot of things, you know, they know a lot of these things. So they’re kind of like our doctors also. It’s not just you know, you’re not relying only on the mainstream doctor, but you also have other resources. And I think that’s a huge. Yeah, I think it’s a huge advantage of living in somewhere like Latin America, because here, I think it’s like you’re on your own, basically. That’s how I feel, you know?
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. I can see that. Yeah.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Like, if I don’t have my mom around, then I will be lost. So for example, now, I have my doctor in Ecuador, she’s one of the doctors like, say like, she’s a medical doctor, but she has expertise. She did a specialization in medicinal plants. So she combines both things. So I actually I feel so fortunate because every time I get sick or have a question or something, then I just text her. And they’re so accessible, you know, compared to the doctors here, like you have to wait, I don’t know how long. Then you have to do a physical and then like, all of these barriers, you know, to get to an actual specialist in other countries is not like that, you know, in Ecuador, I can just text my doctor and she will give me an answer right away. I don’t have to go see her in her office. She… it’s a different kind of relationship. I think it’s more humane, I think definitely is more humane. And I was in Japan last year for like five months. And it’s the same thing like you know, we had an issue with my husband’s back and we just went to a hospital and he was seen right away by a specialist. So I think you know, there’s it’s sad but I wish there was more resources here for other things like you know, traditional medicine and also that they take into account food because it makes a difference you know, it makes a difference what you eat.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Totally, completely. We agree. I have it with my nutrition practice. There are some gastrointestinal intestinal doctors that send patients my way. And they don’t ever talk about food. And like that’s their specialty. You know? It’s really amazing to me, do you want to talk maybe… I know you’ve taken a bunch of groups to Cuba, do you want to share a little bit about that experience?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Sure. That was several years ago. But yeah, I took a group of students to Cuba on a study abroad program when I was at the University of Illinois. And I was a faculty leader for the course on culture, film and history. And it was a month long. It was really intense and intensive. And most of my students were Latina and Latino. So and it was like a life-changing experience for them. And it was a life-changing experience for me. And Cuba is an interesting place to learn about food, and, of course, about culture. But we had some areas of the sea levels that touched upon food, and it’s interesting to look at it in this context. And it reminded me a lot of Cuba because Cuba had to, like, basically, they were forced into going…
Diana Rodgers, RD
Organic.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Do you know about that? Yeah. In the 90s, you know…
Diana Rodgers, RD
But a lot of people don’t? Do you want to explain, like, why it’s such an interesting situation that happened there.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah. So. So for the longest time, I mean, like centuries, right? Ever since colonization, Cuba was growing sugarcane. So basically, it became a huge island, mostly for producing sugarcane. And these really eroded the soil and, but I mean, this was the model. So they kept then when the revolution came about in 1959, they, you know, they established agreements with the former Soviet Union, and, or with the Soviet Union, and then they were exporting sugar in exchange for meat. I’m sure, you know, so the Cubans, they used to get really good meat from Russia, from the Soviet Union, and other food products, like apples. Nothing that was local, you know, a lot of the food that they had was imported, and was really good quality food, until the crisis came about. So this is why what reminds us today, you know, like, we were in this huge crisis, it’s… we’ve never seen this before, like, at this level globally, and people are forced to just think whether money is going to feed them or whether they know they can find the plot of land and start growing their own food. And that’s what happened, because, you know, with the Soviet Union collapsing all of these agreements collapsing, they couldn’t sell their sugar for in exchange for anything, so they had to start growing their own food. And because they couldn’t get fertilizer, because all of it was coming from the Soviet Union, they had to go organic, they had to, they started the whole research movement and the urban agriculture movement, I think is the biggest in the world. I think in history, I don’t think that there’s been a movement like that in any other country where the whole city because you know, Cuba is a long island. So most of the vegetables, the produce came from the other side of the island to Havana, which is, you know, the most urbanized and the surrounding areas. And then when this happened, there was no oil so oil was coming from the Soviet Union, there’s no oil, there’s no transportation. So you’re it’s a very similar situation in some ways, in different parts of the world that have these you know, confinement policies and stuff, and no transportation. So you have to find ways to find your food locally. So that’s when the people in the cities, on their roofs. And they’re actually, in their… this is nobody believes me when I tell these but it was actually in their bathtubs. So pork is that is a very traditional in Cuba in Mexico, very preferred, is a very liked food. And they… a lot of people raise pigs in their bathtub.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Wow, I’ve heard of people growing fish in their basement.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
