May 2003 College Research Paper

My writing's come a long way since 2003! Slightly outdated, basic, & supercilious, but the topic is still interesting & thought-provoking. Enjoy :)

“We appear to be individual bodies, but this individuality is also a constant state of equilibrium between a true personal authenticity and a continuous participation with the collective energy of all humanity and all existence.” –Richard Moss

Here in the Western World of mechanization, fast food, big money, and scientific medicine, the general population knows very little about health and well-being. In my personal experience, most people as well have very little conscious interest in pursuing such knowledge. Just 1% of children ages two to nineteen meet the federal recommendations for a healthy diet and more than half a million children were taking anti-depressants in 1997, a statistic steadily rising (Cousens 2000:205, 206). Americans drink 450 million cups of coffee everyday, 2.7 gallons of alcohol per person per year, and we spend $238 billion dollars annually on alcohol and drug abuse (Cousens 2000:205). The United States has the highest murder rate of any developed nation in the world (Schumacher 2002), as well as 97 million overweight citizens (Dixon, et. al). More than 40 million Americans are depressed (Cousens 2000:218). Cancer rates continue to increase dramatically, along with allergies and the relatively recent development of ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in 2-8% of American children (Cousens 2000:213). With all of these deficiencies so prevalent in our culture, perhaps it is time we start adopting a more holistic approach to our health.

Western health care appears to lack the tools to comprehensively cure and improve many of its patients with basic ailments, not to mention the heartbreak that so many people are without access to healthcare at all. These facts becomes more understandable when we consider that allopathic medicine is only a few hundred years old; an infant in scope. In contrast, Eastern systems like Ayurveda of India and Chinese medicine have been practiced effectively for 4,000 years at least, and continue to be so.

The fundamental difference between the Eastern approach and that of Western medicine is that Eastern theories emphasize that the human is a holistic being, connected by its body, soul, spirit, and mind with the substances we ingest, the world we live in, and the Cosmos beyond. Much of Western health philosophy still seems to maintain that there is little, if no, connection between human behavior, social and political states, food, and least of all Universal impact, with the human body. We seek to cure illness and disease primarily through the use of chemical medications, mechanical devices, and surgery rather than proper nutrition, environmental and psychological factors, exercise, plant use, etc. It is my feeling that until we go to the depth of understanding that the human body and mind are connected to our environment at large and the substances we ingest - just as a hand connects to the arm - we will continue to degrade further into inferior states of health and consciousness. As author Tom Monte (1993:3) sums up beautifully in his book World Medicine:

One of the shortcomings of the modern approach to healthcare is the belief that we are victims of either our body’s planned obsolescence or of germs…Most treatments are designed to suppress symptoms or kill the invader. How often do we stop to think that perhaps those symptoms are really the body’s way of telling us that something in our behavior is causing an underlying disease…How many of us believe that the body has the power to heal itself?

Perhaps the most tangible way to understand this is by looking at our diet. Food is a concrete (yet mysterious) substance that most people have ingested every day of our lives from birth, yet do not understand. We view food as a utilitarian necessity to carry out the tasks of everyday life, not as a physical, spiritual, or mental adjuster. As a utilitarian substance, most people do not differentiate drastically between whether their food comes from McDonald’s or Safeway, Albertson’s or Pizza Hut. We distinguish food we like via taste because we have so many choices, not by how it affects our bodies and minds. Yet interestingly, people are often most addicted to those foods to which they are allergic (Cousens 2000:164).

