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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. In chapter four we referenced The Garden Within, a booklet about the importance of healthy intestinal flora by the pioneering physician and researcher Keith W. Sehnert, M.D. After all the technological discoveries and achievements of the last several hundred years, the piece of wisdom that is the most insightful is also the oldest and most simple: As you sow, so shall you reap. For the sake of this exercise, we'll pretend we live in a world of ecological perfection...human beings exist, but pollution does not. Imagine a world free of pollution and full of health. Every cell, tissue, organ, and system of your body would be working exactly the way nature intended. Normal functioning would be the rule...the possibilities are endless!
One day you go to your garden with a handful of seeds and plant what in a few months will become delicious carrots. After a little while you notice one of the seeds has sprouted and there is a tiny hair-like thing reaching into the soil from carrot seed. This sprout or root has even tinier hair-like things: rootlets. Before this happened, billions of soil bacteria have been devouring bits of leaves, twigs, hay, compost (green manure), and other organic plant and animal matter (turned into the soil by the farmer several months before planting). As the bacteria devour the various organic matter, trace minerals from the organic matter are released into the soil. What is it that stops the bacteria from devouring this delicate little carrot root? Amazingly, it is the soil bacteria's fierce rival and cooperative partner: fungi. Fungi, abundant in all healthy soil, cover the entire root and the rootlets. This allows for the absorption and assimilation of minerals and trace minerals into the developing carrot without the interruption of the ravenous bacteria. This is interdependence at its best! The carrot, like all food plants, has the ability to extract minerals and trace minerals from the soil and turn them into a vast reservoir of colorful pigments (phytonutrients), fibers, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, enzymes, amino acids, essential fatty acids, and every other micronutrient there is. Food plants do not accomplish this alone...the farmer, bacteria, fungi, and carrot seed all played a part. Once the carrot seed sprouted, the carrot's genetic blueprint (instructions needed for it to go from sprout to mature carrot) was released and the soil conditions were just right for the miracle of life to unfold and complete itself. What happens next is equally amazing.
Where have all the carrots gone? You have been waiting for a long time and finally pull a ripe carrot from the soil, shake off the soil fragments and rinse it in water. You begin chewing and the miracle of human digestion begins. Endogenous enzymes from the fibers of the carrot are released. Joining in are digestive enzymes from your saliva. You savor the sweetness as you swallow the first bite. Carrot pulp joins the other foods preparing themselves for the next phase of digestion. During this time, all the proteins have been broken down into amino acids through the action of several protease enzymes secreted by the stomach. The pH is radically different than it was in your mouth (saliva is alkaline, around 7.1, and stomach acid is acidic, anywhere from 1.3 to 5.9 ) because hydrochloric acid has been pumping into your stomach to disinfect any pathogenic bacteria, fungi, yeasts, or parasites. The beneficial bacteria in your foods survive this acid, along with your digestive enzymes and all other micronutrients. Once the newly arrived carrot has been blended into the other foods you ate for breakfast, the pH rises to a more appropriate level. The stomach sends a signal to the brain, which sends a signal to the nervous system, which sends a signal back to the stomach with permission to open the pyloric valve and release the contents of the stomach into the duodenum (the beginning of the small intestine). Here in the duodenum, the last stages of digestion occur and the earliest stages of absorption and assimilation of nutrients begin. In the time that your breakfast was in your stomach, your liver, gall bladder, pancreas, and spleen were busy producing enzymes and bile salts to emulsify and break down the lipid (fatty) portions of your meal; these organs working together direct their digestive juices to the gall bladder. As the liquefied food from the stomach enters the duodenum, the gall bladder releases its contents (this action also functions to raise and stabilize the pH of the digesting food). Within minutes of entering the duodenum, what started as whole food macronutrients are rapidly converted into proteins, carbohydrates, fiber, and fats (lipids), then into their micronutrient assemblies, such as vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, enzymes, essential fatty acids, antioxidants, pigments, probiotics, and amino acids. These micronutrients have been liberated from the various fibers of their whole food sources and are now in a soup-like consistency called chyme. In the small intestine are billions of fleshy, finger-like projections called villi on all sides. On the surface of these villi, are billions of smaller villi called micro-villi and trillions of bacteria, mostly acidophilus. These bacteria keep the villi and micro-villi clean, as well as keeping the thin layer of intestinal mucous healthy and strong. The bacteria also assist in the transfer of nutrients through the micro-villi, across the one-cell thick intestinal wall, and into the red blood cells and lymphatic fluids on the other side. From there the nutrients in our blood flow directly to the liver via the hepatic vein, for final purification and then distribution to all the cells of the body. Remember our carrot's process of sprouting, to rootlet hairs and then to full maturity? The process of turning organic matter into mineral-rich 'soup,' with protection provided by fungi or bacteria, and finally absorption and assimilation of nutrients, seems very familiar. There are miraculous similarities in the way that all living things digest, absorb, and assimilate their foods and essential nutrients. Next time you hear the phrase "root cause," think of our carrot story, and how the roots were nourished and fed. And think of your own intestinal villi and micro-villi, showing the root causes of our own ability to transform and assimilate the food plants from the earth into the cells, tissues, organs, and systems of our body.
"Food is the soil from which the tree of our own life is grown."
During the next 8 to 12 hours, moving through six-inch segments of the small intestine, the micronutrients in our digested food (chyme) make their way across the intestinal wall into cells of our blood and lymph. This is absorption and assimilation. The micronutrients are literally absorbed by the villi and micro-villi and then transported across the intestinal wall until they are assimilated. Once picked up by the circulating blood and lymph cells on the other side of the intestinal wall, the micronutrients are transported to the liver for final purification and storage. When cells need nutrients, they contact a neuro-transmitter (protein, mineral, or enzyme-rich messenger cell) and send the request to the brain. The brain sends a message to the liver (again via neuro-transmitters) and the nutrients are delivered faster than you can say federal express! Micronutrients are delivered to our cells and metabolic products are produced, information is exchanged between nearby cells, and waste products are neutralized and eliminated. Any non-nutritious substances that may have found their way into our cells (escaping stomach acid, intestinal probiotics, and detoxification in the liver) will be identified by the enzyme-based "recycling center" inside each cell, and then neutralized and eliminated. All cellular waste products are returned to our blood and lymph fluids in a non-toxic, neutralized state and make their way out of the body through the many normal channels of elimination. Many scientists and common-sense observers now say that proper digestion, absorption, and assimilation of nutrients, along with the elimination of any waste, results in clear thinking and healthy behaviors, while improper digestion, absorption, and assimilation of nutrients, along with improper elimination of waste, results in sick thinking and behaviors. Let's say that all is well inside our body. Some of our normal metabolic wastes are eliminated through expiration (breathing out carbon dioxide), some through perspiration, and some through urine. Most of our metabolic waste finds its way back to our large intestine where it recombines with the unused portion of our previous meal (mostly fiber and lots of bacteria and water) turning into feces, which is the human equivalent of plant manure or compost. And there you have it...from soil to cell and back again! The journey from soil to cell and back again goes on without interruption, obstruction, or interference.
Lee Hayes wrote a funny song back in the 1970s that describes this oneness with the natural world:
If I should die before I wake
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