HOW DOES THE FOOD YOU EAT AFFECT YOUR VITALITY? WHAT IS LIVING FOOD? AND WHAT IS THE LAW OF RETURN?
WILL TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT THE IMPLICATIONS IN THE TITLE AND SUBTITLE.
FIRST THE TITLE IMPLIES THAT THERE MUST BE A CONNECTION BETWEEN FOOD, THAT IS WHAT WE EAT, AND OUR VITALITY.
SECOND THAT FOOD MIGHT ENABLE US TO EXPERIENCE A VITAL QUALITY OF LIFE, INFLUENCE OUR SENSE OF WELL BEING, OUR HEALTH AND OUR ABILITY TO BE EFFECTIVE PEOPLE
THIRD IT COULD IMPLY THAT FOOD MIGHT HAVE A DIRECT CONNECTION TO THE VITALITY AND HEALTH PASSED ON TO OUR OFFSPRING WHEN WE REPRODUCE.
WE CAN SEE THAT THE TITLE COULD ENCOMPASS MUCH MORE THAN JUST THE COMMON MEANINGS OF THE WORDS. MY APPROACH TO THE TITLE WILL BE A DIRECT REFERENCE TO THE NATURE CURE PHILOSOPHY, A PHILOSOPHY WHICH IS AGELESS, COMPREHENSIVE AND ALL INCLUSIVE.
IT IS A PHILOSOPHY OF WHOLENESS, LOOKING AT LIFE ENTIRELY, A WORD VERY WELL DESCRIBED BY MY LATE COLLEAGUE MORRIS MUIRHEAD WHEN HE INTRODUCED OUR STUDENTS TO THE SUBJECT OF THE “NATURE CURE PHILOSOPHY” AND FIRST DEMONSTRATE THIS CONCEPT OF WHOLENESS BY SAYING SLOWLY:-
“W H O L E N E S S”
WHILE CIRCLING HIS ARMS, TO IMPRESS UPON HIS STUDENTS THAT THE NATURE CURE PHILOSOPHY IS ALL EMBRACING, A PHILOSOPHY THAT IS ALWAYS OPEN TO ALL, INCLUSIVE NEVER EXCLUSIVE!
THE TITLE ALSO CONNECTS THE WORDS “F O O D” AND “V I T A L I T Y” WITH “Y O U R” I AM NOT GOING TO ATTEMPT A DEFINITION OF “Y O U R” EXCEPT TO SAY THAT THE WORD “Y O U R” IN THE TITLE EMBRACES US ALL.
THE SUBHEADING ALSO SUGGESTS THAT I AM GOING TO INCLUDE A DEFINITION OR EXPLANATION OF THE “LAW OF RETURN”. HOWEVER, WITH YOUR PERMISSION I WILL LEAVE THIS TO THE END OF MY LECTURE. NOT THAT IT IS OF LESSER IMPORTANCE, BUT WHEN I INTRODUCE THE SUBJECT AT THE END OF THE LECTURE YOU WILL BE MORE ABLE TO BRING TOGETHER THE MANY ASPECTS OF THE ENTIRE LECTURE THAT I AM DEALING WITH.
THE INTRODUCTION OF “THE LAW OF RETURN” AT THE END OF THE LECTURE WILL ALSO HELP US TO APPRECIATE THAT ALL THINGS TO DO WITH LIFE ARE INTERCONNECTED AND DEMONSTRATE THE IMPORTANCE OF THE NATURE CURE PHILOSOPHY OF WHOLENESS.
SO WE WILL FIRST ATTEMPT TO DEFINE THE WORD FOOD.
FOOD:- A GENUINE FOOD IS A LIVING AND EDIBLE ITEM, THAT WILL SUPPLY NOURISHMENT TO THE BODY AS A WHOLE AND WILL NOT CAUSE A SPECIFIC EFFECT.
TO EXPLAIN:
If we eat an item represented as a food, and after eating it we note that it is causing a specific effect, say:
Stimulating us and then later making us feel tired
Causes us to have discomfort in the stomach
Or a strange feeling in our head
Or later to cause diarrhoea
Or excessive passage of water
Or stimulates our appetite causing us to eat excessively
Then in nature cure terms we would state that such ‘food’ items ARE NOT FOODS for you, no matter how accustomed to such a ‘food’ you may become by constant use.
