A good doctor looks first of all for the cause of the illness, and if he has found it he tries first to find a cure for it through food. If that doesn’t solve it he prescribes medicine67
Sun Ssemiao
Our daily nourishment relates essentially to maintaining the health of body and soul and, in the case of illness, involves certain dietary principles. Today, traditional ways of preparing food and a proper culture of eating are giving way increasingly to ‘fast food’ habits; from an early age healthy instincts are manipulated and seriously affected by chemical food additives such as synthetic aromas, synthetic sugars and taste enhancers. We now need to reclaim our predecessors’ art of cooking and understanding of food through a deeper understanding of their meaning for our bodily and psychological well-being. But to eat only with our ‘heads’ is no solution either, as to be nourished is really a matter of wanting to eat and enjoying doing so.
Founded on a long tradition and on joy in the physical world, eating in Asia is very much a spiritual-social concern, and is discussed with passion. Even the poorest, simplest people have a deep understanding of its value for health. In the widespread Chinese understanding of food, life does not lie in the lap of the gods but in the hands of a good cook, and a considerable part of the joy in life has to do with eating, which in Asia is not meant quantitatively. A close connection has always been seen there between wisdom and good food, and it is an infallible sign of a wise man that one eats well with him. A legend even tells us that the famous Confucius separated from his wife because her art of cooking no longer satisfied his taste.
In the oriental perspective there is no significant difference, even today, between a dish of food and medical remedies. For anything that is in any way good for the body is at the same time salutary for it.
In Indian Ayurvedic medicine, we are told that medicine suitable for human beings has to be founded on three therapeutic pillars:
1. on a change of consciousness;
2. on a change of food in the sense of a certain diet consisting of refraining from particular dishes; and,
3. last and least, on the use of remedies that are, ultimately, only the ‘spice in the soup’.
Europeans may smile a little when they read, in a book about the East-Asian way of life, that the real reason the Chinese have not developed a rigorous botany and zoology is because a Chinese scholar cannot, for instance, look at a fish coldly and heartlessly, without immediately wondering how it might taste.
As far as our daily food is concerned, we are always somewhere on the scale between over-valuing food — which can sometimes turn into fanaticism—or a criminal neglect and ignorance, because we underestimate the actual significance of a healthy diet — something we can see ever more clearly today in the catastrophic state of physical and mental health of the population. We need think here only of the increase in obesity and eating disorders even in young people. Rudolf Steiner’s answer to a question from the pioneer of biodynamic agriculture, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, as to why people knew so much yet did nothing about it, was:
This is a problem of nutrition. The nature of food today doesn’t give people the strength to make the spiritual manifest in the physical. The bridge can no longer be created between thinking, will and action. Food plants no longer contain the forces people need.68
Steiner’s view of real nutrition and nourishment, of which— according to Pfeiffer — he spoke every time they met, talking about the secrets of the digestion and the re-enlivening of plant life, is not unlike that of an ancient philosopher: that spiritual, moral development must be supported by the right diet.
But since the spirit has become so soulless and abstract, no one today would give serious attention to a philosopher who — like Nietzsche-embarked on the subject of eating and drinking:
Philosophy is nothing other than the instinct for a personal diet. All philosophising has hitherto been a matter not of ‘truth’ but of something else, let us say health, the future, growth, power and life.69
Even if there are no hard and fast rules in this vital realm, we can certainly ask what we could imagine a ‘healthy’ meal to be?
A few thoughts on this:
Any kind of food that gives a person the least trouble and stimulates and supports his physical and spiritual activities to the greatest extent can be described as ‘good’. For this we must develop our individual taste so that what we eat and drink corresponds with our character and our constitution. In the course of our lives our habits often actually change if there is a decisive change in our consciousness. But in general it is nevertheless good from earliest childhood to acquire, through imitation, the right foundations that then become good habits.
Through a deepened knowledge of processes and the actual ‘spirit’ in matter, as these unfold in us through the preparation of food and eating, a freely individual relationship to food can come about which, as already emphasized, is determined by our constitution, our temperament and particular life circumstances. We will illustrate this with a few examples, and also describe how this knowledge can help us either to use certain foods or avoid them.
Of the substances that we ingest daily, foodstuffs are polar opposite to medicines, the ‘spiritualized’ substances. Between these two extremes are the spices and stimulants, which interestingly have a connection with both ‘sides’. For our digestion the spices are ‘remedies’ that help to transform properly what we take into our organism.
