WHAT IS LIFE?.
"Where there is love there is life."
-Mahatma Gandhi.
What is the most important ingredient in the human diet? Is it protein? Carbohydrates? Fat? Vitamins? Minerals? All of these components are essential, but I consider the most important element in human food to be life. Does cooking our foods add more life to our meals? Unfortunately, the opposite is true: cooking irreversibly destroys the life in our foods.
To ill.u.s.trate, let us compare two almond seeds (nuts). One seed is raw and one is roasted. To the eye, they look identical; and many nutritionists will claim that they have the same nutritional content. Yet let us put these two seeds in good fertile soil and wait. The one that is roasted will quickly rot, while the raw almond seed will not. The wise little raw kernel will manage to stay intact until springtime. When the waters from melted snow unlock the inhibitors, the almond seed will start to grow into a beautiful tree that will yield thousands more almonds every year. Nothing will ever grow out of the roasted seed.
Obviously, there is a big difference between the raw almond and the roasted one. This difference is as significant as the difference between life and death. Imagine that somewhere in your body, you need a certain nutrient. Would you want this nutrient to come from an almond that has no life in it, or from the one in which every cell is filled with life?
Every one of us is alive. We think we know a lot about life. Yet do we know exactly what life is? This question is more than just complicated: it is, indeed, unanswerable. That"s right, to this day, a universal definition of "life" has not been found. Most researchers generally accept that "life is the characteristic state of organisms that exhibit the following common properties: they are cellular; they are carbon-and water-based with a complex organization; they have a metabolism; they have the capacity to grow; they respond to stimuli; they reproduce; they adapt through natural selection.
An ent.i.ty with the above properties is considered to be alive."1 I trust that this definition is accurate according to the scientific point of view. However, to me, life is a lot more exciting than merely being an ent.i.ty that responds to stimuli and has the capacity to grow. Here is my personal perception of the meaning of the word "life."
How do I know that I am alive? It is not because I am moving, since cars are moving too, although they are not alive. It is not because I am breathing, as a vacuum cleaner "breathes" also. It is not because I smile; there are smiling toys in every toy store. I believe that the question "What is life?" is a mystical question, and that life cannot be measured by any scientific means.
I feel my own aliveness through the feelings that come from within me. I feel my own presence inside my body. I feel that I am the life in my body. I care for that life more than for my body itself because I won"t care much for my own body after my life ends. I only value my body while my life is in it.
The second "simple" question is, "Where is life in my body?" Is it just in my head, or in my heart, or in my fingers, or in the parts that are moving? I feel that life is everywhere in my body, in every one of my 75 trillion tiny cells.
I can see life pouring from people"s eyes. They say that eyes are the "windows of the soul." Why do we feel a certain discomfort when looking into another person"s eyes? I can look into a doll"s eyes and I won"t feel any discomfort whatsoever. But when I look into a person"s eyes, I definitely experience a sensation, which can sometimes be dramatic. I know that I can sense a lot with my eyes. For example, I can tell if a person is looking at me or not from a remote distance, such as the other side of a soccer field. Many times I have wondered, how am I able to tell? The pupils of the human eye are as tiny as letters in a book. While I cannot read a book from the other side of a soccer field, I can tell for sure if my friend is looking at me because I can feel the connection with this person through our eyes. Awareness of this magnificent power in me, called "life," fills me with joy and appreciation.
There is life in every single cell of the body and maybe even beyond the body. Once, my husband and I partic.i.p.ated in a health expo in Canada. Soon after our arrival we discovered the "Advanced Photography" booth that offered pictures of whole-body electromagnetic fields taken with a special camera. Both Igor and I ordered these pictures. We were amazed to discover that our energy on those pictures appeared to be a lot bigger than our physical bodies, and it looked like an oval-shaped cloud. After spending two long, hardworking days at that expo, each one of us took a second picture from the same photographer. This time, we were disappointed because our energy clouds looked a lot smaller and were not evenly shaped. From that experience, I concluded that our life energy is constantly changing, depending on our actions and the conditions in which we live.
From biology, we know that inside plant cells, tiny organelles called "mitochondria" break down carbohydrate and sugar molecules to provide energy. These organelles are alive and constantly at work, but only while the plant is alive, not after it is cooked. Therefore, consuming food that has life in it holds an immense benefit for humans. I have heard from many people that when they stopped eating cooked food, the very first change they noticed was a dramatic increase in their energy levels.
