ARTS&FOOD®™: January 2016

"Holding Hands" - representing Love and Family in The Middle KIngdom

ART

Ancient Egypt

The Middle Kingdom

Representations of

Women, Family

+ Male & Female

Jewelry

from a recent exhibition
at the Metropolitan

Museum of Art

During the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt (mid-Dynasty 11–Dynasty 13, around 2030–1650 B.C.), artistic, cultural, religious, and political traditions first conceived and instituted during the Old Kingdom were revived and reimagined. Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II—the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom—was followed by a great cultural flowering that lasted nearly four hundred years.

Women:
Royal women were defined by their relationship to the pharaoh with the designations "king's mother", "king's wife" or "king's daughter". Whether Middle Kingdom royal women exercised political influence beyond their rare roles as regents or short-term rulers is unclear, although in the Thirteenth Dynasty they served as links between kings and officials.

The religious and ritual aspects of royal women's roles were of primary importance during the Middle Kingdom. Reliefs from the pyramid complex of Senwosret III, for instance, indicate that the king was conceived in a union between his mother and a god. Most significantly, the queens were understood to be the pharaoh's counterpart in his role as representative of the creator god on earth. The result was the royal women's special relationship with Hathor, goddess of love and sexuality and the creator god's counterpart in the Egyptian pantheon. Hathor was also the sun god's daughter, which might explain the frequent depiction of royal women as female sphinxes in the Middle Kingdom, as the sphinx had solar symbolism.

During cultic festivals and rituals, royal women surely wore some of the sophisticated jewelry sets displayed here. These pieces were found either on the women's mummified bodies or in their burial chambers, which were located either beneath their own small pyramids, adjacent to the king's, or sometimes in/under the pyramid of the king himself.

FAMILIES

WOMEN

Men's & Women's

JEWELRY

This Astonishing Art

has survived

more than 4000 years.

Reverse side.

A tourquorse "fly" necklace was awarded to military men,

because flys are relentless,

they keep coming at you.

The oyster shell was also a military ornament,

inscribed with pharaoh's name.

(Source: All photos were taken by ARTSnFOOD staff, with permission at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Text based on information furnished by the Met. Museum. This exhibition was the first comprehensive presentation of Middle Kingdom art and culture at The Met, featuring many objects never before been shown in the United States.)

Gallery 3 of the Met "Middle Kingdom" exhibition.
Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The absolute power of the pharaoh was based on the belief that he was the son of a god and the mediator between his people and the divine. However, Egyptians were fully aware of the fact that kings were human, and Middle Kingdom art reached its peak expressing their dual nature.

FOOD
Dr. Fuhrman's Approach
to Eating Healthy

In January we always re-think our health and how we eat.
Dr. Furhman has based his approach on thousands of nutritional studies over the past 50 years.

Editor's Note: The Learn More button above does not work in this image.
Art from Dr. Furhman's webpage.

A Nutritarian diet is guided by nutritional quality.

Dr. Fuhrman's Prescription for Improving and Maintaining Great Health

NUTRITARIAN FOOD PYRAMID

Dr. Fuhrman's food pyramid is based on his principles of the health equation Health = Nutrients / Calories (H=N/C).
At least 90% of the daily diet should be comprised of whole plant foods that naturally contain health-promoting phytochemicals.*
The pyramid promotes foods that are richest in micronutrients and benefit health and longevity.

The quality of a diet can be based on three simple criteria:

Levels of micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals) per calorie
Amounts of macronutrients (fat, carbohydrate, protein) to meet individual needs, without excessive calories that may lead to weight gain or health compromise
Avoidance of potentially toxic substances (such as trans fats) and limited amounts of other potentially harmful substances (such as sodium)

Dr. Fuhrman created The Health Equation: H=N/C or Health = Nutrients/Calories (first published in 1999 in his work, The Health Equation and later described in more detail in his book, Eat To Live) to define how the quality of calories impacts health.

