Food Nutrition
by herbalist Andrew Ruselle
Why it is important
Human life was supposed to be sustained by the use of nutrients from natural sources. These sources are the foods from plants, vegetables, fruits, and herbs but not from animal sources. It is these nutrients that the body requires to build tissues that are used to renew itself and replace those that are damaged thereby ensuring your body's ability to heal and restore itself at its peak efficiency. So why is it so important to use fresh food to achieve this rather than supplements that I can pick up at the shop?
How it works
It is the immune system that defends the body against the numerous bacteria and viruses in our environment. If a person's body has an intact immune system, these bacteria, viruses and fungus will have no adverse effect on the health of the individual. A person may be in perfect health despite the presence of bacteria, fungus and viruses on the skin, inside our intestines, lungs and in our blood circulation. The organisms are sometimes beneficial to us by their ability to produce some of the essential vitamins in the gut. This symbiotic coexistence is only maintained for as long as we keep our body well supplied with food that is properly balanced in order to maintain our immune system. The immune system has what are called defence cells and chemical weapons called antibodies. It is these two parts of the immune system that keep the potentially offensive organisms at bay.
What if I don't get enough?
If an individual fails to keep the body supplied with these essential nutrients, then the bacteria and viruses produce disease in our systems. By eating foods, which are low in nutrient value, we become deficient and susceptible to diseases like diabetes, asthma, cancer and virus infections etc.
Diseases like AIDS, Scurvy and rheumatic fevers and joint pains are just a few out of so many others that are secondary to some form of nutritional breakdown or deficiency. Whenever the deficiency is corrected by resuming a balanced diet, the problem is solved and the disease disappears with all its symptoms and signs. A disease only becomes incurable if it is left for too long untreated till body tissues become destroyed beyond repair. Clinical experience shows that diseases should be treatable if the lacking nutrients are identified and supplied in liberal quantities.
What about food additives?
The use of food items that have been artificially altered by the addition of preservatives, artificial colours, sweeteners or genetic manipulation may cause disease in the individual using them or if the food has been changed by the removal of minerals and vitamins this may cause degenerative diseases like diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and many others.
What about artificial supplements?
Our closest genetic relatives Primates that live naturally in the forests are healthier than ourselves. It is because of their balanced diet that they do not suffer from diabetes, asthma, arthritis, lupus, hepatitis and even cancer at the rate they occur in human beings. Gorillas & Monkeys do not cook their food or try refining it like us and hence they do not destroy the nutrients that are naturally occurring in foods like unpolished rice, wheat and raw cane sugar, which give the brown colour to those foods. Research has shown that by supplementing our diet with concentrated vitamins, minerals, plant hormones, enzymes and amino acids, we can eliminate most of those diseases that now afflict man. The pharmaceutical products that we use to treat many of our ailments are the same ones that produce the poison symptoms that the doctors treat with even more toxic drugs to compounding the health problems of their patients. An individual treated for high blood pressure may ends up needing treatment for secondary impotence or muscle pains caused by the drugs prescribed for them. Those on treatment for diabetes often die from stroke or coronary heart disease both promoted by the treatment. Cancer patients will more likely die from the chemotherapy and irradiation treatment used to treat the cancer. Those same cancer patients that do not seek medical treatment in hospitals often live longer despite the doom predicted by their doctors. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy destroy tissues and the immune system that are necessary for the recovery of the patient. The cancer starts in the body where the immune system has been weakened because of factor like chemicals used as medicines, poor nutrition, irradiation etc. Therefore we need to consider whether these same agents should be used to treat the very diseases that they cause.
So why do we reach for the packet instead of the bunch of spinach? Convenience is usually the most likely reason. When you weigh up the inconvenience of steaming some veges which can take the same amount of time as the preparation for the packet foods against years of disease or even a shorter lifespan, not to mention the extreme cost of treating them, the fresh food doesn't seem to inconvenient after all. The follow up article shows you how to use herbs in your cooking to help support the body in it's maintenance and repair process. (Watch for the follow up article - Herbs in food.)