When did food stop being food?

 

One of the basic concepts of natural therapy can be expressed in that old saying: “You are what you eat”. To a large extent, our diet has determined the diseases we suffer from.

Over the past 100 to 150 years our basic diet has changed drastically. We have gone from fresh, wholesome, unrefined, unsprayed food to the opposite. Our foods now are frozen, canned, refined, genetically modified, and treated with toxic pesticides, preservatives, colorings and other chemicals.

Mass food production techniques have given us more food but less nutrition as the soil has become depleted of essential nutrients and its living balance upset by the petro-chemical fertilizers that wiped out all the sulfur in the soil that kept the people well, chemtrails that drop all sorts of health destroying chemicals, and sprays.

The refining of cereal grains strips them of their fiber and germ coatings, which contain the bulk of their protein, vitamins, and minerals, and leaves an unbalanced food composed primarily of refined carbohydrates. And where does the fiber and germ coatings go to? To the animals to be fed back to us in the form of rotting, decayed flesh.

The consumption of refined sugar is also one of the most detrimental influences in the modern diet. Sugar consumption has increased phenomenally within the past 200 years. In 1815 the average intake was about 15 pounds per year. By 1955 it had reached 120 pounds per year. Now it’s around 200 pounds per year. Yet we wonder why diabetes and obesity rates are so high.

Consider the diet of a typical teenager: refined and sweetened cereal, two fried eggs from chickens fed growth hormones and confined to a cage their whole lives, white toast with butter for breakfast, a hamburger, French fries and a Coke for lunch, boiled frozen vegetables, meat and white rice for dinner, with two other soda beverages containing 18 teaspoons of sugar and multiple other sweets each day.

You can see how it’s possible for people to eat more of less and literally starve themselves nutritionally. Not only is the quality of our diet extremely poor, but also its quantity is often as much of the problem.

There’s an old Chinese saying that says nine-tenths of the food you eat is for your health, while the last one-tenth is for your doctor’s financial health. Whenever you eat more than the body can effectively deal with, disease is invited. This is true of the best, most nourishing foods as well as when the foods eaten are, of themselves, a health risk.

A major cause of disease, as previously discussed, is accumulation of waste or toxins that cannot be silently dealt with. And overeating is one cause of this accumulation. Another important factor in our foods’ nutritional value is the manner in which it is prepared.

Many foods have maximum value in their natural state, or as close to it as possible. Certainly, for most fruits or vegetables, heating destroys many of their enzymes and vitamins. In the case of water-soluble vitamins, these are lost if the food is boiled and the cooking water discarded. Long-term storage or canning also results in the loss of many of the less stable vitamins. Some foods, however, require heat to be made digestible, such as whole grains, some tuberous vegetables, a few fruits, and dried beans.

Some nutritionists feel that a completely raw food diet is the only natural human diet and that cooked food is a major cause of suffering and disease. With raw foods being our most natural and nutritious foods, a person following such a diet, with full knowledge of necessary nutritional requirements for health, will experience profound physical vigor and resistance to disease.

While such a diet may be too extreme for the general population, the body is sufficiently adaptable to be able to handle a certain amount of cooked foods quite effectively. A good suggestion is a diet containing a large amount of raw vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts, with a smaller amount of lightly cooked vegetables, beans, and whole grains.

For those who desire dairy products: the only benefits from dairy products come from raw, unpasteurized cow or goat milk. And where do you find these? Wherever the FDA or USDA disposed of them after raiding the farms that provided them. And why would they dispose of them? Because they are merely “hookers” for Big Pharma and will do anything they can to preserve profits and do anything they can to take away that which will keep you healthy. If you must eat dairy products, only those that are fermented, such as yoghurt and kefir, are best. If by some quirk of fate you can find raw milk goat cheese, go for it.

The amount of red meat now consumed by the general public is a definite health risk, even so-called free-range. All the feed is loaded with GMOs, and other dead animals as well as road kill. The poultry, as discussed, are so loaded with growth hormones that they cannot stand up or walk. And the fish are full of mercury, oil spills, radiation, and toxins.

A guy in Cleveland once did an experiment. He took a roll of undeveloped film and put it in the Ohio River. It partially developed. And guess where all those toxins end up? In the ocean to be ingested by the fish.

For a diet to be of any use, all food must be chewed slowly and thoroughly. Too many people rush their meals, putting an excess burden on their stomachs. In addition to this, the food must be eaten only when one is relaxed and under no tension. Why? Because stress completely stops the actions of the entire digestive system.

It is obvious that many diseases can be directly related to improper dietary habits. The real proof is seen when a disease process is reversed and cured by a simple change of diet. Saturated fat elimination, for example, reverses cancer, arthritis, heart disease and type-2 diabetes. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It sounds really good, doesn’t it? However, the major problem is CONDITIONING.

We go through life being taught things by everyone, especially our parents. And this is how we learn to eat. But what if our parents suffered the same fate that we are faced with and died of cancer or heart disease or some degenerative disease? How would we know not to succumb to the same fate if our senses dictate what we eat?

Most of us drive some sort of vehicle. Yet from day one we are taught not to put kerosene in the gas tank. If we do, the engine starts getting weird real soon and we know we have problems.

Unfortunately, when we put „kerosene” in the vehicle called the “body”, the ramifications do not manifest for years and years. What starts out as a bit of joint pain turns into arthritis. The shortness of breath we experience turns into heart disease and the subtle pain in our body turns into cancer.

So, down the road after 40 or 50 years we are a mess and we have no idea why. And our diet is the last thing we consider. But it is the first thing we should consider.

If you research the make-up of the human body you will find that we have all the markings of being a plant based consuming species. Yet, our senses become accustomed to flesh and blood and we fight tooth and nail to keep it that way…

So the question we must answer is this: do we want to suffer degenerative disease and relegate ourselves to the endless consumption of pharmaceuticals, doctor visits, and all sorts of invasive treatments, or would we rather live our lives in good health without having to throw good money away just to maintain an acceptable condition of health?

Transformation is good. Never be afraid of transformation.

 

yogaesoteric
January 24, 2019