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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781446489918
www.randomhouse.co.uk
© Eric F. W. Powell 1978
ISBN 0 85032158 1
Cover
Also by Eric F. W. Powell
Title Page
Foreword
ABOUT NUTRITION
FACTS ABOUT FOODS
BREAD
VITAMINS
FOOD ACCESSORIES
PHYSICAL AIDS TO PROMOTE DIGESTION
THE MENTAL FACTOR
Copyright
Biochemic Prescriber
Biochemistry Up-To-Date
Building a Healthy Heart
Group Remedy Prescriber
Health From Earth, Air & Water
Health From the Kitchen
Kelp the Health Giver
Lady Be Beautiful
Natural Home Physician
Tranquillization with Harmless Herbs
These lessons in nutrition are intended as a helpful and practical guide to proper feeding, and cover the whole of the necessary matters connected with the subject. Food for the mind has not been neglected.
Some of the subjects dealt with are so important that no apology is made for their repetition.
Readers who carry out the suggestions made to the best of their ability will add greatly to life and happiness. Read and apply, and results are assured.
Read the lessons again and again. To read and not put the lessons into practice is a waste of time.
It is said that nutrition is the physical basis of life, and that we are what we eat. This is a part truth, for it is not so much what we eat as what we assimilate that does us good – or ill as the case may be. Physical health results from the perfect assimilation of natural, properly grown foods, although, as will be discussed later in this course, health also depends on positive thinking and sane living.
Many people live to eat, when one should eat to live. As the Bible says, with some ‘their god is in their bellies’. On the other hand ‘fadding’ over foods can be as bad as wrong feeding. The writer has contacted scores of diet fads who after fussing over their diet for many years are just as ill as they were before they started on their pet theories. It is not necessary to be a food faddist, and in most cases the application of common sense is all that is necessary to attain and maintain a goodly measure of radiant well being. To be obsessed with ideas about food leads to introspection, and introspection is a disease of itself. Health tends to come to those who do not worry about it. On the other hand living can be a joy when one plays the game of life according to the rules. Live in order to live! The mind obsessed with the self most of the time is never healthy. Decide what is sensible, carry it out in daily living and forget the self.
The blood is the life, and what we eat to a very large extent determines the nature of the blood and its circulation throughout the system. The osteopaths say that health is the result of perfect circulation, and to a large extent they are right. It must be kept in mind that the perfect circulation of good, chemically balanced blood depends on clean, natural food, thorough mastication, daily exercise (even if only in walking and physical games), the intake of oxygen, restful sleep and a happy, hopeful disposition. All these matters will be dealt with in this course.
Pioneers of the past settling in new countries, were a hardy lot of people. Why were they so healthy? The answer is that they fed on foods grown naturally in good soil – soil not contaminated by chemicals or polluted in any fashion, and not exhausted by the continuous growing of crops. Also these people had plenty of fresh air and physical exercise. They were too busy to have time to think about themselves. Laziness of mind or body leads to functional inactivity when everything becomes sluggish and unhealthy. There is nothing more still than a corpse. Life is activity! Stagnation is death!
What is pain? It is nature’s warning that something is wrong. To banish the pain with drugs does not remove the reason why the pain manifested. Indeed in many instances the drug administered could even add to the cause. The orthodox system of medicine deals mainly with effects and not with causes. In like manner tranquillizing drugs administered to relieve pain, banish headaches and induce sleep, never deal with basic causes. To render the nerves senseless by means of drugs means that nature can no longer give the warning signal. It has to be admitted that in some cases pain relief is most important, but at the same time steps should be taken to diagnose the reason or reasons why pain is present.
Orthodox concoctions which usually consist of crude minerals, used for giving ease to sufferers from indigestion never deal with the reasons why the indigestion or stomach pain is present. The medicine administered may deal with an existing acid condition and thereby give relief, but the cause of the acidity is constitutional and if the reasons for the acidity are not eliminated the trouble will return. In most instances the sufferer has to rely more and more on the prescribed medicine for relief.
The organs of digestion, like all other organs, consist mainly of muscle. Healthy muscles mean healthy organs, and a healthy organ is never in distress. To improve a muscle it has to be exercised and well nourished. Taking drugs to perform the work intended to be done by a muscular organ means that that organ has less to do and the muscles become weaker and weaker. As muscles and organs depend on the blood for nourishment cure depends on the circulation of good blood in the affected tissues, and this can only be accomplished by eating and well masticating pure food, by a better intake of oxygen and taking remedial exercise to strengthen the parts. Remember that a healthy organ cannot be diseased and is, therefore, free from pain. Sane dieting alone may cure in some instances although usually attention has to be paid to other matters.