A fine example of this point is the fact that 10-70% (depending who the statistics come from) of Americans are to varying degrees hypoglycemic (Cousens 2000:173). Diabetes has skyrocketed to 120 million sufferers worldwide, and this number is expected to increase by 100 million by 2010 (Plesman 2000:9). Why is this? When one considers that most food available to consumers in the United States is high in processed sugar, fat, synthetically or genetically modified ingredients, heavily processed grains, and animal products and derivatives, it is no wonder that we find ourselves with so much obesity, hypoglycemia, and allergies to name a few. The foods that specifically combat these conditions include fresh vegetables, leafy greens, proteins and fats from whole-food sources, and complex carbohydrates, all of which one is hard-pressed to find in many American diets. Even the FDA’s recommendation appearing on most food labels for 9-11 servings of grains compared to 4-5 servings of fruit and vegetables daily reflects a diet unhealthful for human beings but beneficial for the powerful grain industry. This just reinforces the overwhelming dominance of sugar and carbohydrate products filling our grocery shelves and stomachs.

As Rudolf Hauschka (2002:8) explains in Nutrition: A Holistic Approach: “Man is connected with the surrounding world in three distinct ways: through his senses, his breathing, and his nutriment”. With increased pollutants and less oxygen in the air than in the last century due to fossil fuel burning, and highly modified, toxic, unnatural foods occupying the majority of our diet, is there any reason to question why humans are increasingly disconnected from and alienated by the nature from which we originate?

One well-known health impact in food is that of hydrogenated oil. This substance is an integral ingredient in most commercial sweets, bread products, snacks, nearly all margarine, even ice cream. Hydrogenated oils are treated at very high temperatures under pressure, using hydrogen and nickel as catalysts to convert the liquid oil into a creamy, solid fat (Hauschka 2002:58). The resulting product is a fat that cannot be assimilated by the human body due to it’s extremely high melting point and remains in the human body, clogging arteries and digestive tracks, ultimately causing a wide array of illness and disease, not to mention mental and physical discomforts of varying degrees. The ubiquitous use of hydrogenated oils is one of the many detrimental factors contributing to the U.S. ranking 21st in life expectancy out of all developed nations (Cousens 2000:166).

Another item consumed by most Americans is dairy. Many people are allergic to dairy, not to mention the fact that many individuals lack the digestive enzymes to process this food. One of the reasons for this is pasteurization. As a safety requirement of the FDA, most dairy products must be pasteurized for sale. Pasteurization essentially means cooking the product to a temperature at which all bacteria and microorganisms die, making it safer for commercial, long-distance sale. This means that many of the nutritional aspects of the product die as well, in particular enzymatic activity (raw foods are often more nutritious), rendering it a non-living food and also making it much more difficult to digest. This explains the widespread lactose intolerance experienced in this country (Hauschka 2002:54).

The development of modern medicine marked the move away from a holistic health perspective and into a limited definition where the body exists as a single, closed entity, untouched by external forces. The American Medical Association defines health as “the absence of physical and mental disease” (Monte 1993:11). Is this definition taking into account a person’s level of happiness? Perhaps most important to consider, does this definition really take into account a person’s whole well-being and quality of life?

In actuality one’s emotional and mental states are most drastically related to the foods they eat. As early as 1951, some people were aware that the pesticides and herbicides that we spray on nearly all non-organic crops were highly poisonous and detrimental to human beings and that “innumerable deadly illnesses have been caused by this method” (Hauschka 2002:165). Synthetic and poisonous chemicals in our food also have serious ramifications on the human brain, with symptoms from irritability, decreased clarity, and poor concentration (Cousens 2000:428). Aside from drastically increased susceptibility to cancer, this is one of the most important reasons for people to eat organic, minimally processed whole foods. The human body- although highly adaptable and able to withstand a lot of abuse- was not designed to eat Twinkies or Big Macs, or even white bread, while continuing to perform well.

