technology
Quit processed foods, go natural
Processed foods may look tempting with their attractive packaging but they are not only of zero nutritional value but also harmful to our health. If we aspire to have good health and longevity then we need to go back to our local and natural food habits, observes Dr. Vijaya Venkat.
Om purnamadha purnamidam
Purnasya purnamadaya
Purnameva vashishyate
This creation is whole and complete. From the whole emerges creations, each whole and complete. Take the whole from the whole, but the whole yet remains, Undiminished, Complete.
Upanishads
Take a grain for example. This one grain can reproduce a thousand fold, within a few months, to feed a hundred mouths. Its productivity is unmatched. Or take any fruit-bearing tree – mahua, imli, ber, jambul or mango. Its annual yield is over a tonne in weight and over hundreds of rupees in value. The same tree replenishes the soil around, purifies the air, nurtures at least 10 different prana jatus and preserves water in deep underground rivulets that reveals itself in wells. This abundance of nature – 50,000 varieties of rice, 500 of pepper, 1000 of mango, 5000 of sorghum and countless others, has been bestowed on our sujalam sufalam land. Consequently, we have been able to live in dignity, peace and health for centuries.
This is our genetic heritage, our natural wealth, which we as individuals, experience as Health, through the foods we eat. This is a gift, a blessing from Nature. Technology did not invent this, machines did not create this, nor did humans re-design it. Only Nature could perform this miracle.
Microwave an unhealthy wave of technology
Sadly, with technological advancement, processed food and fast food have gained popularity and they are here to stay. Bread, biscuits, cakes etc, are preferred over natural food as snacks. Do we ever give thought to how these foods are manufactured and what they do to our health? Most of these food items are prepared with refined white flour which lack nutrients. To this we add sugar which is fragmented sugar cane or sugar beet, milk solids a fragmented part of whole milk, hydrogenated oil, an extraction of the whole nut or seed, salt and finally preservatives to increase the shelf life of the end product.
Further, chemicals are added to provide colour, flavour and texture. We now bake this mixture at a high temperature and mould them into different shapes under high pressure. Attractively packaged, these food items are then sold to us in the form of biscuits, breakfast cereals, breads, cakes, chapattis, puris, supplements and other fortified foods.
Technology has improved logistics too, such that we not only get biscuits, but Kiwis from New Zealand, corn from America and pasta from Italy. Our food today travels long distances before it reaches our mouth and hands.
For all we know, the potatoes used in french-fries in popular fast-food outlets that we treat our kids to, have most likely been peeled and cut at least a month ago in China. Though they have been specially deep frozen to maintain their appearance, they are infact sterile and stale. It is saved from decaying with deep frying or a quick zap in the microwave oven. The potatoes may have been genetically modified and irradiated. In the West, foods from far off places like Jamaica and Chile, sell for less than those grown a few kilometers away.
Globalisation has had serious impact on our food choices. The impact of technology on the foods we choose to eat daily cannot be understood in isolation. The fundamental issue to be accepted first is the connection of food to our genetic heritage, the nature of food itself.
What is food?
Food is that which is:
NATURAL – consisting of organic food elements in their unaltered state,
WHOLE – complete and unfragmented, neither refined nor enriched,
POISON FREE – free from toxic chemical residues and additives.
Such foods provide sustenance and nourishment nutritionally, ethically, politically, ecologically, socially and economically.
Anything that comes in a can, packet, bottle, jar, carton or tetrapack is stale and is bereft of nurtients. If it has been cooked, baked, fried, roasted, toasted, preserved, homogenised or de-natured it cannot be termed as food. Nor is it food if it has inorganic chemical flavourings and other permitted colours. Though anything that can be eaten is termed as food, a substance can be classified as food only if it is – usable for growth, maintenance and repair and capable of being stored in our body.
Much of the food available in the market is unfit for consumption. It is not surprising, therefore, that these foods, since the last 70 years or so, have also contributed to the prevalence of illness and diseases, thanks to the efficiency of technology and global trade.
Sugar, white flour, processed and hydrogenated oils, synthetic vitamins, hydrolyzed proteins, transfatty acids, artificial flavourings and the extrusion process, all of which have harmful effects on our health are some of the ingredients that the food industry thrive on. Despite well documented record of debilitating human health caused by these ingredients, the grand mixture of all these depleted foods in attractive packaging find favour in global food trading.
Denatured foods are energy sapping and a burden on our digestive system. Digestive harmony is the key factor in building strength, endurance and resistance to diseases. Disease itself is directly related to the extent of toxic accumulation caused by eating such foods.
