The importance of food

I dreamed a thousand new paths...

I woke and walked my old one.

           Chinese Proverb

Climb mountains to see lowlands.

           Chinese Proverb

Spiritual force is stronger than material force;

thoughts rule the world.

          Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nourishment

With the right amount and quality of well chosen nutrition we can create a healthy body and mind. There is a nice saying: “You are what you eat”, This is true as we not only eat things to feel full, we need the right amount of minerals, vitamins, trace elements, fibre and so on to make sure the system works properly.

But eating has not only to do with the body, the mind is involved and we feel different, better when we eat good food. Everyone that has enjoyed and tasted food in places where people grow their own food can immediately taste the difference. The smaller farmers enjoy tilling the soil, nurturing and watering the plants so there becomes a bond or sharing between the plants and the farmer.

Some may call it love but all would see the respect given throughout all the processes. Any insects that may invade the crops are gently discouraged by means of planting certain types of herbs and so on which cause the bugs to settle elsewhere. There is no chemicals necessary. And there is no stress.

The punishment upon the plant caused by chemical spraying is avoided fully with care and this results in a richer more natural tasting food. And far less dangerous too.

Quality

When we say we are what we eat it means there is a difference that makes our system work better or makes us feel better if we eat things that are good for the body. And the question is what is good for the body? Is it the quality of what we eat or the items we take in?

Are there guidelines at all? Yes there is one general guideline that says eat as natural as possible. This means all food that is as little processed as possible, that is neither manipulated (genetically modified) nor treated with chemical (organically grown). A rule of thumb is if a certain type of food wont go ‘off’ after days or weeks then it is so loaded with chemical cocktails that make it unsafe to eat.

Going for organic food has a few advantages: it means the farmers that grow plants this way are treating the soil with respect and the outcome is a better product regarding minerals, vitamins, and the whole structure of the harvested goods. Composting rejuvenates the soil gently and naturally. Giving nature room to do the necessary work and do the honest work of a farmer, means giving plants time to grow and to change the crop growing in a certain cycle so that each crop can take out of the soil what is needed and this will be given to us when we consume them.

The next advantage is of course the fact that we are not eating all the poisons that are usually in all our plants. It is normal today that every crop is treated with chemicals to “protect” them from insects, illnesses and so on. The result is a stressed plant that has not got the time to grow and to take in all that it would normally need if the opportunity would have been given.

Many people do have allergies due to eating only this type of food and of course there are other reasons that feed allergies but the daily input of poisoned food certainly is something that we should not underestimate.

Environment

We all have heart the saying “As in micro cosmos so in macro cosmos” which means what we do to the plants results to what we do to the planet as a whole. Life goes in cycles, we get what we seed. We get healthy plants and food when we grow them the healthy. And mono farming (mono culture) practices have done far more long term damage to bio-diversity structures than will ever be admitted.

The environment is a mirror of ourselves and we need to do something to keep the nature, our planet healthy to be able to be healthy. We live in a symbiosis with nature!

Eating organic food supports those farmers who take care of the soil, of nature, of our planet and helps to keep the planet free from more poisons. There is no doubt that all we do to the planet comes back to us, all the chemical don’t disappear only because we do not see them once they have been sprayed!

The communal interactions and benefits associated with small farming is far beneficial than just the food output too. It allows trade within the community, it fosters friendship and sharing on every level and it cares and respects nature. The costs of transport and refrigeration are removed along with associated pollution. And surprisingly enough, the range and diversity of food types is far wider.

Responsibility

We are taking responsibility for our own life, health, mental welfare and the environment we are living in when eating food that is healthy of itself.

 As we are part of the nature, part of the planet, the planet constantly mirrors to us what we are doing, which condition we are in at the moment. All we do to another being and to us makes a difference to us. Treating ourselves with respect means this respect will be mirrored in the world, in what is happening on the planet. Our influences by eating healthy food are enormous: we receive a health body and mind, we feel so much better, have more energy, fun and power. We realize that we are in power, that we are the ones that change things. We are creators of our own being; it can be seen easily here. And the changes go very quickly. Once we change to eat organic food we find out, that things really "taste" like potato tastes like potato, cauliflower tastes like cauliflower and so on.