Speaking of Twinkies, hypoglycemia, as mentioned above, is a serious issue in the United States. Hypoglycemia is in fact not a disease, but a symptom of a general imbalance due to pancreas, liver, allergies, or gland stress (Cousens 2000:173). The reason this condition is so prevalent in American society is that most of these imbalances stem from our environment and the stressful, aggressive, overextended lifestyle that includes high levels of synthetic and processed foods like fast food, coffee and artificial stimulants, wheat, and most of all, white sugar. What most people do not think about is that true raw sugar is brown, and in order to refine it into white sugar, petroleum processing is necessary. This unnatural substance is ingested on an average of 125 pounds per person, per year in this country (Cousens 2000:173). With such an astounding number, it makes sense that so many suffer from emotional instability, unexplained crying, panic attacks, drowsiness, low energy, and poor concentration (Cousens 2000:174).

An especially interesting aspect of food and mind is that of mental illness. Most people in our society would be shocked to know that many severe cases of schizophrenia have been cured or greatly improved through diet adjustment. It is possible that 60-70% of all psychosomatic symptoms are actually extreme manifestations of poor adaptation to foods, chemicals, and inhalants (Philpott et al 1980:16). It was found that 92% of schizophrenics developed serious symptoms related to exposure to irritating foods and chemicals like wheat and petroleum gases and products (Philpott et al 1980: 16). In fact, a 39-year-old woman was tested for wheat allergy after a four-day fast using nothing but spring water. Upon ingesting the wheat, the woman experienced a pounding heart, marked depression and loss of judgment and perception. She also said that she felt like punching someone. Three weeks later she was given the same wheat product but was first injected with vitamin C, folic acid, and several other B vitamins. She experienced no symptoms (Philpott et al 1980:51,52). This goes to show that the body responds directly to what we feed it (mentally as well, I might add), and our bodies have the ability to heal themselves quite dramatically when we provide them with the necessary tools.

How do we provide those tools? In order to answer this question we first must understand our eating evolution. The impacts of food and other ingestible substances on our bodies are undeniably reflected in our society at large, and ultimately in the whole of the universe. As human culture first came into being, ours was one of unity; a group mindset ensured that each individual worked as an integral part of the whole community. (Hauschka 2002:22). With simple eating habits and consciousness streaming directly from the spirit world and not from that of the Self, each person acted as that which we really are: A direct channel “…through which the divine breath pulsated” (Hauschka 2002:22).

I refer to the universal energy that gives us life, sustains it, and births it into something new again when it leaves our body (in death). In China they call this energy ‘qi’, in India it is ‘prana’, in Japan it is ‘ki’ and in Greece, ‘pneuma’ (Monte 1993:7). No matter what you call it, this is the energy about which humans have had some level of consciousness forever, and to deny it as we do in today’s Western world will only work to draw us further away from our true being. This denial comes in infinite forms in today’s society whether through our heavily processed food diet, addiction to chemical substances, the attempt to compartmentalize every aspect of life into definable terms- the list goes on. However, one thing is certain: “…As interest in things of earth quickened, contact with the spiritual world grew dimmer” (Hauschka 2002:22). Our self-centered, mind-driven Western society is a direct result of our increasing distance from the Spirit and nature, and into the world of mechanization.

It is particularly interesting to evaluate this point by considering the history of sugar. As mentioned earlier, our culture is saturated with petroleum-processed bleached white sugar that is surely one of the most unnatural, nutritionally devoid forms of carbohydrate. This form of sugar is also extremely agitating to conditions of hypoglycemia and diabetes and on its own can cause weight gain, intestinal toxemia, mood swings, violence, anger, and actual physiological cravings (Cousens 2000:184). What did humans do, before the machine? The earliest and purest form of sugar is honey. For thousands of years humans have extracted honey by hand from the comb of beehives and used it as a sweetener and healer for digestion, healing cuts and wounds, and so on (Hauschka 2002:62). Sugar cane has been in use nearly as long, and was first cultivated by Indians, followed later by Arabs who developed a technique to crystallize the sap from the cane using simple techniques (Hauschka 2002:63). However, much later, it was realized that sugar beets contained exploitable amounts of sugar but would require quite a bit of mechanized processing in order to access it. It was in the early 1800’s that this exploitation process began, which I should note here, is synchronized with the beginnings of the industrial revolution in Western societies. This processing has climaxed with intense refinement processes, from raw sugar cane sap into bleached white sugar, the genetically modified high fructose corn syrup, and perhaps the most synthetic form of sugar, dextrose, which is essentially starch treated with sulphuric acid (Hauschka 2002:66). This progression of human eating habits reflects that of human culture, and vice versa: A path towards more mechanized, less spiritualized techniques allowed by large businesses, and further away from a personally-enabled way of living.

