Rules for Health Part 2

RULES FOR HEALTH, PART 2

 

Thy Food is thy medicine, thy medicine is poison

 

Humans are omnivores with the physiology of herbivores. Our alimentary canals are deigned like those of grass eaters, with long lengths to digest the roughage. Meat-eating animals  on the other hand, have short digestive passages, since meat putrefies faster and needs to be pushed quickly out of the system.

 

However, as we evolved from being monkeys collecting food from the trees to hunting on the plains, man developed the ability to digest meat. Pastoral peoples developed the ability to digest milk; not all races have milk as part of the diet. Eskimoes subsisted mainly on a diet of raw meat. Hot regions gravitated towards more spices in their food, and colder places towards bland food.

 

People fail to appreciate the importance of food in our overall well-being. The modern tendency of counting "calories" and "nutrients" has completely obliterated the wisdom of knowing what is healthy.

 

Food is a mechanism to transfer "vital energy" from one organism to another. The Indians gave this vital energy the name "prana" and the Chinese called it "Chi". Like electricity that powers a machine, the prana powers the body of all living beings, courses through it, and gives it life.  The sages of ancient cultures like India and China recognized the need to cultivate prana. The entire science of Wellness, from time immemorial,  is geared towards nurturing and enhancing prana or chi. This includes the rules of daily regimen (called 'dinacharya' in Ayurveda), sleep, diet, medicine, exercise, and even the arts like martial arts, dance, music, etc.

 

Western medicine views food in terms of reductionist paradigms like calories, vitamins, etc. The entire science of nutrition taught in colleges today, and the "medicine" that doctors study is devoid of any understanding of prana, which is what sustains us. Which is why it is unlikely that any good advice on health will emerge from the allopathic medical body of knowledge. Once in a while, they do get something right, but that is more out of luck than any real understanding.

 

 

Humans and "food" have evolved together for thousands of years. The body has learnt to recognize "whole foods" and "natural foods" and is in a position to digest and assimilate the nutrients contained in them.

 

Fruits and Vegetables are the primary food sources for humans which are most healthy. Among vegetables, some are recognized to be especially beneficial like green leafy vegetables, and carrots.  Grains came much later on the evolutionary timeline; in fact grains were initially used only to feed animals. They entered the human diet only about 6000 years ago. They are not very good for health in terms of nutrients, but they have a lot of slow burning calories which helps in sustenance. With increasing population pressures and with man moving to agriculture grains became a staple. From a health perspective, the use of grains in the diet needs to be minimized.

 

 

Salt is absolutely essential to the human diet. Land-locked people without access to the sea used to specially import salt, since they recognized it as necessary for the human body. Salt has about 80 trace elements which are necessary for the human body, in proportions that are ideally suited for digestion and assimilation. The story of salt is a very good example of how processed foods have helped to destroy our health.

 

What we are told is salt, is today nothing but processed NaCl, with all the minerals and trace elements removed. To add insult to injury they say they are adding iodine! And of course they add other chemicals to make it free-flowing, look white, etc. So what is the table salt you buy, is it salt at all? It is effectively something that looks like salt, tastes like salt, has some great properties that don't belong to salt (it is not hygroscopic for example, and is thus free flowing; is very very white), but what exactly is it? It is salt with all the beneficial trace minerals stripped out, and some artificial chemicals pumped in. We still think it is salt because we are all products of a reductionist educational system which teaches us that salt means NaCl – Sodium Chloride, something that can be manufactured in a test tube if you combine sodium and chlorine together!  And we are then schooled to believe that "pure" NaCl is good; the natural kind has too many "contaminants"; that the added artificial iodine (which is anyway useless) is "needed" for us; that manufactured salt is "standardized", and so on, and we are indoctrinated into believing that what we need is salt manufactured in a factory, and not the natural variety.

 

So when we say we are eating salt, what we mean is we are eating a chemical that is called salt, not salt at all. But through some magic of the thought process, we think that the chemical slop that we are eating is better than the original! Hail modern science!

 

Salt is just one example, at the most basic level, of processed food.

 

Similar are the stories with

 

"refined" oils,

 

"pasteurized" milk,

 

"white" sugar,

 

food with "added nutrients",

 

"fortified" foods,

 

 "vitamins" in a tablet form,

 

children's "health" drinks,

 

breakfast cereals,

 

 ready to eat foods,

 

any food that lasts for months,

 

 "irradiated" food,

 

 biscuits,

 

 two-minutes-for-cooking wonder foods,

 

foods that last for a long time without spoiling,

 

foods with added preservatives,

 

foods with added chemicals in order to imbue them with various good "qualities",

 

 

 any food that is advertised as good for you (remember advertising needs money, and money can never be made selling you a commodity, it needs to be made by selling you something "special" which by definition is bad for health),

 

zero-calorie alternatives,

 

"sugar-free" alternatives,

 

And a host of other abominations. We can write a separate article on each one of them, but it will only be an increasing tirade of litanies against the modern food industry.

 

All the above foods have lost their prana. They do not enhance health, they destroy it.

 

Rather than go the negative route, proving why each of the above is not good, it is better to go the positive route and see what is good for health. That is a shorter and more direct route, and is better for clarity and understanding.

 

We shall do that in the next part of this series.