Wild animals intuitively prefer fresher, more alive foods. If given a choice, goats, rabbits, and horses will always choose green gra.s.s over hay. We can find numerous examples in nature of various creatures that sustain themselves by eating live food only. For example, a caterpillar from Maui feeds solely on live snails. Most spiders consume exclusively live flies and bugs and would never eat dead insects. If you have ever possessed a lizard as your pet, you know that lizards would rather die from hunger than eat a dead bug, even a freshly caught one. A cheetah eats only fresh meat, consuming just enough to satisfy its hunger.
Of course, there are some animals like vultures, flies, or other scavengers that eat rotten food, including dead meat. However, even those animals do not cook their food. They still get life from their meal but in a different form-as microorganisms. Their bodies have adjusted to digesting decaying food. These creatures usually have a particularly or extraordinarily high concentration of stomach acid capable of killing pathogenic bacteria.
Wild creatures that eat their natural foods rarely develop degenerative diseases. In contrast, it has become almost expected for domesticated animals to develop cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and other illnesses typical of humans who eat the standard American diet. A growing number of vets contend that processed pet food is the main cause of illness and premature death in the modern dog and cat. In December 1995, the British Journal of Small Animal Practice published a paper stating that processed pet food suppresses the immune system and damages the liver, kidneys, heart, and other organs. This research, initially conducted by Dr. Tom Lonsdale, was replicated by the Australian Veterinary a.s.sociation, and was proven to be valid.2 Dr. Gyorgy Kollath of the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm also headed a study of animals. When young animals were fed cooked and processed foods, they initially appeared to be healthy. However, as the animals reached adulthood, they began to age more quickly than normal and also developed chronic degenerative disease symptoms. Members of a control group of animals raised on raw foods aged less quickly and were free of degenerative disease. In nature, we see that wild animals eating entirely enzyme-rich raw foods are free of the degenerative diseases that afflict humans.3 I believe the time has come to finally recognize the most important ingredient in our food-life, this invisible yet precious quality-and its significance in the realm of health.
Chapter 6.
YOUR BODY NEVER.
MAKES MISTAKES.
"Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense."
-Henry Miller.
Wouldn"t it be nice if every time your car broke down, it would fix itself? This sounds like a fantasy; however, this is just what your beautiful body can do! When you get a cut, the blood washes the dirt out and seals the wound; the skin begins to grow faster; and within a matter of days, you cannot find a trace of injury. If you ingest toxins, your body will develop diarrhea or vomiting to purge the unwanted substance as soon as possible. In the case of injury, our bodies know exactly how to repair themselves in the most efficient way.
Every living thing is dedicated to survival, to prolonging its life to the maximum. Each organism will do its best to adjust to any change in the environment in order to survive. This miracle has been called "The Universal Law of Vital Adjustment." This law has always existed, and it always will. We can see vast evidence of this law in every blade of gra.s.s striving to emerge through the concrete, in every rabbit changing the color of its fur with the seasons, and in every human being surviving in today"s challenging and constantly changing world. It continues to amaze me how this Universal Law of Vital Adjustment applies to every one of us in many ways. When we understand this important law, we lose the fear that for some mysterious reason our bodies could become ill and that illness could kill us. Our bodies are dedicated to our survival, not our death. The disease-like conditions that our bodies develop, such as coughing, sneezing, fever, pain, and high blood pressure, are in actuality the body"s effort to survive. Ironically, when the body heals after taking pills, it most likely heals not because of, but in spite of the medicine. I feel sad that such a serious misunderstanding exists even among many health professionals. I wish scientists would carry out more research on how to help the body heal itself, instead of merely treating its symptoms. By suppressing symptoms, we counteract the wise efforts of the intelligent human body.
According to The Universal Law of Vital Adjustment, our bodies adjust to changes in our environment, including harmful changes such as pollution, radiation, noise, lack of sunlight, etc. Similarly, the body adjusts to the consumption of harmful substances. It develops a new pattern that is actually the best way of coping with the situation. This pattern can quickly become a habit. That doesn"t mean that your super-intelligent body is craving harmful substances, but rather that it has adjusted to the toxins. I find it amazing, even amusing, that the human body continues to survive in spite of the many damaging factors of modern life. They include smoking, taking drugs, and overeating harmful foods saturated with chemicals. More and more people spend significant parts of their lifetime indoors without fresh air or sunlight, nearly motionless, surrounded by high-voltage electromagnetic fields and radiation, breathing in all kinds of indoor pollution. They shower daily with fluoridated and chlorinated water, experience constant stress, etc., and on top of that, they adopt numerous smaller habits that may seem innocuous but are in fact additional stressors on the body, like wearing high heels and makeup, sleeping on soft beds, wearing dark gla.s.ses, drinking coffee, eating candy, and more. It took me many years to discover that various habits I was lovingly taught to struggle to acquire were actually harmful. In fact, I have changed so many commonly accepted habits that I can"t discuss them all in my book, in part for fear of losing credibility. Yet those changes have made my body healthier and my life more joyous.
