Define "Wholesome"

[Pan]

Living in Manhattan, I don't get to forage much. I used to forage on another East Coast -- of Malaysia. But that's for another thread.

[anzu]

I kinda think anything you gather (in the wild or from your garden) and prepare yourself to be a partial definition of wholesome.  You use your "whole" self to do so--from wrenching mussels off a rock or gathering mushrooms to planting and harvesting your own produce.  Makes you feel warm all over because the experience is all encompassing.  I feel really sorry for these small children I see poking at the plastic packaging in supermarkets with such curiosity but in such disconnect from their own need to eat.  Sorry, pet peeve.

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Yes, but unfortunately also sometimes no.

I was living for about 2 years in a part of southern Germany where they had been mining coal intensively for several hundred years (and non-intensively for even longer). So it had been a center of coal mining and steel refining, most of which has now halted.

The place looks clean and pure. It has the largest amount of wooded land of any part of Germany. But every year, come mushroom season, the newspapers are full of warnings not to gather too many mushrooms from the forest - all those years of mining and refining means that they are apparently loaded with heavy metals.

In this case, at least, the plastic packaged stuff from the supermarket would actually be more wholesome.

[jsolomon]

What if the "food" I was gathering turned out to be toadstools?

On a more serious note, if I gathered clams and you then fried them in tremendous amounts of butter, they might taste good, but would you still consider them wholesome? What if you milked the cow and made the butter yourself.

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TLC negates all calories.

I'm still holding that "wholesome" deals more with balming and girding the soul than anything to do with the body. At least in current parlance.

I think a workable dictionary definition (or philosophical) is "something necessary to maintain the optimal state of the whole, assembled item". This does not just include the physical side of being a human, but the psyche, too.

So, does that mean that the morels that I gathered with an old S.O. and then fried them in butter and we had a fantastic date off of it? Hell yeah. Those morels were wholesome in spades. They did more to repair our relationship than anything I've ever done. It girded us for another 11 months of her in grad school. How can that not be wholesome?

[hjshorter]

(Maybe this indicates my feelings of cynicism about such fuzzy terms as "wholesome". I guess I think such terms are more about psychology and sociology than about the actual quality of the food.)

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Bingo. It's much more than the food. For instance by some of the above definitions an apple pie with a lard crust, lovely made by a pink-cheeked housewife clad in a gingham apron, is wholesome. For others, something involving that much animal fat, sugar and calories is automatically unwholesome, to be replaced with some more nutritious and self-denying.

Is liquor ever wholesome? How about wine? Artisinal microbrews?

Maybe it's just me but if someone described me or my cooking as wholesome I would have to suppress the urge to frow up, then beat them over the head with a large saute pan.

[JPW]

Turning tricks on the corner is whoresome.

Ooops. Sorry just reread the title of the thread.

Carry on.

[Patrick S]

Turning tricks on the corner is whoresome.

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And hoesome, too.

[Pan]

I just noticed that we haven't had any dictionary definitions in this thread yet.

Merriam-Webster's definition:

1 : promoting health or well-being of mind or spirit

2 : promoting health of body

3 a : sound in body, mind, or morals b : having the simple health or vigor of normal domesticity

4 a : based on well-grounded fear : PRUDENT <a wholesome respect for the law> b : SAFE <it wouldn't be wholesome for you to go down there -- Mark Twain>

synonym see HEALTHFUL, HEALTHY

It looks like definitions 1 and 2 are relevant, and conceivably 3a (but that's a stretch and would involve the "morals" of food).

I think that where the contradiction can appear is that what's great food for the mind or spirit may not always promote the health of the body.

[mizducky]

I just noticed that we haven't had any dictionary definitions in this thread yet.

Merriam-Webster's definition:

1 : promoting health or well-being of mind or spirit

2 : promoting health of body

3 a : sound in body, mind, or morals b : having the simple health or vigor of normal domesticity

4 a : based on well-grounded fear : PRUDENT <a wholesome respect for the law> b : SAFE <it wouldn't be wholesome for you to go down there -- Mark Twain>

synonym see HEALTHFUL, HEALTHY

It looks like definitions 1 and 2 are relevant, and conceivably 3a (but that's a stretch and would involve the "morals" of food).

