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The Complete Home Guide to Herbs, Natural Healing, and Nutrition
4
Food and 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. 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 difficult to make sure that nutritional needs
are met. In the past, people had to travel and explore the great outdoors
in order to find 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).
In the 1920s and 1930s, juicers, able to create a nonbulky and highly
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