Authorities agree that the body is a self-healing mechanism if the necessary body building and healing elements are present in the blood. A cut finger is not healed by the ointment applied, but by the blood. And it is the same with disorders present within the organism – always the blood is the healer. Some may suggest that in a diseased state the system has been invaded by germs. True, disease germs are present in a diseased organ, but what are they and why are they there?
Where filth is present so are the flies. It may be said that disease germs are scavengers: they feed on diseased products and are present because morbid matter is in the affected organ or tissues. R. Virchow, one of the sponsors of the germ theory, wrote: ‘If I could live my life over again, I would devote it to proving that germs seek their natural habitat – diseased tissue – rather than being the cause of the diseased tissue; e.g. mosquitos seek the stagnant water, but do not cause the pool to become stagnant.’ Fear of germs and of invasions from without may kill twenty people while the disease itself may kill only one. If the germ theory were founded on real facts the earth would soon be wiped clean of all living things. Some of the leading lights in the orthodox system of medicine have admitted that too much attention has been paid to germs and not nearly enough to the host of the germs.
The writer has met orthodox doctors who do not like administering some of the modern drugs, but in the circumstances feel that they have to do so. How often have drugs produced dangerous side effects which in some instances were worse than the disorder for which they were given! Some doctors turn to homoeopathy, a system which is harmless and based on natural law. The homoeopath treats the person rather than the disease. The ancient school of herbal medicine achieved much and a good herbalist can often do what the orthodox practitioner cannot, for the medicines the herbalist employs are organic, non-poisonous and do not produce other disorders. Neither is there any record of a herbalist or homoeopath producing deformed babies!
Yet the powers that be seem to be doing their best to get rid of herbalists and are restricting the supply of homoeopathic medicines to practitioners who are not orthodox trained doctors. It is a strange world and inverted reasoning seems to be the order of the day.
The art of surgery has attained great heights, and on occasions natural healers have to recommend surgery. Yet we all have to admit that surgery (except in cases of accidents) is an admission that medicine has failed. When a doctor cannot accomplish anything it is a case of sending the sufferer to a surgeon, and in the opinion of many natural healers surgery is totally unnecessary in quite a number of cases. We have even known of young women being sent to hospital to have a cystic ovary removed, and the surgeon had taken out the other healthy ovary as well, this making motherhood impossible. This is not surgery but scientific butchery. Many women have their breasts removed and are mutilated as a result, when homoeopathy or natural therapy could have prevented it. Tonsils have been removed when the operation was unnecessary, but not to the extent as formerly, for doctors now face the fact that tonsils are eliminative organs and are in the body for a purpose. The same with the appendix. Before the reign of Edward VII appendicitis was regarded as old-fashioned tummy-ache and no more dangerous. Then surgical removal came into fashion and thousands of people lost an appendix for no other reason than to satisfy the surgeon by removing an ‘unwanted’ organ. The appendix also, is a detoxicating organ and serves a useful purpose. The reason why tonsils or an appendix became inflamed or septic seems to have been neglected. Of course there are cases when the removal of a very diseased organ is essential to save life, but such cases are in a minority.
So often do we hear that the operation was successful, but the patient died.
Always the natural healer will seek to deal with the cause and treat the toxic individual as a whole. All diseased glands and organs are a result of wrong living and impure blood.
These remarks must not be taken as an attack on orthodox doctors. The medical profession consists of highly skilled and dedicated men and women. Some wear themselves out in doing their best to help suffering humanity. They place themselves at anybody’s service day and night and a good doctor is capable of bringing much help and comfort to the sick. It is the system of medicine that is wrong. The orthodox theory is that in order to cure one disease it is necessary to create another. It is called ‘allopathy’, which means ‘another disease or pain’. Evil cannot be destroyed with evil, but good can overcome evil and nature’s methods are the best. Healing in harmony with nature’s laws must be right.
When one has disturbing symptoms or is feeling really ill it is wise to have the condition diagnosed. Never mess about with the so-called ‘wonder cures’ for if the actual nature of the trouble is not discovered deterioration may take place. Some naturists have so neglected this matter that they have departed this life long before they should have done when timely professional advice would have cleared the disturbance. Because a doctor is orthodox that does not mean that he is foolish. The expert diagnosis of a highly trained man or woman is so often of great importance. One may disagree with the orthodox theory of treatment, but the wholesale condemnation of orthodox doctors can be a grave mistake. The writer has known many doctors, both orthodox and those who have abandoned the orthodox theory, and on the whole found them to be conscientious and dedicated people. One has to agree that there are many unorthodox practitioners who have been badly trained and fall short when it comes to accuracy in diagnosis. The leading nature cure establishments know this and are taking steps to have all students very thoroughly trained.