←

Oh yeah, I think "morality" does definitely play a role here. I seem to recall there was a whole strain of the heavily church-based temperance movement's arguments for prohibition in the US that emphasized what they saw as the immorality of booze in any quantity, not merely the physical unhealthiness of overindulgence in alcohol. The arguments would extend to the general unwholesomeness of the boozing lifestyle, to saloons as dens of iniquity, etc. etc. etc.

I also find a decidedly moralistic tinge to a number of present-day health advocates' exhortations to ban fats, etc. from the diet. (And personally I find that tinge a really unhelpful turn-off--I'm seeking info, understanding, and support, not yet another guilt-trip.)

[Pan]

I just noticed that we haven't had any dictionary definitions in this thread yet.

Merriam-Webster's definition:

1 : promoting health or well-being of mind or spirit

2 : promoting health of body

3 a : sound in body, mind, or morals b : having the simple health or vigor of normal domesticity

4 a : based on well-grounded fear : PRUDENT <a wholesome respect for the law> b : SAFE <it wouldn't be wholesome for you to go down there -- Mark Twain>

synonym see HEALTHFUL, HEALTHY

It looks like definitions 1 and 2 are relevant, and conceivably 3a (but that's a stretch and would involve the "morals" of food).

←

Oh yeah, I think "morality" does definitely play a role here. I seem to recall there was a whole strain of the heavily church-based temperance movement's arguments for prohibition in the US that emphasized what they saw as the immorality of booze in any quantity, not merely the physical unhealthiness of overindulgence in alcohol. The arguments would extend to the general unwholesomeness of the boozing lifestyle, to saloons as dens of iniquity, etc. etc. etc.

I also find a decidedly moralistic tinge to a number of present-day health advocates' exhortations to ban fats, etc. from the diet. (And personally I find that tinge a really unhelpful turn-off--I'm seeking info, understanding, and support, not yet another guilt-trip.)

←

You're right. And come to think about it, definitions 4a and 4b can also be relevant, in that advocates of "wholesome" food may well consider it safe and prudent to avoid whatever items they consider "unwholesome," be those artificial ingredients or produce that isn't "organic" (based on what they consider a well-grounded fear of pesticide residues), or whatever.

[Zucchini Mama]

I'm just fascinated with this thread. I guess what the definition of the word gets us to do is to look at the whole picture. Is this food good for me (soul, psyche and soma)? Is it good for my family? Is it good for my neighborhood, my province, my planet? Mennonites tend to think of the bigger picture, and publish cookbooks full of suitably wholesome food.

I believe butter is more wholesome than margarine, but some butters are more wholesome than others, ie fresh organic artisanal butter, as opposed to those made by dairy conglomerates that sits in storage.

I have a few pairs of socks that are holesome.

Zuke

[kategoldston]

I definitely think that in ascertaining whether a food is "wholesome" or not it is important, as several of the dictionary definitions highlight, to look at whether the food is in the whole form such as whole wheat versus white flour. I also get this image of a certain mouth feel like yummy nutty bread or warm oatmeal.

[shona m f pearson]

What if the implication of wholesome is more than nutritious or healthy - stepping away from the tedium of the low fat battle - but a sense of more complete- well rounded, balanced.

We began with the Cornish pastie, which combines layers of food in a satisfying way.

When I think of a wholesome snack I'd be happy with oatmeal cookies and an apple with cheese, or a glass of milk. Interestingly, nutritionally complete!

Sandwiches and soups seem also to naturally fall into the wholesome category.

[JCD]

Anzu--that's a drag. Should we branch out into a discussion of how, in our search for wholesome food and a warm hearth, we have been creating chaotic scenarios for the planet?? Perhaps not. Tread lightly and gather what you can where you can and prepare it mindfully.

"So, does that mean that the morels that I gathered with an old S.O. and then fried them in butter and we had a fantastic date off of it? Hell yeah. Those morels were wholesome in spades." JSolomon---- I agree wholeheartedly!

Edited January 13, 2006 by JCD (log)