Note:- This is a specific guide for the individual, for we must realise that we are all not the same, we have differing sensitivities in-built from past generations. It is important that we are constantly aware of the fact that we are individuals, WE ARE NOT CLONES!
We must not be deceived by adverts which state that the analysis of a product makes it a desirable food, for I am sure that we could look at the complete analysis for deadly nightshade and find that there are components in Deadly Nightshade that have good potential food values, but, at the same time there are in the full analysis some components that are very toxic, even deadly.
This leads us to the basic, and essential approach that we are wise to adopt to the living foods best suited to man in the environment and climate which he lives.
The most abundant foods grown in this climate are:-
Green leafy vegetables, some of which are seasonal, and, as a classification of food, are available all year round. Lettuce, rocket, parsley, mint, ect in summer and autumn. Cabbage, sprouts, leeks, spinach, seakale (swiss chard) ect almost the whole year round.
Root vegetables which have a long season and offer a good variety during the winter season and some into spring and summer: carrots, Swedes, parsnips, beetroot, ect.
Grains grow very well here and can be a good source of energy for action and warmth: wheat, barley, oats, and rye.
Soft fruits in the summer food which can, I believe, stimulate the body cleansing process and help us discard the rubbish that accumulates in tissues over the winter.
Tree fruits, plums, damsons, apples, pears, etc. Each of these have their own season and different keeping qualities, they arte a limited source of food for us in this climate, and nowhere as abundant as green leafy items.
If we consider the above list of foods, it soon becomes apparent that if we are to eat foods from our native soils, and according to seasonal availability, we would eat mainly greens, roots and grains, the food of the collector gatherers.
Whilst we require some protein in our foods, in this climate protein can best be obtained from cereal, seeds and nuts. We must, however, remember that there is protein in every living cell and thus, even though foods are classed as foods low in protein they are still valuable to the reasonably healthy intestines which have a healthy intestinal bacterial flora. The interesting fact often little thought of is that cows and other grass eating animals build their proteins from their green vegetable source. Note:- Cows are much healthier in fields which have good mixed herbal hay, unlike many fields, these days, that only have perennial rye-grass growing in them.
I have not included proteins from dairy and poultry sources no matter how valuable these can be to human nutrition they can be easily over eaten, and too great an importance can be placed on them in particular for adults. Children need and would be wise to eat more of these protein foods.
And with reference to the end products, the flesh of these farmed animals and birds, they can be very toxic if conventional intensive farming practices are employed. We only need to look back over the last four or so years and remember the BSE, Scrapie, fowl pest, and swine fever. These problems have been some what tempered by the agricultural industry and news vendors.
I can, with gratitude to my parents who changed to a vegetarian way of life at around twenty years of age, state that I have never knowingly eaten, fish, flesh or fowl, my four children and most of my ten grandchildren like wise. Nor have any of us been vaccinated or immunised and we all enjoy above average health and well being.
A clear way of looking at the nutritional needs of man is to compare our digestive system to a production laboratory. If the raw materials are inadequate, the production process can never operate at their optimum quality levels, the end results will never be satisfactory nor produce fully saleable products.
Top quality foods are required if we require top quality health enjoyment and progeny!
No other approach can be entertained if we require the best health for ourselves and our families!
NEXT WE NEED TO DEFINE THE WORDS LIVING AND EDIBLE.
Living and Edible are two very important words from the nature cure view point, for it is our contention that man at the beginning of human existence, and for millions of years to the present time, knew little about cooking other than that done by the sun! He may have know about killing if he was a ‘hunter gatherer’, but, his most easily obtained food source in this part of the world would have been the sun cooked and gathered foods. Man’s gathering of vegetation, flowers, grains, fruits, seeds and roots for his food selection would have been dependant upon the season of the year, and his environment.
The last two points, the season of the year and the location, are very important aspects of human nutrition. We are convinced that the foods which easily grow around us are the best and most desirable foods, such foods are also adapted to the climate and environment in which we live. This is no accident of nature but part of the natural adaptation and selection throughout nature.
