In his book Battlers of the Barkly, Alf Chambers documents an old patriarch ‘failing fast’.
The patriarch says, ‘It’s nourishment I need at my age… good rich food, plenty of sponge cake, plum pudding and sweets’.
The time was the 1940s – the time of diptheria, polio and tuberculosis. My parents said that in the Depression years just previous to this, a meal was often bread and dripping (animal fat).
Ignorance about what constitutes a human diet is barely less today. At the end point of disease where cancer occurs, there are examples of humans curing themselves, often with a major strategy of a raw, vegan diet.
Juicing with organic fruit and vegetables allows for consumption of far larger quantities of nutrients because fruit and vegetables are deficient in the nutrition present years ago.
Naturopathic doctor Karyn Mitchell in Raw Nutrition, documents mineral deficiencies in commonly consumed plant foods. An apple in 1914 for example, contained ‘almost half the daily requirements of iron’.
Today 26 apples would be required for the same amount.
Sickness in the society is a reflection of sickness in the conventional medical industry where it doesn’t look for the causes of disease.
The industry has forgotten the father of modern medicine, Hippocrate’s dictum, ‘Let food be your medicine’.
Immunisation is just one of the potions sold to an unsuspecting public.
They, like the Barkly patriarch, largely have forgotten the immune system will heal all diseases provided it’s fed properly.
Geoff Dawe, Uki
Geoff The material you provide on the decline of the quality of fresh food is interesting – it is I suppose why many people here grow their own food, but to suggest that the links between diet and disease are not well understood in conventional medicine.is nonsense I know in Canberra from which I recently moved, GPs as a matter of course refer patents to dieticians whose recommendations are little different from yours (most do not prescribe vegan diets per se but recommend minimal red meat in the diet). Good diet forms part of a holistic approach to health, as does some form of meditation, yoga and/or prayer, and a strong sport and exercise regimen is also critical (I am surprised here to find how little emphasis some people in this area of holistic health advocates place on the latter, dismissing cycling for example as an elite indulgence). GPs do not sell immunisation – as with any medication their advice is quite disinterested. Indeed the only money I am aware of that is spent on promoting immunization to the public is that done by public health departments. Indeed promotion of all prescription medicines is very small compared with the vast sums advertising and marketing of “alternative” treatments to the general public. Interestingly a grocery in Canberra was recently fined there for selling antibiotics to customers frustrated because the customers find doctors in Australia prefer to allow the immune system to treat viral and other complaints rather than prescribing medicines for every ailment. Australia has its problems but relatively speaking it is not a sick society – we live longer and with less illness than about any other society in human history. Some attention to the fresh food issues you raise is important, but epidemiologists tell us the greatest health gains will be made by better treatment of mental health, reduced use of harmful illegal drugs and tobacco and alcohol, a marked reduction in sugar consumption and obesity,and better access at all ages to active transport, and participative sport (and I would add quiet times). Holistic health has always been part of conventional medicine, and good GPs and other “conventional” health providers and promoters already play a pro-active role in these holistic approaches to better health .
It’s ironic that the very thing that allows some of us to examine all this logically, is as big as it is because of the invention of cooking food. The work of neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel, and others shows a distinct correlation between the invention of cooking and the rapid evolutionary development of our brains. Cooking food releases much more metabolic energy. It has allowed us to develop a much larger and neurone dense brain than any other primate. This brain has become pretty handy in the development of all sorts of survival strategies including modern medicine.
Was it Herculano-Houzel who went on to postulate that those whose brains have most rapidly developed prefer cooked steaks over uncooked leaves (aka salads) – or did I just make that theory up?
Was it Herculano-Houzel who went on to postulate that those whose brains have most rapidly developed prefer cooked steaks over uncooked leaves (aka salads) – or did I just make that theory up?