The link between diet and disease has long been established. Cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart ailments are directly related to our diet. All the carcinogens present in artificial additives such as MSG (Monosodium Glutamate), aspartame etc., drastically alter our immunological, reproductive and nervous systems resulting in diseases like AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, infertility, sterility and malignant cancers.Still we yield to temptations created by advertisements and forget our health concerns.
Our genetic structure has been designed for perfection. When traditional societies abandoned their local food and started eating processed foods, not only did their physical and facial structure change they also became more susceptible to diseases. This is a biological law that right foods make a strong body like good soil makes a healthy plant.
Gene relocation
The nutrition value and safety of the foods we consume depend on how we grow them. Modern biotechnology and industrial agriculture claim to usher in a second green revolution. Their aim is to re-design and engineer Nature through genetic manipulation. This is like a prescription for more expensive inputs and greater dependence on seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and other harmful chemicals.
The rationale for transgenic crops lies by and large, in the limits and failure of another system: chemical agriculture. The view that newer and sharper technologies will benefit our farmers, has to be seen in the light of 1,50,000 farmers committing suicide and 5,00,000 farm jobs lost every year.
Breeding genetically engineered/modified crops (toad genes in potatoes and scorpion genes in corn) for yield, rapid growth and storage life, is at the expense of taste and quality. Its side effect is the dilution effect, where fertilisation practices cause weight to increase more rapidly than nutrient accumulation in the crop. Chemical fertilisers pull extra water into food products making them larger, but less nutritious. This means such products are deficient in minerals, fibre, texture, micro nutrients, antioxidant and phytochemicals. Synthetic chemicals are acidic on the soil, killing all beneficial bacteria and destroying earthworms, making the soil fragmented and barren. Eating less nutrient dense food is partly why we need to eat more and more.
Eat healthy
We have progressed this far, seeking whatever we desire, trusting appearances and better packaging through technology. We all aspire for good health, better food and longer life. But this can only happen if we respect our natural wealth and eat foods that are fresh, wholesome, delicious and nutritive such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes and edible seeds. This gift of nature helps to preserve and conserve our human body and the earth. This is our organic heritage. Poisoning the soil, fragmenting, supplementing and denaturing our food, means poisoning our body. Disregarding its consequences is disregarding life itself.
Ten reasons to throw out your microwave oven
From the conclusions of the Swiss, Russian and German scientific and clinical studies, we can no longer ignore the microwave oven sitting in our kitchens. Based on this research, we put forward our observations for your decision:
1. Continually eating food processed from microwave oven causes long-term permanent damage by shorting out electrical impulses in the brain – (de-polarising or de-magnetising the brain tissues).
2. The human body cannot metabolise (break-down), the unknown by-products created in microwave oven.
3. Male and female hormone production is shot down/or altered by continually eating micro-waved food.
4. The effects of micro-waved food by-products are residual (long-term, permanent) within the human body.
5. Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all micro-waved food is reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit, or the human body absorbs altered compounds that cannot be broken down.
6. The minerals in vegetables are altered into free-radicals which are carcinogenic (cancer causing) when cooked in micro-wave oven.
7. Mirco-waved foods cause stomach and intestinal cancerous growth (tumours). This may explain the rapidly increasing rates of colon cancer in America.
8. The prolonged eating of micro-waved foods causes cancerous cells to increase and multiply in human blood.
9. Continual ingestion of micro-waved food causes immune system deficiencies through lymph gland and blood serum alterations.
10. Eating micro-waved food causes loss of memory, concentration, emotional instability and a decrease in intelligence.
Food irradiation
What is it?
The commercial use of radioactive material to treat spices, herbs, fresh fruits and vegetables, and meats.
Why?
To protect food from insects, to inhibit spoilage and to extend shelf life.
The consequences
Its safety is yet to be ascertained. How can nuclear food be safe?
Irradiation directly contributes to cancer, by causing free radicals to form, many of which are mutagenic.
Radioactive Cesium, a product of defence technology, its nuclear waste, is reused in irradiating our food that we directly eat.
GMOs
The use of GMOs (genetically modified organisms), is a radically new technology to move genes between different species, to create life forms that cannot happen through natural evolution. The alarm is that we will be eating these genetically re-arranged foods. These are living organisms that can reproduce and spread which is threatening our bio-diversity and other natural systems. It can cause an irreversible genetic pollution to our traditional crops. The build up of resistance in insects and plants and the effects on our body are yet to be calculated.
The writer has, for the last 30 years, been a health activist, nutritionist and life coach, guiding people to explore the connections between Food-Health-Ecology-Economy-and Ethics, for true Empowerment. She is also the founder of The Health Awareness Centre in Mumbai, whose work is defined by its slogan Health care is self care is earth care.