It was something you know, it’s… you can ask any Cuban and tell you all kinds of stories about on how they were doing this all about and then, you know, there was a lot of scarcity surrounding foods, but anyway, they had to, they really had to understand that they know this dependency on, you know, foreign market. What this… it cannot be sustainable. And this is what is… what we’re looking at right now, like we are so dependent on things that come from other parts, and especially food, you know, we don’t, I mean, there’s places where you can see the cities. Nobody grows their food. Until now, nobody was interested. And all of a sudden, we are now interested in learning how to grow, how to plant seeds, and because, you know, this is… these are the cycles, and we are kind of like living in a system that is not sustainable. And these are the things that happen when you know, when we live in a system that is not sustainable. And that also applies to the food system. I mean, we know that a lot of these problems with viruses and novel viruses also have to do with the way that we’re raising animals. And until something like this happens, we are not willing to even look at it.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. I’m seeing so much more interest. I mean, even when COVID started, we were sold out, our farm was sold out for the whole rest of the year within I mean, the earliest ever, and I’m seeing so much more interest. And I also have noticed, like so many seed companies were like, Okay, we’re sold out to customers, we have to, you know, Johnny seeds and Baker Creek seeds here in the US. And it’s interesting what you were describing and Cuba, it’s like the opposite of what happened in Venezuela, right? When the price of oil was so high, everyone stopped farming and just started buying everything in and they were dependent 100% on just external imports. And then the price of oil falls. Everyone forgets how to farm. They have massive food shortages. I haven’t followed it lately. Do you know what the latest is about Venezuela?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
No. Well, the latest that I’ve heard is a and because I’m from Ecuador I follow the news, there was a huge wave of Venezuelan migrants last year and the year before. And nowadays with this crisis, I heard that so many Venezuelans are going back to Venezuala. So that’s how bad it is in Ecuador right now.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Okay,
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
With a pandemic, the hospitals are collapsing, and just really sad what’s going on.
Diana Rodgers, RD
What did you say is collapsing?
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
The hospitals.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Oh, the hospitals? Yeah, I saw a show on it on Vice actually did a really interesting piece on Ecuador and people just in the streets. I mean, do you want to, before we go just kind of talk about I mean, there was dead bodies in the streets in Guayaquil? I think they were…
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah. So first, the funerary system collapsed before the hospitals collapsed. So that was a couple of months ago, maybe when this whole thing started, because Guayaquil was the city that first was hit by this virus, because there were some people that came back from Spain, and Spain was a big, you know, area where this virus and the people and the cases. And so yeah, it was… what happened is that because funerary, these are private… their company’s, you know, family-owned, they were concerned that of getting infected. So basically, they closed down. And so people, you know, started dying, and they didn’t have the service. And this is where are you realize how vital this service can be, you know, and what happens when it’s privately owned, when, you know, all of the families decide to shut it, then, you know, then you’re going to have a sanitary crisis. That is what happened in Guayaquil. So it was really, really sad. And well, yeah, saddest thing is that people still deny it, you know, especially government authorities. It’s just outrageous. And then more lately is the corruption. You know, there’s so much corruption. And it’s unbelievable because you wouldn’t believe that, you know, anybody would be willing to take advantage of the situation, but that’s what’s happening. It’s really sad.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, well, I hope your family does okay, through all of this.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah, luckily, I haven’t heard anybody in my family – they’re all just, you know, hiding in their houses, I mean, they have the luxury. Other people don’t have the luxury. And that’s what happens, you know that a lot of people in Equador and in Latin American countries they live by the day. So they have to go out and sell whatever they’re selling, to make a living. And when you can’t go out and sell because there’s a pandemic, and there’s, you know, all these policies to try to contain it, then you’re going to die. I mean, people are actually calling out, you know, their people are dying of hunger, they’re going hungry. People, you know, lost their jobs or lost their source of income. And it’s really sad. So, I’m very fortunate that my family, you know, they all are privileged enough to be able to be, you know, stay inside their homes, and not be harmed by this virus. But yeah,
Diana Rodgers, RD
I wish we in America heard more about what’s going on in other parts of the world, because, you know, everyone here is just complaining that they go can’t go get manicures. And, you know, it’s… there’s bigger problems.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah, I mean, yeah. And then, like I said, I think here they… the people that are hit the hardest are the ones that don’t have the choice, you know, they are not given the option to work from home. They are… they, you know, they can just stay home because they have savings or whatever. But other people, they just have to go out and work. So they are a lot more at risk. And we know who these people are, you know, so, right. A lot of them are immigrants.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And they’re not… they’re not documented, so they can’t get the checks that were coming out and really, really sad. So yeah. It was really nice to connect with you. Let’s put a link to your film, in our show notes and everything. And then you had also offered to do like a little post about it too, like a little blog post if you still want to do that.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Yeah. Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And I hope to see you out in Massachusetts again sometime soon.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Oh, yes, I was planning on going before this whole thing started.
Diana Rodgers, RD
All right.
Pilar Egüez Guevara, PhD
Hopefully, we’ll see each other.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. Okay, let me know the next time you’re in town.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thanks so much for listening today and for following my work. If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. Visit sustainabledish.com/join and become a sustaining member today. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join. And thank you.