There is so much confusion in our lives today that we pay top money for workshops and seminars to learn how to do the simplest things that every animal knows naturally. The most popular cla.s.ses today are not "Is There Life on Mars?" or "How to Become a Millionaire" but those that teach fundamental behaviors, like how to eat, how to sleep, how to run properly, and how to relax. We seek teachers to learn how to stand straight, how to sit correctly, how to see without gla.s.ses, how to exercise, and how to spontaneously express emotions. We ask professionals for guidance on issues such as how much water to drink, how to breathe, even how to go to the bathroom. There was a time when we knew all these things naturally. I try to imagine what a natural human being looks like, and I cannot.
Every one of us is living with thousands of adjustments that our body has succ.u.mbed to in order for us to survive. We pay for each one of them with reduced quality of health and shortened life span. The way to better health lies in the unburdening of our organisms from having to adjust. However small, every effort towards natural living makes a positive difference. For example, eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, sleeping with an open window at night, wearing clothes made from natural fibers, drinking pure water, exercising, getting sunlight regularly, not suppressing sneezing, yawning, or stretching, and reducing stress can all help. So can turning off electrical devices when not using them to rest from harmful electrical fields, reducing your use of soap and chemicals, buying organic produce, and thousands more small acts, including "applying" a hammer to your microwave oven.
However, one should never introduce new changes into one"s lifestyle simply because some authority recommends it. Always observe the reactions your body has to those changes. If you feel better, continue. For example, I used to have a habit of eating before bedtime. When I tried eating just two hours earlier, I immediately began to sleep more soundly. My body showed me that this was a good change, and I adopted this new habit. I realized that such little changes add a great deal of health and enjoyment to my life.
Sometimes our bodies have adjusted to harmful habits so deeply that it takes longer periods of time for the health benefits to surface once the habit is stopped or changed. For example, I used to like to sleep on a soft mattress. Then I read an article describing how healthy it is to sleep on a hard surface. I tried sleeping on the floor but had such an achy back the next morning that I immediately quit. Many years later, I went hiking in the Cascade Mountains and slept on the ground every night for one month. During the first week, I had an achy back. Then my sleep became so sweet, as never before in all my life. Since then I have slept on a hard surface. In addition, soft beds now make my back achy.
I encourage you to follow your own intuition, your own feeling, and your own experience. I do not want you to do anything because somebody who is considered an expert-including me-says so. We are each unique individuals with different bodily requirements. We need to be our own best expert.
Let"s do an experiment. If you went to an organic fruit stand today and picked out one fruit, what would it be? A pear, apple, orange, fig, papaya, banana, grape, avocado, mango, or cherry? Do you think that everyone reading this book would pick the same fruit? Most likely not. We are all individuals. Your body knows what you need. Whatever fruit you choose, that is what your body is ordering from you today. Your job is to get your organism what it needs. Tomorrow you may want the same fruit or something new. Let your body lead.
Your body is always ready to act on your behalf. Let"s imagine that a piece of dust is falling into your right eye. Which eye will blink? Your right eye, of course. Your left eye won"t blink by mistake, because your body never makes mistakes. We have been created perfectly. When we underestimate the wisdom of nature and stop listening to the messages our bodies give us, we get into trouble. Let us take, for example, fever. I trust that if my body has created a fever, then I need a fever. Researchers believe that turning up the heat is the body"s way of fighting the pathogens that cause infection by making the body a less comfortable place for them. What is the standard response to fever in our culture? Aspirin. Are we aspirin-deficient? Why do we take aspirin? Aspirin blocks important enzyme activities and can cause gastrointestinal bleeding.1 Our bodies don"t expect this kind of cruelty from us, but they keep fighting for our survival no matter what we do. After we take aspirin, the body immediately re-directs its efforts from the healing process to the removal of aspirin from the organism, because the human body always works on the greater threat first. In the case of taking aspirin, the body is compelled to work especially hard and often becomes so weak that even maintaining a normal body temperature becomes a challenge.
To add insult to injury, when our energy is already low we cla.s.sically attempt to eat heavy foods, such as chicken soup. However, it"s usually the case that when we get ill, we lose our appet.i.te. Our body"s message to us is "Don"t eat!" And yet we think we need to eat "to have more energy." I used to feed chicken soup to my children when they had a fever. Most of the time they were unable to keep this food down. In response to eating during this "don"t eat" stage, a healthy organism attempts to evacuate food from the stomach by throwing up, in order to utilize the maximum amount of energy for healing. Digesting heavy food would severely deplete energy resources that are essential for healing. Cooperating with the body is always the shortest path towards becoming well. Instead of suppressing the fever, we need to help our body conserve energy through eating lighter and resting.