The best of treatments can prove fruitless if the original diagnosis is in error. We are concerned with prevention rather than cure, and a healthy organism cannot become diseased. Note the word itself: ‘dis-ease’ – a lack of ease or harmony within the system. We are not so much concerned with various forms of healing in these writings as with disease prevention, and in this matter diet is of vital importance. Also it is possible not only to ward off disease but to deal effectively with many disturbed conditions already existing in the organism; also to promote a long, useful and a happy life.
Some practitioners maintain that food should be our only medicines. We cannot agree with this; in any case not with the foods provided today. Soil and vegetation are all being slowly poisoned by the employment of chemical fertilisers and poisonous sprays. Even the insects and birds are being destroyed as a result of this practice. But properly grown foods are medicinal and can play a vital part in restoring health to poorly-functioning organs. Many wild herbs have escaped chemical contamination, and it must be remembered that our cultivated vegetables were originally wild herbs. There are those who object to the use of herbs and rely on cultivated vegetables only. This is sheer stupidity in these times. Wild herbs contain more vitamins and essential organised minerals than the over-cultivated, chemically treated produce of the shops. If one can grow one’s own vegetables according to natural law so much the better, although some farmers grow crops correctly and avoid chemicalisation in any of its dangerous forms. The demand for such crops is growing.
To keep to the Levitic laws pertaining to soil treatment is wise. We should return to the earth what comes from it as nature does herself. The garden soil should be dressed with compost and animal excreta. To do this means healthy, disease-free and better tasting crops.
Compost grown vegetables may cost a little more, but at least to feed on such means that one is being properly nourished and not poisoned. Also, one requires less pure food than one does of the ‘treated’ variety, so the cost is not any more in the end. A small plateful of clean food well masticated will accomplish far more good than a large plateful of the wrong food improperly chewed. It is not what one eats so much as what one assimilates. There is much medicinal value as well as real nourishment in pure food well masticated.
A young man who was a pronounced neurasthenic, had lost all his hair and was very much depleted, was restored to full health by taking a short fast followed by a natural diet. He received no other treatment or medication; and doctors had given him up. His basic trouble was faulty nutrition and very poor assimilative powers. He soon grew a healthy crop of hair.
Before dealing with dieting and the value of foods it is necessary that mastication be discussed. No matter how good a food may be, the full value will not be obtained unless it is well masticated – that is what teeth are for, and they are in the mouth and not in the stomach. Many weakly people have been restored to good health by doing nothing more than thoroughly masticating their food. One man named Fletcher did so much good by teaching the sick to masticate well that the process had been termed ‘Fletcherisation’. This man claims that he first cured himself after being literally sentenced to death by the doctors, by chewing every mouthful of food to a pulp before swallowing. The great Gladstone learned to masticate his food and lived a very long and useful life. He claimed that he chewed food thirty times before swallowing.
The mouth may be said to be the house of preparation in which the food is chemically dealt with by the saliva, by the action of chewing. The saliva is a biochemical compound which helps to convert starches into natural sugar. It is able to deal with acid in the food and does much to prevent acidity in the stomach. When the food is not thoroughly masticated it is not ready for later processes of digestive assimilation, and when such food enters the stomach it tends to cause a toxic condition and sets up indigestion. Food thus badly prepared enters the intestines in a condition not fit for absorption and cannot produce pure blood. The result of this is a whole batch of disorders such as arthritis, rheumatism, catarrh, auto-toxaemia (self-poisoning), constipation, inflammations, general debility and scores of other conditions. Every organ in the body can suffer as a result of incomplete mastication.
It is said that during periods of famine certain African peoples will partake of foods normally regarded as being poisonous, and they have learned that by thoroughly masticating such foods the undesirable ingredients are rendered harmless and edible. Such is the value of mastication that even the wrong food can be made to contribute to physical health and vitality. It follows, therefore, that the very first thing to learn in dietetics is how to eat. The valuable advice given in these pages will not accomplish what is intended unless this first essential has been learned and put into practice.
Think of the domestic cow who supplies us with an abundance of milk which contains all the nutrients essential to growth and life. This animal not only chews very thoroughly, but even regurgitates to give the food another going over in her mouth. She thus obtains every atom of nourishment – even from grass.
So much has been written about dietetics, calories, vitamins and the so-called ‘wonder foods’ that people are confused. Indeed, it could well be that the more people read about the subject the less they know about it. The reader is advised to forget about vitamins, calories, test tube experiments, the results of animal experimentation and everything else along those lines and apply common sense. Always we have to deal with the individual human being and, unlike sheep, we tend to differ.