Based on the threefold nature of human beings and plants, and their dynamic reverse correspondences (neuro-sensory system = root, rhythmic system = leaves, and metabolic system = blossoms and fruit), as well as the polarity of cosmos and earth, buoyancy and heaviness, as these appear clearly in blossoms and root, we acquire a first qualitative orientation in the choice of foods, either to consolidate our earthly bodily nature by eating roots or by filling ourselves with cosmic light and warmth forces by eating blossoms and fruit. Thus the primary food for an infant is carrots, and if they have rickets then a bath therapy using calamus root, for instance, is indicated. None of this of course should be understood in a one-sided way, for the cosmic principle must always also be present in the form of fruit. But this aspect becomes interesting when we consider that carrots and especially beetroot show an interesting ‘shift’ towards being a medicinal food: what normally takes place in the blossom— colour, scent, sweetness — makes its way into the root in carrots and especially beetroot; in which case they actually become a ‘blossom root’. It is not for nothing that beetroot with its colouring (flavonoids) is recommended as a cancer diet. This ‘blossom’ principle, or rather the developing of light and warmth, can also occur in substances that become sulphurous such as radish and horseradish, both of which ‘ clear’ the head and give a spur to thinking.
In this polarity, of light and warmth/cold and moisture, are all the substances that we obtain either from fruit, blossoms or roots. In some schools of nutrition people speak of the parts of a plant that are either ‘above’ or ‘below’ the earth. There is a qualitative difference whether we take sweetness as honey from the realm of blossoms or from the root as sugar-beet, and then often mineralize it further. The latter stimulates head forces, thus also causing tooth decay, whilst honey, as ‘the milk of old age’ has an anti-sclerotic effect and connects us more with the cosmos again. It is obvious that honey is not a food for infants, and small children given too much honey by well-meaning mothers can sometimes get severe diarrhoea and rickets.
In ancient Greek medicine people thought they could protect themselves against injurious earth forces by honey from within and oil from without, both of which are formed from cosmic light and warmth forces. Here too there is a difference whether we take olive oil whose fruits have to ripen for years in the southern warmth, or peanut oil from a leguminous plant that forms a great deal of nitrogen and therefore also subtly toxic substances, and grows in the dark, damp soil. The same applies to the potato. As a tiller plant containing a tremendous amount of starch, whose digestion has to be completed in the head, and is very heavy fare for migraine sufferers, it is not an ideal food. This is by no means to suggest it shouldn’t be consumed! But one needs to be well acquainted with it since, in contrast to grains, for instance, potatoes only properly form starch in cold conditions, and under the influence of light produce toxins (solanine)—familiar as green areas. Like most nightshades, such as tomatoes, aubergines and pepper, but also maize and peanuts—all originating from the American continent—this ‘heavy’ food is not an ideal diet for the very sick, for instance someone with cancer, who needs light and warm substances formed in the blossoms and fruit above the earth, and also sulphur-rich cabbage. It ought to be evident that fungi, too, growing on decomposing soil and feeding on detritus, are not an ideal food, however tasty they may be.
Thus we can get our first bearings on nutrition if we understand the plants not only in terms of their constituents but also qualitatively, and relate these qualities to the human being.
Of course, points of view such as whether they are cooked or raw play their part too, and have to be judged individually according to available metabolic forces. Cooked, fermented and pickled foods are already in a sense pre-digested, whilst raw food, and all purely vegetable food, has a curative effect. This is why raw food should only be used as sole diet for a short time, that is for a week at the most, depending on its effects, and should not predominate in the diet, except in exceptional cases. Vegetarian plant food connects a person more strongly with cosmic forces, while a diet emphasizing animal protein brings us more strongly onto the earth, and ‘consolidates’ us more. This applies also to protein—i.e. nitrogen-rich pulses such as peas, soya, lentils and beans: these make us ‘heavier’, which can also be good for extremely ‘airy’ constitutions.
The substance that holds an ideal balance and is neither a purely plant substance nor a purely animal substance is milk, with its diverse products.
The constituents of food are chiefly protein, fats, carbohydrates and trace elements, which — apart from the minerals — have their specific way of degenerating: proteins decay, fats go rancid, carbohydrates ferment. As foreign protein contains the most life forces, an excess of animal protein can lead to mild poisoning, and in a poisonous form can even be life-threatening. In cases of severe illness, a tendency to sclerosis, and during epidemics, we should strictly limit our consumption of protein!
Natural fats like butter and olive oil are ideal substances for the blood stream and the heart and help build up the brain and nervous system, which of course consists mainly of fatty substances. The fats ingested are not, like proteins, destroyed immediately in the intestines, but enter the bloodstream, and are only fully digested when they reach our centre, the lungs. Hence their ‘sympathy’ for the life of feeling and for warmth. Cholesterol is raised on the one hand by stress and on the other by degenerated fats, the oxicholesterols. Everything no longer alive remains as it is and becomes a poison, which is why ultra-heat-treated milk represents a problem.
