Food and Nutrition -Importance For Health

Food Nutrition

The body runs on the fuel it is provided with. When we were hunters and gatherers, this fuel came in the form of foods collected in the wild, encompassing a diverse range of health-giving chemistry, to include components far beyond vitamins and minerals. For instance, archaeologists have found evening primrose seed on ancient European sites, leading us to believe that prehistoric men and women knew the value of the oil collected from these tiny seeds.

Archaeologists and anthropologists are also able to tell us of the diseases of ancient peoples. There is evidence to suggest that cancer, osteoporosis, rheumatism, and arthritis were often exacerbated by their working and living conditions, but also partly because their dietary needs were not always met — just as with modern man. They did not, however, have high quantities of sugar literally eating away their vital calcium, magnesium, zinc, and mineral supplies, with processed junk food creating a plethora of bowel diseases, cancers, and other disorders. They had the stress of survival on a day-to-day basis, but the adrenaline they produced to deal with these situations was more readily burned off. I rather feel that their instincts and needs were completely intact and, therefore, that their hormones, glands, brain, and organs functioned with a more natural rhythm and balance.

Food Nutrition

Until recently there were quite a number of peoples who ate well and with variety from the wild. Mountain peoples of Iran, for example, typically caught wild meat and ate dishes often containing thirty to forty species of wild plants and herbs. But now wild meat and lots of the wild plants and knowledge of what to collect and how to use them have dwindled. Modern-day people of the so-called progressive Western world also have become less instinctive and their health less stable.

At whatever age, it can be diffi cult to make sure that nutritional needs are met. In the past, people had to travel and explore the great outdoors in order to fi nd necessary medicine; but what do we do now? So much of what society considers food today should actually be avoided. It is strange to think that, in the average supermarket, at least 70 percent of the food for sale should not be consumed. And in order to obtain what we require, we have to be prepared to spend a lot of time in the kitchen (a way of life that our grandparents accepted without question).

Food Nutrition

In the 1920s and 1930s, juicers, able to create a nonbulky and highly assimilable form of nutrition, became popular. The 1950s and 1960s saw the development of vitamin, mineral, and other supplements made from

animal parts, sea and land vegetables, minerals, and other derivatives. More recently, “superfood” drinks have been created using primary plants like algae and lichens — that is, using nature’s potent forces. Finally, at the beginning of the twenty-fi rst century, people — not least, the leading supplement companies — are turning to combining supplements and herbs. What should we choose? As a daily matter of course, I would suggest good food with liberal amounts of culinary and wild herbs, with superfood drinks to balance the effects of pollution and stress. For those chronic defi ciencies picked up through tests or diagnosis, it is wise to choose supplements, superfoods, juices, or a combination of them all.

Food builds us physically as well as nurturing us on a more subtle, unseen vibrational level. Many great minds, not least those of botanists, archaeologists, and herbalists, have recognized that, in the prefarming era, health rested largely on humans’ consumption of many different species of plants. This contrasts with the modern, genetically engineered and overproduced twenty or so species that are farmed today. It was this diverse array of plant chemistry that kept our systems honed and hardy and allowed our immune systems to act with force and spontaneity.

It enabled our digestive systems to perform with vigor and digest almost anything. Since we stopped collecting and eating wild foods, which tend to be more bitter or sour (and altogether more rudimentary in their fl avor), society has incurred a whole range of gut-based diseases that simply did not exist before. Many of our modern herbs were, originally, everyday foods, and it is the lack of everyday usage that has, in part, caused people to become physically weaker and more prone to an overall and ever-increasing degeneration of the body — not least through allergies. Therefore, we should get back to using our known culinary herbs in earnest. Herbs such as thyme, marjoram, coriander, mint, and garlic should be included in the diet at every opportunity, as should salads in the form of our garden “weeds” — dandelions, chickweed, young oak leaves, fat hen (also known as goosefoot or pigweed), and so on.

Being ill on an obviously physical level, like having a bloated stomach, arthritis, or a headache, might lead you to believe that somewhere along the line your diet may have been responsible. But very often it is easy to miss the more emotional and behavioral side effects of the wrong food input. Being poisoned, or else starved of the correct nutrition, can create anger, impatience, apathy, and a whole array of negative emotions, which you may simply regard as being “you.” Strip away the coffee, tea, alcohol, sugar, and chocolate and replace them with more healthy foods (which balance stomach fl ora and kill off any opportunistic parasites), and you may be surprised at the person you meet! There are many herbs that greatly help this process of conquering “driven” addiction by altering the body’s chemistry, balancing and overriding unwanted cravings.