Abstract:

The health food trend, being a direct consequence of the world ecologi- cal movement, is present more and more in our areas too. It manifests itself in a great interest in the relation between diet and health, be- ing evident in the real flood of various alternative movements as well as in the opening of specialized health food stores offering pesticide- free cereals, food free of chemical additives, honey from mountainous areas where there is no gaseous contamination, apple vinegar, oat flakes as well as a wide range of other foods from a "healthy" image of the world. People know more and care more about their own health, expecting somebody else to help them and in fact all is reduced to a system of self-help. One thing is said by science and another by alternative: the advantages of the former are the latest discoveries and cognisance, and being inadequate and beyond reach of the ordinary people are its disadvantages. The advantages of the latter are simplicity and easy acceptance, and superficial knowledge, very frequent incorrect interpretation and the worst of it, mysticism, are its disadvantages. The cold facts are given by science, being very often in opposition to be- lief, and alternative raises delusive hopes and stirs imagination. As an ordinary human being always prefers illusion to bitter truth, our people usually decide for alternative.