So we must give our children a living diet from an early age so that their organs, the brain for instance, can develop properly. Research has shown that mother’s milk is an ideal food for healthy development of the brain, which is increasingly under attack from a poor diet and certain additives.70
In this connection there is an interesting remark of Rudolf Steiner’s from the year 1904, about healthy development of the brain in growing children:
If someone desires to school their thinking they will need to have above all a well-developed, healthy brain. But today(!) parents seldom provide their children with this healthily structured foundation, so remedial help is needed to strengthen it. And here above all, hazel nuts supply the necessary substance* for brain development.71
Given global genetic manipulation and modification, and impoverishment of food quality, we should be very concerned about humanity’s healthy development of mind and body. The greatest efforts must be made in education, agriculture and medicine to ensure that food is not robbed of its cosmic value — unless of course countries desire ever-increasing numbers of brainless subjects no longer interested in healthy critical judgement. Therefore let us urgently point to dangers of something which, with the best will in the world, and often through lack of time, unwittingly slips into our lives through the back door like the devil. It may seem we are doing something beneficial, and saving time, and that there’s no need for concern since foods still retain their vitamins. I’m thinking of the microwave. Is something still alive just because its substances still exist? Is a person still alive if I beat him to death, open his body up, and say that he is still alive since all his organs are still there?
Apart from the fact that Swiss researchers have discovered that microwaved food leads to altered proteins in the blood, we must above all consider the effect on food of high-energy rays. As background here we need to know that electricity is never friendly to life, but instead is attracted to organs that tend to be less organically alive, for instance our brain and neural system, or the root of a plant. During the agricultural course to found biodynamic agriculture, in Koberwitz near Breslau, Rudolf Steiner was asked by a farmer whether it was a good thing to conserve animal food with electric current. After speaking in detail about the nature of electricity — which is already creating enough problems today in our global internet age — Rudolf Steiner described what outcome such animal husbandry methods would have, and made clear that these effects also apply fully to the human being:
So if we use electricity to electrify fodder, we produce food that is eventually bound to lead to sclerotic degeneration in the animals we eat. It is a slow process — which we won’t at first notice. All we shall notice at first is that these animals die earlier than they should. We won’t realize that the cause of it is electricity but we will attribute it to all sorts of other things. […] but living creatures will gradually become nervous, fidgety and sclerotic.72
Today there are studies that show that water and animal feed treated with microwaves leads in a few generations to depletion of reproductive forces in both plants and rats.
We saw earlier how a soul-spiritual ‘diet’ and a particular kind of nutrition must complement one another. It is clear that great creative human works have in the past been garnered on a meagre diet, or even in states of hunger, while people who eat too much and too often have to expend excessive energy on digestion, retain scarcely any capacity for creative thinking. (‘A full stomach makes studying hard!’) The mind is never so clear as when it is fasting, and in the biographies of many saints, who often lived only on fruit, bread and water, we find a great many examples of the effects of an abstemious life. By limiting food, and fasting, we can diminish the irregular effects in soul life arising from voracity, and the forces of life can once more unfold their original cosmic rhythms.
This knowledge was common to every great culture that connected religious practice with certain dietary or fasting customs. This is the origin of the idea that moderation purifies the feelings, awakens slumbering capacities, gladdens the soul, strengthens the memory and lifts the soul’s earthly burden so that it can delight in a higher freedom.
When something as important as our nutrition is at stake, not as an end in itself but also serving the further spiritual development of the individual and of humankind in connection with maintaining the health of the earth, western and eastern wisdom come together again. Our concerns here can be summed up in these beautiful words:
Anyone who attaches importance to his health must be moderate in his taste, avoid worrying, calm his desires, moderate his feelings, nurture his life forces, be sparing in his words, not think too highly of success or failure, hold worries and difficulties in contempt, give foolish ambition its marching orders, avoid excessive inclinations and dislikes, use sight and hearing with composure and remain true to his inner diet. How can one be ill as long as one has not worn down one’s courage for living and saddened one’s soul? Therefore whoever seeks to strengthen his nature should only eat when he is hungry, and not fill himself with food, only drink when he is thirsty, and not enjoy too much drink. He should aim to remain a little hungry when he has eaten well, and always to feel a little replete even when hungry. To be well filled harms the lungs, and to be hungry inhibits the flow of living energy.73
*Phosphor-rich fats, i.e. lecithins.