So man, by trail and error, found foods that were edible and if not in the state of active life, he found them living yet dormant, for example, seeds that were waiting for the right conditions to reactivate life again, and thus continue their life cycle.
Life can then be seen as a vital progression from one phase of life to another, perpetuating the species for the benefit of all. Unlike man’s present civilisation where monetary greed has corrupted our society.
Might I digress for a moment and ask you to examine yourself when I pose the following questions.
Can you move your jaws from side to side?
How do you lose heat from your body?
Can you roll an item between your finger and your thumb?
Do your canine teeth protrude outside and lower than your lip?
And what action do you use to get fluids into your mouth?
Man is the only animal to which all these features apply, they are basic anatomical factors in common with the vegetable, grain and fruit eating species. And may have some connection with the first chapter of the bible!
This would suggest that: no matter how we have been reared by our parents, our blueprint, over the millions of years, has developed into the gathere and collector, rather than the hunter style of existence. The most critical examination of man can only class us as “omnivorous” never “carnivorous”. So different from the flying, swimming, and crawling hunters of this world.
Unless of course we were Eskimos!
Living foods
A living food is a food substance that is still in the state of active life when we eat it. A lettuce, even though cut from its roots will still continue to grow a little, more so if it can take up water. An apple is living, though in a less active state, and waiting to be eaten to disperse its seeds. A grain of wheat, hazel nut or carrot though they look dormant are actively living and waitng for the right conditions in which to demonstrate the very active state of life that is waiting to erupt. The ‘life-force’, that lies dormant within them, just awaiting the conditions of renewed growth!
Nature cure has maintained, for hundreds of years, that we require to eat living foods if we wish to have the best living experience of life. Most important if we wish to recover from a dis-ease state. Living foods have a vibrant quality that, when eaten, pass on vibrant quality to the eater.
And more importantly, living foods carry this living value which is an essential part of their nutritional value. The vitamins, minerals and trace elements are actively taking part in the living process within their cells which makes life possible. In a packet of vitamin pills etc. the vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, in such pills, are dead, divorced from life. They are separated from the other vibrant living processes of the cells with which they should be associated.
We can all or should be able too detect the inedible from the edible. This is a natural and in-built instinctive guide. You only have to look at a baby left to crawl in a garden, or the young of any species, sampling items and rejecting the undesirable. This is a factor that should be available to us throughout life, it is therefore understandable that some people find some foods unacceptable. Some food items, for example modern wheat varieties, are specifically unacceptable to some people, and their physiological make up quickly lets them know. It is very interesting that one of the oldest varieties of wheat, spelt wheat for example, is often found to be acceptable to people with a wheat sensitivity. Another common example is the peanut.
In February I had ten days with Dr John Fielder, and his wife and students, at their health farm and naturopathic school situated in the depth of the north Queensland rainforest, Australia. John Fielder, a naturopath and chiropractor, has over thirty years replaced forest trees with fruit trees, mangoes, bananas, paw paws, and avocadoes and many fruits I had not come across before. They live on those fruits with some raw salad foods as well, the foods around them supply them with the major food and fluid requirements. And, if extra fluid was required rain water was available collected from the roof of the practice block.
The temperature was H.O.T. – hot, the fruits grown were able to supply me with almost all the fluid required, This was a very good example of eating the foods that grow in the environment you find yourself in. Dr Fielder has had nothing but sun cooked, raw foods, for thirty years or more. Again, a n nutritional practice suited to the environment of the tropics.
The se foods were grown organically without the use of herbicides, pesticides and artificial fertilisers and when supplied to patients, good health can be regained. As here in Britain, eating living foods suited to a colder climate can assist patients to regain their health. So the British Naturopath encourages patients to eat mainly raw organic foods, with some cooked. Foods suited to our colder climate to improve the body’s health so that it can get down to the serious activity of healing and returning to “high level health” Ref James C. Thomson Registered Naturopath.