Honey comes from the essence of a plant’s flower combined with the digestive enzymes of a bee and requires no human-driven processing to consume. Raw honey also contains many health benefits and healing properties, including components scientists have not even yet identified (Burns 2000). Sugar cane is a starchy stalk of a plant and can be eaten raw as well, also containing many nutrients. Molasses, which also comes from the sugar cane, is an excellent source of iron. How does an average person make dextrose or high fructose corn syrup? Why would one choose these over such healthful options like natural sugars? It is obvious in this case that a more simple, healthful diet and lifestyle is not only closer to the capacities of an individual, but also better for them. Interestingly, though, we find ourselves in a position now where those capabilities feel beyond the reach of many. With Safeway right down the street, why would one choose to grow one’s own food? Why would I spend hours to extract honey from a comb when I can spend one minute and one dollar on a bag of sugar processed mechanically? These types of questions are extremely important for each person to evaluate, if we are to make choices consciously instead of assuming that there is only one way to get what we want.

With so much instant gratification surrounding us and our whole culture enveloped within that framework, making conscious decisions about our holistic well-being are difficult to say the least:
“…The dietary patterns of a social group affect the spiritual consciousness of that group” (Cousens 2000:164). The concept that consumes our world currently, that of individuality and “every person for her/himself” has worked tremendously to break apart the patchwork fabric of our culture. But like everything, these rips are not irreparable nor are they permanent. Contrary to the common worldview of individuality, humans need to support and nurture one another in order to achieve anything in this world, rather than trampling each other to “get ahead”. Like wolves, we are social to the very core of our beings. The more often we may realize this and act on it with integrity and honor for our nature, the more steps we take in a positive direction towards self-fulfillment, gratification, and peace that we constantly seek out in external, imposing sources like processed foods, television and movies, alcohol, drugs, sex, and so on. It is my feeling that humans are most peaceful and content when working cooperatively with one another and their surroundings. By choosing to treat one’s body with deeper respect, greater thoughtfulness, and careful observation, one enables the well-being of the body and of the community of which one is a part- both in the realm of the Earth and beyond.

“Order is found in things working beneficially together.” –Bill Mollison


Bibliography

Cousens, Gabriel. Conscious Eating. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2000.

Burns, Karima. “Health Benefits of Prophetic Condiments”. Islam Online Health & Science. 12 June 2000 http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2000/4/article7.shtml. 27 May 2003.

Dixon, Kim et al. “Body as Commodity”. Body Icon. Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 1999. http://nm-server.jrn.columbia.edu/projects/masters/bodyimage/commodity/fat_page1.html. 23 May, 2003.

Hauschka, Rudolf. Nutrtition: A Holistic Approach. East Sussex: Sophia Books, 2002.

Monte, Tom et al. World Medicine: The East West Guide to Healing Your Body. New York: Perigee Books, 1993.

Philpott, William H. et al. Brain Allergies: The Psychonutrient Connection. New Canaan: Keats Publishing, Inc., 1980.

Plesman, Jurriaan. “Fenugreek Stabilizes Blood Sugar Levels in Hypoglycemics and Diabetics”. The Hypoglycemic Health Newsletter. Hypoglycemic Health Association of Australia. March 2000: 9.

Schumacher, Geoff. “America the Violent”. Las Vegas Mercury. 7 November 2002. http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/2002/MERC-Nov-07-Thu-2002/19995230.html. 24 May, 2003.