Another example of a useful (if unpleasant) symptom is diarrhea. According to the health research,2 diarrhea is the body"s defense mechanism to minimize contact time between gut pathogens or ingested toxins and intestinal mucosa.
As I write these lines, I become fascinated with the fact that I used to have symptoms such as diarrhea and fever regularly. But since I"ve adopted a more natural lifestyle, I haven"t been sick for many years now. Taking medications to stop fever, diarrhea, or other symptoms works against the wisdom of the body. The body never makes mistakes. If we listen carefully to our bodies, we can all know what we need to do to feel better.
I would like to share with you a story that ill.u.s.trates how I first began to listen to my body. Some years ago, when my family had been on raw food for only two months, my children began craving different fruits. Sergei asked for mangoes and blueberries, and Valya asked for olives, grapefruits, and figs. When I gave Sergei a mango, he ate it right away and immediately wanted another. As a result, I bought him a whole flat of mangoes, thinking it would last him a week. He ate the entire flat in one day, peels and all. He then said, "I wish there were more mangoes!" The same thing happened with blueberries. I bought him a two-pound bag of blueberries, and he ate it in one sitting.
Valya liked figs. She"d ask for fresh figs, dry figs, black figs, or green figs. She could never have enough figs; she also liked eating olives and grapefruits.
That summer, we visited Dr. Bernard Jensen, a world-famous clinical nutritionist. I asked Dr. Jensen what Sergei needed to eat to help him recover from diabetes. Dr. Jensen looked in his books and told me that the best things for Sergei to eat would be mangoes and blueberries. I was shocked. I then asked him what Valya needed to eat to help her asthma. He said, "Figs, olives, and grapefruits." I couldn"t believe his words. I said, "That"s exactly what my children have been asking for!" Dr. Jensen then asked me what my cravings were. I told him that I didn"t know because I always ate what was on sale.
Dr. Jensen helped me to understand that our bodies naturally crave foods that aid healing. My children"s bodies communicated with them sooner than my poor confused adult body did. My husband and I started to pay more attention to what our bodies were telling us, and within several weeks, we became aware of our own cravings.
Today, everyone in my family eats slightly differently, even when sitting at the same table. I know that when we develop an appet.i.te for certain healthy things (not coffee and doughnuts), it is our bodies asking for particular nutrients.
The human body is more beautiful and wise than we can comprehend. Just remember, your body never makes mistakes.
Chapter 7.
WHAT THE FIRST.
HUMANS ATE.
"History teaches everything, including the future."
-Alphonse de Lamartine.
Once, when I was a little girl, my father took me to an archeological site located near the Azov Sea. There, scientists were excavating the Greek town of Tanais from the fifth century BC. We were surprised to discover that this ancient town was positioned deep in the ground. During the past twenty-five centuries, it gradually became covered by almost thirty feet of dirt. We had to climb down many steps to reach its narrow streets and tiny stone homes surrounded by stone fences. Tanais was so well preserved that it was easy to imagine it full of people. I was mesmerized by my feelings of physical closeness to prehistoric life.
In addition to wandering the streets of Tanais, we were permitted to touch some newly excavated artifacts. Many small, broken, and basically nonessential pieces were left at the site after being thoroughly studied by the scientists. We found many small fragments of ceramic dishes, covered with curious patterns. I especially remember a very unusual-looking petrified fish, which appeared as if it had recently been dried. I immediately made plans to bring this twenty-five-hundred-year-old fish to school with me, but as soon as I touched it with the tips of my fingers, it collapsed into powder.
Not long ago, I found myself equally mesmerized when I read about more recent archeological discoveries. The article talked about the thirteen oldest human skeletons unearthed in East Africa.1 Scientists dated them at 3.6 million years and named them "the first family." These hominids had curved phalanges, or finger bones, which means that the creatures were agile tree-climbers. They had very thick enamel on their teeth; and their molars were large and square, similar to other creatures that chew lots of greens.2 Scientists believe that the first humans spent the majority of their time in the branches of trees because that habitat offered much-needed protection from predators and supplied fruit and green leaves; thus the tree-climbing adaptation developed.
These earliest humans, known as Australopithecus, dwelled in East Africa. At that time, the land of East Africa was covered by tropical rainforest. It made sense to me that our ancestors lived in the tropics because heavy annual rainfall, high humidity, and hot temperatures year around ensured an abundance of food. I have heard amazing stories from people who traveled to the tropical rainforest about the countless varieties of fruits-their different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some of these fruits even grow directly off the trunks of the trees. The variety of fruit-bearing plants in the tropical rainforest reaches almost three hundred different species, very few of which have been cultivated.