WE NOW DEFINE EDIBLE
This has brought us to another very important issue. Many items put up in packets and sold in supermarkets could be defined as “edible”. They can be eaten without causing any immediate specific or detrimental effect, they are called “convenience foods”. They do not require washing, some not even cooking, many already in containers that will withstand the “Ordeal” of microwave cooking. They are flavoured, seasoned, coloured, (more often by chemical additives), finely divided so they need no chewing — They are absolutely lifeless –and that word, for me, gives the ultimate importance to such products. They have no part to play in the life of people who are wishing to regain or preserve their health, and more important, nor for the young wishing to improve the health of their present or future offspring. This is a bold statement and I will stand by it.
For me an edible food means food items that are preferably alive at the time of eating, have been grown on good organic living soil, or foods from well fed organically reared livestock free from pesticides, herbicides, anti-biotics, and other toxic medications. In other words, foods fit to eat, living, healthy, and edible in every sense of the word food! Food items, therefore that will give life to life, and health to health. Foods that have maintained life for thousands, even millions of years, on this earth.
THIS LEADS ME TO THE NEXT AND THOUGHT PROVOKING ASPECT OF OUR PRESENT DAY HUMAN SOCIETY, IN BOTH THE DEVELOPED, AND THE UNDEVELOPED WORLD.
Many claims have been made that we must have:-
Artificial fertilisers;
Pesticides;
Herbicides;
Antibiotics for intensive livestock rearing;
Medications to make this intensive system workable so they can be sold before they die!
And the latest GMO’s or biotechnological progress artificially moving genes across species barriers, bacteria to sheep, human to mice, human to pigs. (For the development of human transplants) etc etc. Why?
IN ORDER TO FEED THE EVER INCREASING WORLD POPULATION!
I BELIEVE THERE IS A BIG MISCONCEPTION AT WORK HERE!
In the study of living creatures, bacteria, fungus, and that also includes plants and animals, it has been found on many occasions that when life is made difficult for any species the tendency is to, first attempt adaptation to the problem, and then increase its procreative functions. Simple examples could be the pruning of trees, poor low level accommodation, at first the effective use of antibiotics on bacteria etc, which then adapt and create even bigger problems for the drug houses!
We must accept that the world population has increased by leaps and bounds in the last century. Yet the drug houses, the chemical fertiliser organisations, and now the GMO weed controlling and pest controlling agencies, all claim that their efforts and production processes are justified in order to maintain a food supply for the ever increasing world population!
I ASK THE VERY SERIOUS QUESTION. ARE THE DEVELOPMENTS IN THE WORLD OF SCIENCE, IN THE ARES THAT I HAVE JUST OUTLINED, IN FACT, THE VERY CAUSE OF THE INCREASING WORLD POPULATION?
Have some of the pioneers of the past had a glimpse of this factor:-
Rachial Carson, author of “silent Spring”
Lady Eve Balfour, author of “The Living Soil”
Sir Albert Howard, Author of “The agricultural Testament”
To name but a few visionaries.
I REALISE THAT THIS IS A VERY CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE, SO I PRESENT IT TO YOU AS ’FOOD’ FOR SERIOUS THOUGHT.
I would remind you that when real food qualities are at their highest, breeding in most species is of a lesser importance, for the perpetuation of the species is in less doubt.
SO FAR I HAVE COVERED, NO MATTER HOW INADEQUATELY, THE VITAL ISSUES OF TRUE, LIVIING, EDIBLE AND LIFE SUPPORTING FOODS. IT IS NOW TIME WE TURNED OUR ATTTENTION TO THE NEXT IMPORTANT WORD, VITALITY.
How can I define the word VITALITY and its connection to human life and health. We might best follow the Nature Cure line of defining vitality if we start with some non living examples.
For York, and indeed Yorkshire folk, you may well have heard of Thompson, the high quality furniture craftsmen, referred to worldwide as “The Mouse Man” of Kiburn. (So called as he carved a mouse on all items made by him and his associates). Thompson and his successors and associates, first choose with great care the best quality Oak or other quality English Woods. They looked for the best and used the best. IF you visit The village of Kilburn you will see, in various areas of the village, stacks of naturally seasoning timbers. Note, not the more modern approach- kiln dried!
The Thompson family have built their name on good quality furniture that has the vitality (enduring quality) enabling their quality furniture to function for hundreds of years.
