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Chapter 8
The Garden Within: From Soil to Cell and Back Again Featured Product: PLANeT Food Welcome to chapter eight of our Journey to Better Nutrition. In this discussion we deepen our knowledge and experience about how nutrition works inside the human body. This will lead us naturally and organically into a conversation about how the Simplexity Health products work inside the human body. The main purpose behind this and all our nutrition conversations is to assist you in experiencing optimum product benefits and results. And all of this is designed to be an integral part of your enthusiastic commitment to creating a healthier diet and lifestyle.
"The doctor of the future will give no medicine; but instead will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the causes and prevention of disease." -Thomas Edison Everything is connected Mr. Edison was right about a lot of things...and we are closer to his above vision than we were one hundred years ago. Although most physicians still give medicine in the form of prescription pharmaceuticals, more and more are seeking nutritional alternatives. This is an important development that is largely patient driven. Perhaps what Edison did not or could not anticipate is the radical paradigm shift in personal responsibility for nutrition and health. Medicine and doctors will always have their place, and their best purposes are becoming increasingly clear. Certainly trauma medicine, emergency medicine, infectious disease medicine, life or limb saving procedures, and certain diagnostic technologies, have their respective places and will become safer and more effective in the future. But when it comes to the subject of staying healthy day to day, modern "allopathic" medicine has much to learn from the teachers and practitioners of common sense nutrition. This may be the future Edison was seeing after all. One hundred years ago, no one could have anticipated that the ability to restore, maintain, and optimize health through better nutrition would become the rule rather than the exception, and that no dietary or medical "prescriptions" would be needed to accomplish this. When it comes to nutrition, flexibility and adaptability are the rule. Though the essential biological principles remain the same, how these principles are understood and integrated can vary for each individual and society. This is exactly what is happening in this country and around the world. It is exciting and long overdue. The awareness returning to the mainstream is the simple fact that what we eat, digest, absorb, and assimilate determines the quality of our health and well-being. What is rapidly returning to mainstream awareness is the common-sense realization that what the earth is, is what we are. The poet Ted Perry expressed it this way in his poem Where is the Eagle?
This we know. The earth does not belong to man; Man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites us all in one family. Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand within it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
The Web of Life "Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." This sums up the paradigm shift that is occurring in the parallel worlds of nutrition and medicine, ecology and commerce, philosophy and technology. This is the biological principle of interdependence, the "web of life" principle that was briefly discussed in chapter seven.
The Importance of Healthy Soil All the major civilizations of antiquity were communities of farmers and craftspeople who settled themselves along the richest and most fertile soil environments on earth...near the mouths of major rivers. This includes the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, the Ganges, the Yangtze, the Amazon, the Mississippi, and many others. Under normal ecological conditions (without human interference), it takes anywhere from one hundred to one thousand years for nature to produce one inch of healthy topsoil. This same amount of topsoil, one inch, can be lost in a sudden rain shower or thunderstorm in less than one hour! When early American settlers traveled west from the old, thin, and rocky soils of New England to the fertile river valleys of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, they found 18 to 24 inches of the richest, darkest soil they had ever seen. Today, over-farming, over-grazing, and the lack of traditional and organic farming techniques have reduced this once magnificent bread-basket for the world to a mere shadow of its former self. Today, soil depths of 3 to 6 inches are more common, and even these soils are held together with artificial and synthetic chemicals and fertilizers. When you look at the primary reason for the collapse of most ancient civilizations, you are looking at the demineralization and erosion of their topsoils.
References: Topsoil and Civilization by Tom Dale (2003)
The Physiology of Healthy Soil If we were able to examine this soil from the midwestern states of two hundred years ago, we would find the most amazing things living in it. In one single teaspoon of soil we would expect to find around six billion microorganisms. Almost half of our teaspoon of soil would be composed of minerals and trace minerals from decomposed plant and animal matter...more than 60 different kinds of minerals and trace minerals. The other half of the teaspoon would be composed of six billion microorganisms representing the entire spectrum of bacteria (including many forms of microalgae!), yeast, molds, and fungi. The soil would be dark in color, rich in aroma, and crumbly and spongy in texture. And if we could expand our teaspoon of soil into a bucket of soil we would find dozens of earthworms too. Earthworms feed off the microorganisms, which in turn feed off the minerals and decomposing plant and animal matter. Earthworms pass these nutrient raw materials from the soil through their own digestive systems, leaving behind mineral-rich feces or guano that contributes mightily to the health of the soil. Little earthworm tunnels also serve to aerate ('bring air') and hydrate ('bring water') the soil. Altogether, these microorganisms, decomposing plant and animal matters and insects in the soil represent a web of life that encourages the sprouting of plants from seeds, the growing of plants to full maturity and ripeness, and the digestion and decomposition of plants returning as compost in the fall. This represents a cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth...from soil to cell and back again!
Putting it all together...one day at a time. More creative and enthusiastic people are taking personal responsibility for their education, nutrition, and health. The quality of our lives improves steadily as we learn to ask and answer the following question: What nourishes me best? In these discussions we have deepened our knowledge and experience about how nutrition works inside the human body. This has led us to how the Simplexity Health products work in the human body. The main purpose behind this is that you experience optimum product benefits and results. It is our desire to remain an integral part of your commitment to the ongoing creation of your healthier diet and lifestyle. "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." --T.S. Eliot The first eight chapters of our journey to better nutrition will be concluded with a virtual tour of the garden within. See what you remember and rediscover as we go from soil to cell and back again.
Action Steps for Week Eight!
Congratulations!! You have just completed your Journey to Better Nutrition. Good luck!
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