Insights into Diet and Health

The sense of taste, in its higher, more refined state, is capable of discerning what the body most needs at any given time. However, when blunted or debased, it discerns not what is wholesome in a given moment, but what is tasty, or even what will feed a health-undermining craving.

A de-based sense of taste can be redeemed, returned to its higher purpose.

There are different times of the day when the body craves different elements. It varies with each individual, but there is also a general pattern.

In the morning, the body most craves whole grain; at noon raw vegetables; in the evening lightly cooked vegetables, with greens as a staple nutrient-bearer.

The more “live” a vegetable or fruit is, the more enhanced is its etheric energy, the life force of the plant world. However, predominantly raw food diets are met best by a healthy etheric force in the individual eating them. If one’s etheric is depleted, by either illness or exhaustion, lightly cooked foods are easier to assimilate. For most people a balance of raw and cooked works best.

Experiments with live foods (raw, sprouted, and such) show that graying hair can be reversed. Also, there are numerous accounts of the reversal of debilitating illnesses.

Plants can be looked at as the inverse of the human form.

Root - head
Stem, leaves, - rhythmic system
Flowers, fruits - metabolic

If a person is suffering from an ailment that resides principally in the head region - headaches, etc - then the body will benefit from ingesting more root vegetables. If the lungs or heart are an issue, then more of leafy and stem parts of the plant. And if the issue entails the metabolic organs, or limb system, then the body can benefit from more fruits and “flower” vegetable portions - such as broccoli, cauliflower, etc.

The potato is not a root, but a tuber. Roots are far more optimal for nutrient needs.

The potato feeds a part of the brain that causes one to become more materialistic in one’s thinking. Further, potatoes are debilitating in a general way, and also specifically debilitating for eyesight. One would make out better if one ate the skins of potatoes and threw away the white portions - but unfortunately, the other way around is the usual custom.

Mass meat products, including “prison-raised” chickens, pigs, beef, and other crowded and abused species, carry negative karma for those engaged in the trade, support, or consumption. Is it really worth it to buy such products on the basis of “it’s cheaper”?

Further, the “cheaper” turns out to be quite the opposite - when one considers overall costs to health and shortfall of nutrients per volume purchased.

In the end, both the karmic price and the health price is exponentially higher than the monetary price.

The same is true for most non-organically raised food of all kinds. Do we want to contribute to depletion of the Earth, or sustain and amend the Earth? Even when one frames the issue purely in terms of self-interest, one only needs to consider the masses of overweight people who are continually stuffing themselves, yet always hungry - they are not getting the nutrients the body needs, so they keep eating, caught in a vicious cycle.

A further note on the meat industry: beef has been linked to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Because of the spongiform condition (Mad Cow related) created by both foolish cattle feed practices and long term debilitating animal husbandry, consumption of beef could be creating the spongiform condition in the human brain, a condition that may not show up for many years.

Better options include bison, wild game, organic poultry, or fish. In the case of fish, the smaller the better, as toxins augment in the food chain (which means the lowly sardine is now king). Some tins of tuna now contain the maximum level of mercury recommended to ingest in a year (in a single tin!).

Even better than the above, go with the leading edge of evolution and make your diet increasingly vegetarian. Vegetarian diets require forty times less acreage than meat-eating diets, and the leading edge of human evolution is becoming more responsible in the arena of animal-human relationships.

Certain food habits create layers of waste in the intestines that act to block transfer of nutrients. White grains are akin to glue - rice, flour, all white grains. As well, the widespread habit of combining milk or cream with coffee or tea creates a substance that is equal to leather, it is indigestible and adds to the layers of “skins” that line the intestines. Colonics, and other cleansing practices, can re-establish a clear intestinal tract. Once clear, the amount of food required to meet nutritional needs drops, thus saving money and resources.

A big factor of the current world food crisis (2008) is due to the white grain issue. The vast majority of people in the world consume these watered down versions of grain. A person can eat three times as much white grain as whole grain, and still does not feel fed. Less nutrients, plus blockage, equals a wider net of starvation and illness.

Many foods are actually not ingested, but are reproduced, or “copied” by the bodily forces in the digestive tract. For example, when protein is eaten:

one) the body can only assimilate about 1/4 to 1/3 of a pound at a time - if more is consumed it is not only wasted, but can create a barrier to assimilation as it lies rotting in the intestines. And,

two) the forces of assimilation actually “copy” the protein that is passing by on the other side of the intestinal wall (versus assimilating it across the intestinal tract). The blood stream reproduces the protein molecules out of various components taken in else-wise (e.g, nitrogen and oxygen brought in through the lungs, hydrogen through drinking water, etc.). But because “memory” forces don’t inhabit the assimilation process, it has to have the protein passing through on a daily basis (unless the body learns to manifest memory forces in the assimilation process, that is. Voila! The breatharians! - so that’s how they do that. . . ).