Rolls Royce got a name for quality, (we will have to see what the present take over will do with the name and quality!) Rolls Royce did not use any old metal for his springs or engine blocks etc, nor would he allow anything but the best in workmanship from start to finish. Rolls Royce cars were of the best quality and, lasting “vitality”.
We hope that Rolls Royce aircraft engines will continue to be built to the highest standard; for we might be in the air and dependant for our life upon their vital and reliable quality!
Neither of these examples just happened, they were the result of real care and design, materials and craftsmanship which resulted from years of experience, and great human pride in the end product. A determination to produce only the best.
These two examples will suffice and help to explain what I mean by vitality.
Vitality in human beings can also be related to:- the quality of our general up-bringing, thee love, care, protection and devotion of our parents; the quality of nutrition from well before conception and through birth to maturity. Sadly human beings are not encouraged to look at these essential requirements for a healthy human race.
‘Handed down tissue vitality’ of both father and mother have a very important part to play in the vitality of the offspring. We humans are just like racehorses, you can only get the best stamina by matching the best mare and stallion; the best will depend upon their lifetimes feeding and previous breeding qualities.
Vitality is similar to a dowry, we can spend it and then have little to pass on to the next generation or, be frugal with it; or work hard to maintain our dowry, or even try to increase it, so we can pass it on enhanced for the next generation.
So, now, do you just sit back and say that there is nothing you can do about the state you find yourself in?
I would like to draw your attention, again, to my late colleague Morris Muirhead who I have already referred too. He was born to parents who had grave problems during the first world war. Morris suffered from the effects of malnutrition, his sternum went inward not outward as is normal, in fact, there was little space if any between his spine and his sternum giving very little room for his heart and lungs to work. His breathing capacity was very restricted, his heart and lungs were handicapped. All this through no fault of his own, or his parents, but circumstances of conscience, war and unavoidable malnutrition.
Morris was born with poor vitality!
I know that he would not have minded me using him as an example of a person with poor vitality, for in doing so he will serve the very good purpose of illustrating the very important Nature Cure explanation of vitality.
“It is not a case of what you’ve got, but, what you do with what you’ve got!”
By Now I can almost forecast what some of you will be thinking; I am what my parents gave me, I can do nothing about it, it is a situation of ‘fait accompli’, I can never be really well.
In the case of my late colleague and friend, I will long remember a conversation with his younger brother at Morris’s funeral. His Brother stated:-
“With Morris’s most careful lifestyle I was sure that I would be the first to go!”
To which I replied,
“you may not realise, but with Morris’s physical problems he would, normally, not have lived much longer than 40 years, if that. But, due to his careful Nature Cure lifestyle, he adapted to his physical problems and lived a very full, yet measured life, he knew his limits and he knew how to live within them:- possibly at times seeing a little self centered. He lived to care for others and in his retirement, for the students, who will long remember his ‘philosophy of nature cure’ lectures for their insight into the problems that many experience.
The lesson we can learn from this is it’s never too late to start living a more positive lifestyle, and, if still in the procreative years, pass on something better than you had passed on to you. But, not just before you start procreating or you could cause the baby to be your healing crisis, making mother feel better but at baby’s expense!
To understand this point read “The Healing Crisis” by C . Leslie Thompson
THERE ARE, IN A WAY, TWO TYPES OF VITALITY.
We have covered one aspect, that which is passed on to us by our forebears, our dowry. Sadly if people smoke or drink alcohol, tea, coffee, their ability to pass on good vitality is limited, for it is well known that they can adversely effect the process of embryonic development; the growth of the baby in the mothers womb. Sadly though it is widely known, even in medical circles, most people, conditioned by civilisation, just don’t want to know:-
“Please don’t disturb my pleasures”!
The logical fact is that;- potential parents have to earn vitality for the next generation!
The second type of vitality can be described as a quality of health which has to be a direct outcome of our mode of living. This includes our quality of food, exercise, sleep, rest, recuperative activity, and social habits.
We can see this by the comparison with two makes of car: The reliant Robin three wheeler is of a lower quality or vitality of the Rolls Royce. If however the owner of the Reliant Robin uses his car with care, services his car with care, applies the best quality oils and fuels, he will get good long and reliable service from it.
