90.
Back To Natural Foods
Dr. Weston A. Price
Simply stated, the practical application of the primitive wisdom for accomplishing this would involve returning to the use of natural foods which provide the entire assortment of bodybuilding and repairing food factors. This means the recognition of the fact that all forms of animal life are the product of the food environments that have produced them. Therefore, we cannot distort and rob the foods without serious injury. Nature has put these foods up in packages containing the combinations of minerals and other factors that are essential for nourishing the various organs. Some of the simpler animal forms are able to synthesize in their bodies some of the food elements which we humans also require, but cannot create ourselves. Our modern process of robbing the natural foods for convenience or gain completely thwarts Nature’s inviolable program. I have shown how the robbing of the wheat in the making of white flour reduced the minerals and other chemicals in the grains, so as to make them sources of energy without normal body-building and repairing qualities. Our appetites have been distorted so that hunger appeals only for energy with no conscious need for body-building and repairing chemicals.
The roots of peace and prosperity lie in working the land, protecting the cow, and loving Krishna.
~ Suresvara dasa
One dairy farmer I know sells his own cows' milk for $1 a gallon while his wife pays $1.80 for the man-handled, store-bought stuff. Most vegetable farmers trade their harvest for inedible paper. This paper money buys complex machinery that they hope will save them time and bring in more paper money. But greed never pays. In a recent national study of 130 stressful occupations, the job of farm manager ranked twelfth. Farmers are going out of business at the rate of one thousand per week, because the cost of farming has become greater than the profits. And since the industrialization of agriculture, the number of American families who live on farms has shrunk from 30% in 1920 to 2.5% today.
Nevertheless, Secretary of Agriculture John Block claims the industrialization of agriculture has "enabled the vast majority of Americans to engage in other economic activities that have produced the vast array of necessities and consumer goods which make possible the high standard of living Americans enjoy today."
Is it prosperity to have two locks on the door instead of one, special hot-lines to the police, fire, and riot squads, and a gun in every house? Or motorcycles and cars screeching into the morning hours? Or high-school seniors graduating with their brains 'washed' by fifteen thousand hours of television? And ten thousand Russian megatons inspired by American expertise now aimed at Americans' living rooms? The answer must be a resounding NO! if we are to be honest.
Although Lord Krishna gave us the land and the cows as our natural economic base, we don't find much talk about them in Business Week, Money, or Fortune. We find, instead, the latest bank rates and high-tech investments, bargains in wines and personal computers, and speculation that gold may soar to $4,000 an ounce by 1986.
But others, like financial adviser Howard Ruff and survivalist Sally Harrington, are more down to earth. In a world spinning toward political, economic, and ecological disaster, Ruff explains why grains and beans are at least as good an investment as silver and gold.
"You spend hundreds of dollars every year to insure your cars against the accident you fully expect not to have," says Ruff, "and you can't eat the cancelled checks. Your money is wasted unless you're 'lucky' enough to have an accident. Food storage is the insurance you can eat."
Adds Harrington, "Wheat, if kept dry and protected from rodents and insects, will last for two or three thousand years. Some that was found in King Tut's tomb was still edible, and it even germinated."
~ Sruresvara dasa
One of our modern tendencies is to select the foods we like, particularly those that satisfy our hunger without our having to eat much, and, another is to think in terms of the few known vitamins and their effects. The primitive tendency seems to have been to provide an adequate factor of safety for all emergencies by the selection of a sufficient variety and quantity of the various natural foods to prevent entirely most of our modern afflictions. Their success demonstrates that their program is superior to ours.
An important advance in modern international relationships provides for exchange of professorships and, thus, interchanges of wisdom. We have shown a most laudable and sympathetic interest in carrying our culture to the remnants of these primitive races.
Would it not be fortunate to accept in exchange lessons from their inherited knowledge? It may be not only our greatest opportunity, but our best hope for stemming the tide of our progressive breakdown and also for our return to harmony with Nature’s laws, since life in its fullness is Nature obeyed.
An important advance in modern international relationships provides for exchange of professorships and, thus, interchanges of wisdom. We have shown a most laudable and sympathetic interest in carrying our culture to the remnants of these primitive races.
Would it not be fortunate to accept in exchange lessons from their inherited knowledge? It may be not only our greatest opportunity, but our best hope for stemming the tide of our progressive breakdown and also for our return to harmony with Nature’s laws, since life in its fullness is Nature obeyed.