Because the body can only assimilate1/4 to 1/3 pound of protein at a time, and the rest remains as waste, straining and toxifying the body, the notion of needing more protein when living a more active lifestyle may be partially true, but is over-rated. Even when a body is very active, working hard day by day, the1/4 to 1/3 pound limit still applies - it just means that instead of protein input once or twice a day, it calls for an extra serving.

A tomato picked ripe off the vine has significant life-enhancing forces, especially when eaten in tandem with other raw vegetables, as in a salad - the vitality of the other vegetables is synergistically enhanced. However, if picked green and allowed to ripen off the vine, the tomato’s forces are reversed, so that it becomes debilitating to the human system.

Yet, again, if subsequently cooked, it’s forces become neutralized, so that it is safe (although not the nutrient-enhancer of the fully vine-ripened tomato).

Raisins, and other dried fruit, soaked for 24 hours attain a higher level of etheric energy, become enhanced in vitality.

Fruits are “eliminants,” or cleansers, and are meant to be eaten alone, between meals, as most other food works in the opposite arena to eliminations - that is, as a binder.

When grain is “exploded” - as in puffed rice, wheat, etc - most of its nutrients are destroyed.

There is such a thing as getting too fussy with one’s food. A test study of blemishes on members of the brassica plant family (cabbage, broccoli, kale, etc.) revealed anti-cancer agents, and immune system boosting elements.

Wheat has, by and large, been ruined as a food. The original DNA chain on wheat was a basic 8-link chain. But because of excessive hybridization over decades for so many factors - drought, productivity, disease resistance, etc - wheat’s DNA has been stretched to a complex 30-something chain - too convoluted for the human body to digest without complications. Whether aware of it or not, most people are allergic to this product.

At this time, there are many good alternatives - spelt, kamut, and even rye is still fairly decent. Most other grains are fine, too, if grown organically (biodynamic is even better) and eaten in whole form.

Different grains have different influences on the human body. There is a continuum of effects on the quality of energy that runs through the various grains. On one end, there is rice, which has a light, airy, somewhat “ungrounding” effect, while the more bread-type grains – spelt, kamut, rye, have more of a grounding effect. Oats, barley and millet lie midway along the continuum. Every individual has to sense for themselves what combination of grains is optimal for their own system.

Alcohol once served a purpose in human evolution. Now it is largely passé. Alcohol sends the spirit out of the body, in effect, takes the place of spirit. (notice how hard liquor is referred to as “spirits”!) That’s one reason why it is so prevalent in a social fabric such as ours, with its materialistic bent, to the point of being considered a norm.

There are those who laud alcohol - “a drink a day prolongs life.” But there is “life” and there is life. These kinds of drinker’s codes serve to enable the habit. There are plenty of alternatives to substances that will effectively prolong one’s life - Qi-gong, for one (and it has numerous other benefits to boot - see Enhancing Etheric Energy). Beware the remedy-popping/substance quaffing route - think, rather, in terms of attaining one’s optimal state as a result of one’s own efforts and disciplined practices.

As to longevity, Mozart lived to age 34, but his life was worth more than a thousand alcohol-soused lives living until age 94!

Give me life while I’m living, not some long-stretching stupor. . . .

Chi/prana/etheric energy - now lives in the thinking. Using the mind to enhance the subtle energy field that radiates through the chakras, one can direct freely-accessible universal energy to pour in and augment one’s own limited resource. When used with movement exercises, the practice brings the astral element into play, harmonizing the etheric and astral interweave, integrating, and enhancing.

Closing notes:

Periods of hunger through the day are beneficial for health. When in a state of hunger, the body creates white blood cells, boosting the immune system. It is known that overweight dogs have a greater incidence of tumors than lean dogs.

Opting for organic foods is actually cheaper in the long run, not more expensive. One needs less food, receives more nutrients. As well, there is less of a weight problem - people who eat substandard food are always hungry, eat all the time, but are not fed. Organic food has more nutrients. A person who buys unprocessed food saves money, too. Over 80% of the items in supermarkets are pointless, money-draining products.

Eating organic means less need to spend money on remedies for one’s health. More energy and well-being translate into more income at one’s work.

Also, karmic wealth builds as one goes more organic - caring for the land, the Earth, pays spiritual dividends.

As Steiner pointed out, to paraphrase, all healthy processes are natural, and all diseased processes are natural.

And the illness is the remedy for the soul. (See Anthroposophical Medicine.)

An example of an ailment as a cure for a soul level condition is a shoulder issue. If one is only concerned with regaining mobility and function, and trying to hurry through the healing, one can miss out on the metaphysical payout. In any event, all the efforts spent to overcome the ailment strengthen the will forces - later, one is able to “shoulder” things better, perhaps able to “shoulder what life hands out,” or “shoulder the feminine/left side (or masculine/right side) of life’s issues.”

To view the full article, visit the Insight21 website.

An article from Insight21 presenting rich information on diet and health, based on research into anthroposophy/Steiner and the Association for Research and Enlightenment.

J Graf is the coordinator of Earth Vision and Insight21 - doorways for the 21st Century - at http://www.evsite.net and http://www.insight21.net

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