Sweet fleshy fruits attract not only birds and mammals but also fish, when the fruit rolls into the water. Due to the wealth of fruit, most of the terrestrial animals in the tropical rainforest live in the canopy (the upper part of the trees). There is so much food available up there year around that some animals never descend to explore the forest floor. (I could definitely live like that if only I could get my computer up there!) Based on my research, I speculate that the food of the first humans initially consisted of the following items: fruit, due to its abundance and variety; green leaves, since many tropical plants are evergreen with broad leaves, the majority of which are edible and exceptionally nutritious; blossoms, since most fruit trees develop colorful blossoms that are sweet and nutritious; seeds and nuts because they are an important source of protein; insects, due to the fact that 90% of the rainforest animal species are insects and most of them are edible and nutritious-a portion of the insects eaten by early humans came directly with the fruit3; and bark, since tropical trees have exceptionally thin and smooth bark that is often edible and pleasantly flavorful (one example of a popular tropical bark is cinnamon).
Primitive humans were more intelligent than the other inhabitants of tropical forests; therefore, they were capable of harvesting more valuable foods for themselves, leaving less for other species. Since they had more food, they multiplied faster. As the numbers of hominids increased, they inevitably experienced a shortage of food. As plant food became more and more scarce, the primitive humans first increased their consumption of small animals and later began eating larger ones.
The instinctive desire to protect food sources is deeply imprinted in the minds of the vast majority of species on our planet. One may find countless examples of strong territorial behaviors of various creatures in everyday life. Some time ago, I visited a chicken farm in California and was surprised to see that all the birds had the tips of their beaks cut off. The farmers explained to me that whenever chickens don"t have adequate s.p.a.ce to suit their needs, they begin violently pecking each other-non-stop. I also noticed that despite having no beaks, some chickens were still fighting and many of them were bleeding. I remember watching chickens in my grandmother"s yard. They had plenty of s.p.a.ce and never pecked each other.
One time I partic.i.p.ated in a seminar on the behavior of the wild chimpanzees. The presenter, Hogan Sherrow, had a PhD in Anthropology from Yale University. He described how he lived in the African rainforest and observed the behavioral patterns of these animals. The chimpanzees appeared to be loving and caring creatures in their everyday lives but not when it came to protecting their territory. Approximately once every ten days, the chimpanzee males went on a "walk-about" along the boundaries of their "property" and brutally killed any intruders from other chimpanzee families that they encountered in their territory. I suppose that the first humans were also extremely protective of their territory.
As hominids continued to grow in numbers, their need for food constantly increased. Over the course of three million years, the once-bountiful food sources became scarce; and territories in Eastern and Central Africa became severely overpopulated by hominids. Eventually, they were forced to start moving beyond the rainforest in all directions. By the time of the emergence of h.o.m.o sapiens, about 120,000 years ago, our forebears were pressured to migrate into the Middle East, South Africa, Europe, Central Asia, and finally into the New World. This migration took many centuries. Researchers estimate that humans migrated to their new territories at a rate of about one mile every eight years.4 As humans moved away from the tropics, the most nutritious plant food became more and more scarce and seasonal. Just as all living creatures have the ability to adjust to their environment in order to survive, the bodies of primitive humans began adjusting to the changing climate and food sources available to them. In discussions I often hear speculations on whether primitive people ate meat or not. There can be no doubt that they did. I think every one of us would eat meat if we were faced with similar detrimental circ.u.mstances.
In today"s life, we occasionally hear survival stories of hikers, skiers, hunters, or rock-climbers who get lost in the woods. From these reports, we learn how those who survived were forced to eat unusual foods, such as bugs, lizards, raw fish, mushrooms, and sometimes even their shoes. Most of these people were only able to last for several weeks. In comparison, two hundred thousand years ago, humans had to survive the long, cold winter months, year after year. They had to go through lengthy periods of hunger, and many of them died from malnutrition. Hominids inevitably tried to consume food of all kinds in order to survive. There is no doubt that they tried eating anything that crawled, flew, ran, or swam. Catching birds (along with their eggs), bugs, and other small creatures was a lot easier than catching bigger animals, but small game was not enough to satisfy even one person, let alone an entire tribe. The kill of a big animal could feed a large group for several days. Thus, primitive humans were driven to learn different hunting techniques.