On the other hand the Roll’s owner can abuse his vehicle and yet continue to get good service and a high quality from his Roll’s. However with the same care given to the Roll’s that I have suggested for the Reliant Robin, the Rolls will give superb performance, and, it will also display that day to day vitality and, quality performance away into the future. It will maintain its pristine condition.
This was so well put by a computer engineer:-
“Rubbish in Rubbish out” Such a straight forward and profound statement!
No matter what quality of “endowed vitality” we have been given, our day to day experience of good health and vitality will be dependant on the same principle of care that will be given the Reliant Robin owner his good returns from his vehicle.
We require to take in vital living foods to get the best:- vital returns of well being; body self-cleansing processes (dis-ease), or healing crises (see above ref) ; Maintenance and desirable level of good health.
We must also realise that:-
“Good health is rarely placid” As a rule it is a study in dynamics and every now and then it can assume an aspect of pure violence. This exuberance makes for misunderstanding. People mistake healthy reactions for disease and try to stop them, particularly as healthy phenomena are not generally studied. Indeed except by the Nature cure school, health as such is not investigated. The usual acceptance is that health is a negative quality- a mere absence of symptoms of disease. This conception is ludicrously false.”
Quotation- from James c. Thomson’s “Appendicitis” revised version 1944.
CAN WE GAIN THE TWO QUALITIES OF VITALITY FROM OUR FOOD INTAKE?
I am confident that the answer to this is in the affirmative! It is just plain common sense, that when ‘mousey’ Thompson makes the best furniture, by fine craftsmanship and the best quality wood, he has put into his furniture a real and lasting quality.
It is only applying basic logic: that, human beings can also attain a similar high quality, of health and vitality, if they eat the best living and nutritive foods and use their bodies wisely. Then, and only then, can they pass on quality health and reproductive vitality to their progeny,.
The best quality food must have those, grown in your own garden by totally “organic” methods, providing the opportunity to eat them ‘freshly gathered, freshly prepared, eaten soon after gathering, and, if cooked done so for the shortest possible time with the minimum of water.’
This Is not possible for many who may not have a garden, so the next best must be bought organically grown foods, grown to the standards of one of the Organic Certifying organisation. The oldest of these associations is the soil association founded 52 years ago by Lady Eve Balfour, Sir Albert Howard and many others, an organisation formed to further the concept as stated in the first memorandum of its association:-
“To advance the education of the public by promoting a full understanding of the importance of the vital relationship between the health of the living soil, plants, animals, people and the environment.”
Living food means:- A total living sequence and organisation in the chain of life, from the seed, to maturity, to the seed. Including processes that enable life to function fully, normally and in accordance with the positive and creative principle of nature.
Crossing species, breeding to enhance true qualities, and the use of methods that accord with Nature eg. Natural selection and cross breeding, processes that have been a natural part of life since life first emerged; I find Acceptable.
But, I consider techniques – that can only happen in the laboratory by man’s “scientific” yet mischievous use of mechanisms of man’s own development, [GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS], as being contrary to Nature and thus to the ling term health and life on this planet.
This is a bold statement, but I will stand by it. Our modern industrial man, could in a short period of time, be the creator of his own demise!
Other civilisations must also have thought they had all the answers!
NOW FOR “THE LAW OF RETURN”, THE PROCESS THAT HAS CONTINUED TO MAKE LIFE POSSIBLE SINCE THE BEGINNING OF LIFE ON EARTH.
It is very important that the Law of Return is a living process: returning life to that which has come from life. It is a process that has been making life possible from the beginning of life on earth. Nature never wastes her resources, she always returns them to the life of the soil that which she has given to life. The leaves fall from the trees, grasses and other plants, (not forgetting the dead insects and animals) go to the ground, they are then processed by many other forms of life into nourishment for the next seasons growth, whilst also feeding those who do the processing. A wonderful and balanced economy!
Soil is not the dead inert material that some seem to think it is, more so when foods grow in sterile mediums, ie hydroponics. The life in the soil defies comprehension; for instance:- there are more bacteria in a cubic centimeter of living soil than there are human beings on earth,( and including men in space!). A normal population of earthworms can turn over 25 tons of soil an acre per year! ref. Darwins work on the earthworm. And so much more could be said to underline the life in the soil.