Our taste sense recovers quickly and we will not like the taste of the poisoned and highly processed food any more. The senses will "know" this is not good. We are losing our judgment about the taste of food all the time; we are losing a part of our power.

We are much more influenced by eating wrong foods than we think. The opinion that the sense of taste is getting worse during the lifetime due to ageing is not true and the real fact is that we overlay our wonderful sense of taste by eating things that are not good for us and are not tasty at all. We get used to mainly use herbs and mixed herbs or sauces that contain a lot of chemical (to make them not go off to fast) to make our meals taste good. We eat the processed food and then attempt to mask the tastelessness by putting on sauces and spices to give the illusion of flavour.

When we start to eat organically grown food we have a very intense experience of wonderful taste. It is not necessary to use all the additional ingredients to make it taste nice if we do not want to. Everybody can use nice herbs (also organic) to give the same vegetable or meal a different taste next time and one will also have the wonderful assistance of the herbs that are given to us to use  wisely. Herbs are not only for taste purposes but they are mainly working on our body functions and have the nice side effect of a new taste for a meal.

Generally we all eat too much in the western world and too one-sided, we are overfed but undernourished. We eat too much processed food, do not know the taste of raw fruit and vegetables, and do not know how they smell when they are harvested freshly. Nobody who has ever smelled this will forget it.

And as Asia becomes modernized and westernized, the levels of diabetes and health problems previously rare have begun to rise alarmingly. Many of the small garden farmers have been dislocated by urban sprawl but these same farmers are unable to purchase new land to till.

Eating healthy food is a decision that you make consciously and that makes you aware of what you are doing while you buy, prepare and eat it. It can be indeed a celebration on many levels.

Vegetarianism

No one actually said humans must eat meat.

No one actually said humans must eat plants.

It is purely a matter of choices and what the body needs to sustain life. Vegetarianism is one of the forms of nourishment that is made consciously in most cases but there are also people who never liked animal protein even when they were children.

There are many aspects to look at it. One is certainly the way we treat these creatures that we are going to eat. Our highly aggressive attitude in raising and feeding these animals comes back into our organism when we eat them. Not only the lack of respect will be reflected in the products we eat, also the hectic rush in which we kill them and later process the food. All these things make a difference.

And the other very important input we get is the so called medicine these animals get during a normally very short life time. They are all stored in their bodies and we will eat those same chemicals so there is question as to why there are a lot of people now days immune against a lot of antibiotics it is because they consume it daily and this way all the germs in their system are used to it. How can the same "medicine" now "help" in cases of illness? The same occurs to the heart medicine that is given to pigs before they go to the slaughter house as they are very sensitive animals and sense what is going to happen to them. A lot of pigs die out of fear before they go to their destination. Now the pigs get beta blocker and other medication to calm them down before their "great" day and of course there is no time that the medicine can go out of the system before the animals are killed. This way all the eaters get this medication as well, one might wonder if people would still eat this meat if they were aware this fact?

There is no respect or thanks to these animals that they give their lives for our nutrition. The chemical industry is involved everywhere in animal food and in so called plant protection products. But we can choose to eat animals from farmers that treat them with respect, farmers that raise them naturally.

Whether we eat meat and fish or not it - does not matter. It is always a personal decision. But the honor of the food is in the honoring of the organism whether it is plant or animal.
 

Costs

The main argument that people raise when talking about health food is the one of money. It is all is a matter of the point of view. Some people spend a lot of money on clothes (always on top of fashion) others have several trips abroad and some might spend money for their well being in form of a good nutrition. But the real costs are in the medical/hospital charges trying to recover from a poisoned body.

The other point is that people who eat healthy food often do not eat as much, do not go out for meals any more or less due to the taste of the restaurant food is not worth spending money once you are used to natural tastes. Or they do not crave meat any more or do not eat meat as often as other people so that in the end the costs are not higher or only slightly higher than in another household that purchases traditional processed pre-packaged food.

Another very important issue is the one of good health. Oddly enough, people who eat better organic foods do not go to the doctor as often as other people do. And in doing so they avoid the prescription minefield which only adds to the body’s toxicity.