However, early humans were always instinctively drawn back to eating plant foods whenever they became available because plants, especially greens, are the prime source of human nutrition, as proven by contemporary science.* In addition, plant gathering was not as labor-intensive and dangerous as hunting. Primitive people gathered and consumed a large variety of different plants including greens, fruits, tubers, nuts, seeds, berries, blossoms, mushrooms, sprouts, bark, seaweed, and others. One can only imagine how many different plants they consumed, possibly thousands. In his book Native American Ethn.o.botany, Daniel Moerman, Professor of Anthropology, lists 1,649 species of edible plants that were used by Native Americans alone.5 That is why we call primitive humans not merely "hunters" but also "gatherers" because indeed hunter-gatherers they were.
To imagine how the first humans discovered grains and eventually bread, I picture myself in the woods two hundred thousand years ago, being cold, scared, barefoot, and hungry, with no food in sight. What would I do? After a futile hunt for some bugs, I would probably search through the dried gra.s.ses. Perhaps, there I would find a number of different seeds. I would probably try them and see what they tasted like. I guess that these seeds would be better than nothing at all. But some of them could be awfully hard to chew. If I were smart enough, I would take a stone and try to crush the seeds to make them more edible. If I happened to do it in the rain, eventually I would learn that crushed seeds mixed with water tastes better. I would do this again and again until I invented polenta, bread, porridge, and other pro-bakery foods. For thousands of years, humans ate their "bread" raw. The first bread was nothing but the crushed seeds of some gra.s.ses mixed with water and "baked" on the stones heated by the sun.
Since primitive people had very limited means of preserving plant foods through the cold season, they were forced to hunt more during the long winters. I speculate that most of the meat was eaten by males, while females, who were almost constantly either pregnant or nursing, couldn"t hunt very much (nor could small children). If they were not satiated with sc.r.a.ps left by males, females had to seek plant food, even during the wintertime when the plant sources were scarce and less nutritious.
It is an interesting fact that plant cultivation started more than four thousand years earlier than the domestication of animals, even though the process of growing plants was much more complicated than animal training. Early humans did not have rakes and shovels from Ace Hardware, nor did they have the means to irrigate their fields. Collected seeds were extremely hard to protect from rodents and birds. Somehow, early humans managed to plough, sow, weed, water, reap, transport, and so on prior to domesticating animals. In comparison, obtaining a couple of wild baby goats and taming them couldn"t have been as difficult.
Nevertheless, the first indications of plant agriculture are found as far back as 11,000 BC, but most likely cultivating of plants started earlier; while animals seem to have been domesticated more than four thousand years later, in 7000 BC.
Thus plant food likely comprised the most essential component of the diet of our ancestors. Through anthropological research, we can see that ancient people valued plant food by how quickly agricultural farming was developed simultaneously in many regions. In 11,000 BC, flint-edged wooden sickles were used to gather wild grains.6 Eight thousand years ago, wild wheat and barley were grown in ancient Egypt.7 At the same time, people in Switzerland were growing lentils, and on the island of Crete ancient farmers were growing almonds.8 Seven thousand years ago, Mesoameri-cans began growing gourds, peppers, avocados, and amaranths. Five thousand years ago, Chinese people began to cultivate soybeans.9 They used three hundred sixty-five herbs in their cuisine10 (which is approximately ten times more than is listed today in the produce section of my local health food store). Four thousand years ago, farmers of Mesopotamia were growing crops of onions, turnips, beans, leeks, lettuce, and garlic.11 Plant foods-especially greens-continued to be an important component of the human diet throughout ancient times and into the more recent eras, particularly for economically deprived people. Peasants in villages consumed large amounts of greens. The cla.s.sical Russian writer, Leo Tolstoi, stated in his book War and Peace that "Russian peasants do not get hungry when there is no bread, but when there is no lambsquarters."12 [Lambsquarters is now considered a weed.-V.B.] Another example can be found in a book by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who observed, "Peasants eat thistle everywhere."13 In Russian and Bulgarian languages, the person who sold vegetables was called "zelenschik," which means "the seller of greens." At present time, this word is totally forgotten by people and can be found only in old books and dictionaries. The fact that this word is still listed in dictionaries points to its fairly recent use. From reading cla.s.sical literature, I know that zelenschiks were quite busy only a hundred and fifty years ago, and now they are extinct.
One may find numerous other facts that indirectly point to the popularity of different raw plants in the diet of our ancestors until recent centuries, when the consumption of cooked foods dramatically increased.