 

Meanwhile, you can empty your pantry of all the "foods" listed above. You did that, and there is nothing left in the pantry? Ha Ha, we are off to a good start then.

 

Have a great weekend.

 

Dinesh Gopalan

25 July, 2020

 

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. But perhaps that is why you may do well to listen to me. When it comes to health, never listen to doctors is the right principle to follow.

 

(Posted to my blog http://www.dineshgopalan.com  )

 

Link to earlier articles in this series:

 

Rules for Health Part 1: https://www.dineshgopalan.com/2020/07/rules-for-health-part-1.html

 

 

Rules for Health Part 1

Rules for health are quite simple.

 

1. Sleep, get enough of it

 

2. Dinacharya (Daily Regimen):

 

2.1. have an oil bath at least once a week. Along with bath, do jalneti.

 

2.2 get fresh air and sunlight into your life. Avoid AC as far as possible. Step out without a mask and breathe deeply. Wear masks only where it is mandated.

 

2.3 . Corona is a flu, period. You will get it, develop the antibodies, and will be immune. Same as for all things out there. Ignore the fear and the panic around, a fearful mind and masks will make your body less immune. There is a small chance you will die of corona, welcome it, life is nothing without some uncertainty.

 

2.4 Walk. Preferably in the sun.

 

 

3. DIETARY RULES

 

3.1. Have food . Processed factory sludge is not good.

 

3.2 eat only those things that spoil but eat them before they spoil. Manufactured goods with long shelf life are not food.

 

3.3 buy only what grows, this includes vegetables, fruits, rice, dal, etc. Maggi does not grow. Biscuits and ready to eat foods don't either.

 

3.4 cook, or buy from the local auntie-ji who cooks at home. Eat fresh food within hours of cooking.

 

3 5. Let your diet consist predominantly of whole foods.

 

3.6 gradually reduce meat in the diet. Once that is done, gradually reduce the grains specially rice and wheat this is a long term multi year prescription.

 

3.7 ensure the stomach is at least half empty at all times, even after a full meal.

 

3.8 eat light at night, or not at all.

 

3.9 do intermittent fasting.

 

3.10 avoid or reduce: white sugar , pasteurised milk, refined oil, processed salt

 

3.11 have instead jaggery, organic milk or no milk at all, cold pressed oil, and raw sea salt or Himalayan rock salt. ( To be continued)

TODAY I PLEDGE

To step out boldly into fresh air, without any impediments

To breathe freely God given air, and partake in his bounty of light and freedom,

To give up all fear of fellow men and irrational things,

To keep myself strong to withstand what comes my way,

To not be fearful of everything floating in the air,

To face the world with equanimity,

To accept that total safety is a mirage,

And to live life to the fullest,

This I pledge to follow today, and everyday till the day I die

Dinesh Gopalan 

24 July, 2020

Time to lie low

Just saw an  article on likely bank NPA's in the near future, due to covid related economic devastation.

 There are a lot of worms in the woodwork, ready to pop out. This is true across the world. 

The markets meanwhile have been defying the laws of economics, common sense, and gravity. A lot of this has to do with liquidity that is being pumped into the system being diverted to assets , rather than to real production.

There is a high probability of some kind of collapse in the markets, in the next few months. Continuous QE's will result in a shock sometime, covid could be that catalyst. 

The central banks' response of more QE  to all economic problems nowadays , is being copied by the people for  the covid problem: mask the problem, don't know solution, waiting for a miracle vaccine which will worsen  the organism's health further,  and pray! And do nothing to improve the health of the organism anyway.

The world is living on vain hopes and prayers. Nature's law is merciless, but just.  Any organism that ignores the fundamental principles of health, and goes against immutable natural laws, will face the consequences. This applies as much to economies as to individuals.

My prescription for the near foreseeable future:

Lie low. Shift investments to debt bearing zero credit risk, yield is immaterial. Consider buying some gold. Eat well, sleep well, exercise, step out into the sun, be happy. And you don't have to bother with the mask, really

Meeting a Visitor

I am just imagining a scenario in a typical apartment complex nowadays

Visitor arrives to meet resident

Visitor stopped at gate

Visitor steps out wearing cloth mask, fibreglass visor, and plastic raincoat

Visitor's car sent to car wash

Visitor sent to fumigation room

Visitor walks thru fumigation room

Guard waits with temperature gun

Guard Points gun at visitor and shoots

Meanwhile, the resident

Wears mask, wears visor, wears full length plastic raincoat, picks up stick

Fumigates self, mask, visor, and stick

Looks around to see if no neighbours are close by

Uses stick to press lift buttons

Goes to main gate to meet visitor

Stays four feet away and greets visitor warmly 

Visitor steps back two feet since his doctor has told him six feet distance is needed 

Meeting is conducted, and concludes

Visitor steps into car, leaves

Resident goes back , but does not enter house immediately

His wife opens the door, rushes back, and locks herself in. Resident discards plastic raincoat, rubs hand with with sanitiser kept at main door, and walks to bathroom on his toes to ensure minimum contact with the floor.

Keeps rubbing himself with soap till half the bar disdolves, as advised by health ministry

Then rushes to his room and locks himself up

Both he and his wife heave a sigh of relief for having concluded this adventure without any mishap

( Posted to my blog 

http://www.dineshgopalan.com )