This equation means your future health can be predicted by the micronutrient per calorie density of your diet. Micronutrient per calorie density is important in devising and recommending menu plans and dietary suggestions that are the most effective for tackling weight loss and for preventing and reversing disease.

Assuring superior nutrition means meeting an individual's unique nutritional needs to profound therapeutic effects for preventing, treating and reversing disease. Dietary micronutrient quality must be increased accordingly to utilize dietary recommendations therapeutically for disease reversal or to protect high-risk individuals.

Though micronutrient density is critically important, it is not the only factor that determines health. For example Vitamin D levels, B12, and proper omega-3 intake are important for optimal long-term health as well as avoidance of sodium and other toxic excesses. These concerns are not addressed in the H = N/C equation. However, if the focus is consuming more micronutrient-rich natural foods then the other important nutritional benefits automatically will follow, such as lower sodium, reduced calories, high fiber and volume, a low glycemic index, and a high satiety and phytochemical index to name a few.

Eating low nutrient foods fuels overeating behavior and toxic hunger.

Last, but not least, Dr. Fuhrman's unique contribution to the science of nutritional care, disease reversal and weight loss is his explanation of the physiology behind hunger and food cravings.

It is important to recognize that low nutrient eating (and toxic eating) leads to increased cellular toxicity with undesirable levels of free radicals and advanced glycation end products (AGE's), lipofuscin, lipid A2E and other toxins that contribute to the development of chronic disease. His findings are that these toxic substances lead to addictive withdrawal symptoms (toxic hunger) which result in the desire to eat more frequently and overeat. Low nutrient eating, therefore, establishes a mechanism that leads to food addictions and food cravings that can't be ignored. This is the reason why calorie counting diets fail. Without addressing dietary quality, excess food cravings are almost impossible to ignore.

Fortunately the drive to over-consume calories is blunted by high micronutrient, high food antioxidant, consumption and the symptoms that people thought were hypoglycemia or even hunger, simply disappear after following his dietary recommendations. Not only do people lose the symptoms of fatigue, headaches, irritability and stomach cramping, but they get back in touch with true hunger felt in the throat, which simply makes eating more pleasurable and directs them to a more appropriate amount of calories for their body's biological needs.

Download a printable PDF version

of the Nutritarian Checklist to help you

keep on track every day.

In a portion controlled (calorie counting) diet it is likely that the body will not get adequate fiber or micronutrients. The body will have a compounded sensation of hunger and cravings which for most is simply overwhelming. It invariably results in people either being unable to lose weight or unable to keep the weight off and eventually gaining it back. The biochemistry and physiology behind food cravings are more thoroughly explained in Dr. Fuhrman's books and lectures, but without a thorough understanding of these principles weight loss attempts are typically doomed to fail.

Are you striving to adopt a Nutritarian diet to extend lifespan and reverse and prevent disease?
Here are 5 basic rules that may help you:

Consume a large green salad every day, and put some raw onion and shredded cruciferous veggies on top.
Eat at least a 1/2 cup of beans or lentils each day, in a soup, stew, or top of a salad or in another dish.
Eat at least 3 fresh fruits a day, especially berries, pomegranate, cherries, plums, and oranges.
Eat at least 1 ounce of raw seeds and nuts daily, utilizing some chia seeds, flax seeds and walnuts.
Consume a double-sized serving of steamed greens daily, and utilize mushrooms and onions in your dishes.

Until later,

Jack

ARTS&FOOD is an online magazine dedicated to providing artists and collectors around the world with highlights of current art exhibitions, and to encourage all readers to invest in and participate in “The Joy of Art” and Culture. All Rights Reserved. All concepts, original art, text & photography, which are not otherwise credited, are copyright 2016 © Jack A. Atkinson, under all international, intellectual property and copyright laws. All gallery events', museum exhibitions', art fairs' or art festivals' photographs were taken with permission or provided by the event or gallery. All physical artworks are the intellectual property of the individual artists and © (copyright) individual artists, fabricators, respective owners or assignees.