For many centuries, humans considered meat to be the healthiest food, probably due to its stimulating taste and lasting satiation. However, the majority of people couldn"t afford it and consumed meat only occasionally. People from the upper cla.s.s dined on a lot of different animal foods-game, fish, beef, pork, sheep, poultry, and eggs almost daily; hence, they were often overweight and suffered from many degenerative ailments. However, even the wealthiest persons consumed large quant.i.ties of fruits, vegetables, and greens in various forms, as is ill.u.s.trated by the following salad recipe from medieval times.14 Original Recipe:.
Salat. Take persel, sawge, grene garlec, chibolles, letys, leek, spin-oches, borage, myntes, prymos, violettes, porrettes, fenel, and toun cressis, rew, rosemarye, purslarye; laue and waishe hem clene. Pike hem. Pluk hem small wip pyn honde, and myng hem wel with rawe oile; lay on vyneger and salt, and serue it forth.
Translation:.
Salad. Take parsley, sage, green garlic, scallions, lettuce, leek, spinach, borage, mints, primroses, violets, "porrettes" (green onions, scallions, and young leeks), fennel, and garden cress, rue, rosemary, purslane; rinse and wash them clean. Peel them. [Remove stems, etc.] Tear them into small pieces with your hands, and mix them well with raw oil; lay on vinegar and salt, and serve.15 This recipe dates from the fourteenth century and is the earliest such example in English. Most of the recipes were created only for the menus of the upper cla.s.ses. According to the strict etiquette that ruled medieval mealtimes, the menus included the all-important "order of serving," which meant that most members of a household were ent.i.tled to the first course, and the more delicate dishes were served only to the higher ranks. Interestingly, we can see how it was thought natural to eat the most nutritious foods first (salads), leaving the richer and sweeter courses for later.
In addition to fresh fruits and vegetables consumed during the summer by people of the Middle Ages, they stocked a supply of fruits and vegetables in their cellars for the cold seasons. They fermented large quant.i.ties of sauerkraut; marinated mushrooms; and pickled tomatoes, cuc.u.mbers, carrots, apples, beets, turnips, cranberries, garlic, and even watermelons. Such preserved vegetables were kept in wooden tubs in cellars. Both rich and poor people kept tubers, dried mushrooms, dried herbs, apples, nuts, and dried fruits for the winter. They also prepared a supply of dried fish, meat, and bacon. An important source of vitamins came from the barrels of fermented juices of different fruits, berries, and wines. Most of the food in the cellar was raw.
*Please see Chapter 4 of this book.
Chapter 8.
CONVENIENCE VERSUS HEALTH.
"I would cook dinner, but I can"t find the can opener!"
-Author Unknown.
Our ancestors ate only raw foods for more than three million years. When early humans mastered the use of fire, approximately 790,000 years ago,1 they didn"t start cooking right away. For many thousands of years, ancient people used fire for warmth, light, and safety from predators. It is logical to suggest that they did not start using fire for cooking on a regular basis until the very end of the hunter-gatherer period because they couldn"t possibly carry fire with them or start a new fire from scratch every day. Moreover, hunter-gatherers couldn"t carry much of anything with them including food for evening cooking-because all they had were their bodies. Early humans had to be ready to run or climb at any moment. Carrying meat would be particularly dangerous because it could attract hungry predators to the tribe.
Starting a new fire, especially in adverse weather, requires a great deal of time and labor. I tried starting fire by friction many times during hikes with my family, and just igniting the kindling took half an hour or more. Then one needs to build up flames big enough for cooking, which in turn takes another hour or two. I imagine that early humans were feeding throughout the day as they found food, rather than having cooked lunches or dinners. I speculate that even when they settled and started living in permanent places, eating cooked food was still a rare occurrence until the invention of the stone hearth oven in 5000 BC.
Even then, cooking continued to be a luxury for many centuries due to the labor involved and the effort needed to acquire firewood, which was the sole fuel used for millennia. Today it is hard to believe that housewives and cooks had to start the fire in their hearth by the use of either sparking flints or friction methods until 1827, when English chemist John Walker invented matches. Considering all these obstacles, it is not surprising that cooked food was the most expensive and thus considered the more valuable food.
Ancient people (like many moderns!) were not aware of the components of proper nutrition. They believed the most delicious and stimulating foods to be the healthiest. Throughout the history of humankind, some genius minds such as Anaxagoras, Hippocrates, and Leonardo da Vinci conveyed their brilliant theories but were not taken seriously by the majority of people.
For thousands of years, while early humans ate predominantly raw food, they were making their food choices solely by applying their instincts, which kept their diet as nutritious as possible. That was why they were able to survive through millions of years, despite all the famine, predators, and drastic climate changes.
