Funny Food

I read a really intriguing article in our newspaper this week about a new research centre that explores the medicinal properties of food, your chicken salad sandwich could be more healthy than you’d imagined! Ha!

As a nature freak I find this is a really cool concept, since through my exploration of the natural world, and my formal education, I have learned a lot about the healing properties of native prairie plant species.  The medicinal value of willow bark is well documented – it contains acetylsalicylic acid, the chemical that makes up asprin and North American native people used to chew the bark to relive headaches, and other assorted pains.  I suppose some European wise man/woman observed this practice and took the secret back to Europe and the rest is history…A chomp of willow bark a day keeps the doc away!

From foxglove, we get digitalis, used for heart medications, and of course penicillin is a type of mould! Nature is truly an awesome thing.  But who knew regular food could be medicine. (I do know for a fact though that a tub of coffee hagen dazs will cure just about anything that makes you feel bad!!! So I suppose the concept is not that far fetched)

But  when I read this article, I had a vision of a series of photographs depicting these multitasking meals and the benefits they might impart to our tables and ultimately, our lives.   Can you imagine a shot of a Chicken producing a clutch of capsules instead of eggs, along the lines of some of the humorous advertising photography made famous by Jim Divitale!

I’ve explored this highly manipulated editorial photography in the past and sold several editorial/illustration type images as stock photos through various stock agencies, but this seems like a rich subject area because the juxtaposition of food and medicine is just such a creative concept. Maybe my next series will be FUNctional FOOD.