Modern scientific man seems to think that he knows more than nature when he adds soluble chemical fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides onto farm and horticultural land with the intention of growing more food to feed the ever increasing world population. I would ask you to reflect on what I have already said on the issue of the increasing world population!
The application of the law of return should entail returning to the land the waste materials of all living processes. This should now be applied to the return of human waste which finds its way through our sewage system. However, particularly today, sewage contains products which are far removed from those of nature. I therefore strongly maintain that sewage sludge of the late 90’s, as it stands, is not a safe product. Research into further biological treatments of sewage, to remove contaminants of our ’scientific’ era, will be essential before we can safely return human waste to the land.
The present day return of sewage wastes to our agricultural and horticultural land has become a very serious issue, (due to new EU. Regulations relating to the cessation of disposing of sewage sludge in the sea by 1999). We must accept that sewage has dramatically changed in the last fifty years, due to scientific “advances” in all spheres of life. Many sophisticated and questionable chemical products are applied:-
In agricultural and horticultural processes of food production;
In industrial processes,
In the domestic cleansing operations,
In many mechanical servicing industries etc.
A high proportion of these sophisticated and largely toxic chemicals find their way directly or indirectly, into our sewage system.
Added to this, there are the many toxic and highly sophisticated developments in the sphere of human and animal medication and contraception; of which 80-90% taken by humans, and some for the domestic animal population, will also go directly into our sewers!
(No wonder that Sir William Ostler, 50 and more years ago said “most of the medications given to human beings end up in the sea, the better for the humans but the worse for the fish!”)
A EUROPEAN HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY
It is time that the European population encouraged serious research into finding ways of treating sewage, dealing with this vast problem of our civilisation, in a living and biological manner, not just killing pathogens by Gamma rays or other life destructive measures. Instead dealing with the industrial and medical wastes biologically, so that sewage sludge would then again be an acceptable product, and safe in the long term, for returning to the land. By ’biologically’ I mean using living processes to remove or alter toxic wastes which are an inevitable part of modern sewage sludge or Bio Waste.
WE MUST END ON A VERY POSITIVE NOTE, WE MUST KEEP OUR FOCUS ON THE FUTURE, AND VERY POSITIVE ASPECTS OF A HEALTHY LIFE-STYLE.
We must be encouraged, and help others to see the positive qualities of life around us.
To take part in outdoor activities be it gardening, walking or cycling. Whilst out and about looking at the good things in life, and avoid becoming depressed and therefore ineffective by allowing our positive energies for a change to be dissipated by anxiety.
We should seek opportunities to walk through the hills and dales of Yorkshire or in other parts of the world, looking at the natural beauty and appreciating it, and renew our determination to do our little bit to salvage the positive aspects of our society.
We must also accept that, in nature, individual life does not go on forever, trees must reach maturity, plants, animals, birds and insects likewise. We must appreciate that nature has created her own undertakers who are constantly applying the natural law of return for the good of us all.
THOUGH I HAVE COME TO THE END OF MY LECTURE, WE HAVE ALL REACHED THE BEGINNING OF THE REST OF OUR LIFE. I SINCERELY HOPE THAT I HAVE GIVEN YOU A LOT OF POSITIVE AVENUES TO EXPLORE, LET ALONE THE OPPORTUNITY TO LOOK AT, AND MAKE CHANGES TO YOUR OWN LIFE.
MAY WE IN SOME SMALL WAY HELP TO CHANGE THE PATTERN OF THE LAST 50 YEARS OF THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE. ASSIST IT TO BECOME WHAT IT PURPORTS TO BE A “HEALTH SERVICE” RATHER THAN A “DISEASE SERVICE”! A SERVICE THAT HAS BEEN MORE TO DO WITH THE PROFITABLE STUDY AND TREATMENT OF DISEASE, RATHER THAN UNDERSTANDING AND RESEARCH INTO THE TRUE NATURE OF HEALTH AND TEACHING THE PROMOTION OF HEALTH.
Lecture delivered at Atul Shah’s day seminar
Saturday 25th September 1998
By
H. LESLIE HARRISON