We now know that the process of cooking is a chemical reaction that alters the components in food. As a result, cooking produces toxic molecules that can act as stimulants and create false cravings. When humans increased their consumption of cooked food, they followed their bodily cravings and not their instincts. As a result, humans slowly became increasingly malnourished. Certain groups of people who sustained themselves mostly on cooked or processed products developed such severe diseases as scurvy, rickets, beriberi, and pellagra. These ailments took many thousands of human lives year after year until relatively recently. For example, in 1915, more than ten thousand people died of pellagra in the United States alone.2 While throughout most of human history, the majority of people have eaten primarily raw plant foods, with the development of civilization, this pattern quickly began to change. The most dramatic increase in consumption of cooked and highly processed foods occurred quite recently, during the very end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, when three major industrial developments took place almost simultaneously.
In the late eighteenth century, a Swiss miller invented a steel roller mechanism that simplified the grinding process and led to the ma.s.s production of white flour. In 1784, American inventor Oliver Evans developed the first automated flourmill.3 In 1813, British chemist Edward Charles Howard invented a method of refining sugar.4 In the nineteenth century, the process of canning started. It was Napoleon who announced a compet.i.tion for the best way of preserving food for his army. In 1795, French chef Nicholas Appert won the prize of 12,000 francs for inventing a method of canning meats and vegetables in jars sealed with pitch. For a while, it was a French military secret but soon it leaked across the English Channel. In 1810, Peter Durance, an Englishman, patented the use of metal containers for canning; and one year later, there were several canning factories in operation. The troops that faced off at Waterloo had canned rations.
The demand for canned food was so great that canning technology began developing quickly; and by the 1860s, the time it took to process food in a can had been reduced from six hours to thirty minutes.5 Canned foods were soon commonplace. Tin-coated steel is still used today. All canned foods were thoroughly cooked; preservatives and salt were added to enhance shelf life. Typically, canned products have a shelf life of a good two years or more.
These inventions were embraced by everyone-by people who appreciated the convenience and lesser costs, by merchants for the chance to make more profits, and by the governments for an opportunity to provide cheaper food to people. In the course of the nineteenth century, the majority of people in civilized countries began to consume a drastically larger percentage of highly processed foods, and, accordingly, lowered their percentage intake of nutritionally dense foods.
I appreciate many wonderful and brilliant discoveries made by humanity during the years of the Industrial Revolution. Yet, the radical transformation of the human diet was rather destructive. Lifesaving habits and instincts practiced by the collective effort of millions of previous generations were lost in virtually no time. While the human body was still the same, the food was quickly and severely changed.
Meanwhile, devitalized foods in shiny cans, puffy white breads, and various confections were not only appreciated for their low costs and high convenience but became a symbol of human progress. These new products liberated women from hours of cooking every day and even from nursing their infants. For the first time in human history, babies were fed with formula, which was considered equally fine or even superior to breast milk. Nearly all foods for adults turned into formula, too. In place of naturally nutritious products, people now consumed a large a.s.sortment of canned foods, which they opened with a special device (can opener), accompanied by wide selection of cheeses and sausages on slices of snow-white bread, concluding their meals with an ever-growing amount of candy, wrapped in fancy foils.
It is no surprise that at the same time cancer death rates and incidents of other degenerative diseases started to explode. By the year 1900, 64 people out of 100,000 died from cancer. These already high numbers continued to grow and in fact tripled by the year 2000.6 In the United States during the last few years, cancer surpa.s.sed heart disease and became the number-one cause of death. The American Cancer Society estimated that 1,399,790 men and women would be diagnosed with cancer, and 564,830 men and women would die of cancer of all types in 2006.7 In the twentieth century, nutrition began to emerge as a science simultaneously in several countries. With the formulation of the general concept of vitamins in 19128 and discovery of vitamin C in 1931, scientists started conducting more research on the human diet. During the first part of the twentieth century, public nutrition programs generally recommended increasing the consumption of practically everything in the usual diet, applying the idea that "excess is preferable to limitation."9 The surprise came "during the second world war, when supplies of food and particularly of animal foods in European countries were severely restricted, [and] the incidence of some diseases was generally reduced."10 The science of nutrition is very young, less than a century old, but it is developing rapidly. Almost daily we hear of discoveries of totally new (to us), yet vitally necessary nutrients. For centuries, humans didn"t know which components of diet were the most essential for their health. Many people considered tasty foods to be the healthiest. Such ignorance has taken scores of lives. At the same time, a properly balanced diet can ensure optimal health performance for all people. Yet we consume tons of highly processed foods today, more than ever before in human history. What is even more alarming is that we love our processed foods to such an extent that we prefer them to natural products. This causes a dependency on cooked food. I believe that our ability to end this dependency can change the future of humankind.