Diet - Part 2
This is a book about Hatha Yoga and I am writing it mainly from the point of view of your health. However, the body and the mind being inseparable, in showing you how to self control the one I cannot but mention from time to time the effect upon the other. As Yoga gives your body a new lightness and suppleness you will find that you have gradually become a more spiritual person and food would be of less importance to you than before. You will become more sensitive to the feelings of others and therefore stop to consider the feelings of helpless animals in slaughterhouses up and down the country. You who long to be slim, to regain your youthful suppleness and vitality, are going to be helped to this end not, as I warned you at the beginning, by any magical or ‘crash’ diet, but simply by adapting your consuming habits and technique of thinking. Where to commence ? First of all bear in mind that our bodies are only nourished by food which they can break down and assimilate and that, ideally, all food should be laxative. This is far from the case, however, and far too much devitalized and unnatural food is being consumed in this modern world with the result that an appallingly high percentage of the population suffers from constipation and other illnesses of the digestive tract. As I said at the start of chapter eight, the Yogis name constipation as ‘the Mother of all diseases’, and here we might aptly name devitalized food as ‘the mother of all constipation and digestive disorders’. What is devitalized food and why are the Yogis so against it? Dead and devitalized foods include everything that has been preserved, bottled, bleached, refined, canned, pickled, or polished. When I say avoid consuming white flour products, white sugar products, and polished rice you will ask why. What is wrong with these substances? Simply that in their refined state they are unsuitable as foods and are actually injurious to the human body. What is wrong with consuming raw sugar, whole wheat flour products, and unpolished rice? They may prove somewhat dearer but who in his right mind would try to economize on wonderful food? And in the case of raw sugar be careful that you're not purchasing refined sugar that has simply been coloured brown. And try, for a change, to sweeten your food with honey. More easily assimilated than any other food, it's especially beneficial to older people and those of you who are suffering from digestive problems of any kind. Being a lifelong honey eater I cannot impress on you too strongly how wholesome and nutritious a food this is. The purest and the bulk natural of foods, it's cheap and plentiful and yet so few people recognize its huge value. I seem to hear protests in my ears already. Do you say that you once bought a jar of honey, and you tried to eat it and what happened. It simply wouldn't go down. You dislike the stuff and that is that. But wait. Perhaps you once bought a pound of sour apples. Did you then decide never to buy apples again because you disliked the taste of sour ones? There are very a lot different honeys. Maybe the jar you once bought was a blended honey, better used in cooking. Why not try one of the dark honeys, brown as a nut, with the strong and heady sweetness of sunshine? Why not try one of the mild, creamy white honeys, thick and subtle flavoured? There is such a bewildering variety of honeys from all over the world that I could not possibly name them all, but probably the the bulk delectable of all, though it's a matter of personal preference, are the clover honeys, smooth and mellow as butterscotch, and with an unforgettable bouquet, and the dark-toned, exotic honeys of the Caribbean. And do not, please, think that honey is always clear golden or biscuit coloured. Honeys are as multi-coloured as a rainbow. The French honey that is gathered from the blooms of gooseberry and sycamore trees is an exquisite sea green. The flavour, need I say, is beyond words. From Brazil comes a black honey, from Africa a clear, pale green, and from Texas comes one of the the bulk unique honeys in the world, the remarkable guajillo honey which is crystal white with a pearly reflection like new milk. Not always obtainable in American “health-food” stores, but to be looked for at any rate, is the exotic lotus honey of India. It is as exciting, as mysterious, and as health giving as Yoga itself. I could go on for a whole book writing ecstatically of the prize and the glories of honey but let it suffice to say that if you think you dislike honey then try all the dissimilar ones you could find. If you fail to find one you like you're indeed unique. If you feel I was becoming lyrical over honey I am going to be just the opposite about its greatest rival—sugar. Why, I wonder, did we abandon honey, nature’s the bulk nutritious sweet food, in favour of dry, sterile, refined sugars? I am afraid that there can be only one answer—sheer ignorance of the fundamental needs and capacities of the human organism. Because, up to about the year 1700 sugar was the exclusive amenity of the aristocracy, it came to be greatly prized by the masses as a delicacy. It had a certain social significance as, say, caviare has today. So when a new way was discovered of refining sugar cheaply and in large quantities honey began to lose its popularity as a sweetening agent and became increasingly less obtainable as sugar became more so. Then physicians in America and Europe began to realize that a tragic dietary mistake was being made and that the over indulgence in artificial sugars was causing increasing sick health. New digestive and nervous illnesses began to make their appearance, and the instance of diabetes shot up alarmingly. Many people do not know that granulated sugars, syrups, treacles, and molasses are artificial sweets. Still fewer people know that they are also powerful stimulants, drugs which are actually custom forming. So used are people to taking them as an every day commodity that they have come to regard them as harmless, pleasant, and nourishing. I assure you that they are neither risk free nor nourishing though no doubt a lot would protest that they are pleasant. The sweets that 1 have mentioned are manufactured by a way which destroys all their nutritive elements. In the case of granulated sugar the sugar crystals that are formed after the cane juice is treated with the fumes of burning sulphur or heated with bisulphide of lime, are sterile and devitalized. It is just this fact which makes sugar a commodity that will keep almost indefinitely which is a distinct advantage from a advertisement point of view but barely from a health one. Sugar granules, in their final, highly concentrated form, are powerful stimulants. When they reach the human stomach they oxydize violently upon their contact with oxygen, which produces an explosive effect upon the digestive system and causes an increased activity in the internal organs. White sugar can be compared with a highly combustible fuel that violently ignites, burns with a fierce intensity, and as quickly dies down. Can you imagine the shock treatment all this activity has on the digestive and nervous systems? And because of this rapid dying down the body is concious of a hunger for more and more sugar. It is this fact that makes people often eat as much as a pound of sweets or chocolates at one sitting. The desire for ‘just one more’ becomes a compulsion, and the more poorly nourished a person is the more prone he would be to sugar addiction. For that is what it is, an addiction, no less. That sugar, in the last analysis, can cause grave malnutrition is proved by the fact that although like alcohol, it's a quick source of energy the effects do not last and as the body becomes more and more dependent on these ‘quick lifts’ it becomes less inclined to eat nourishing food. To sum up the case for honey and the case against sugar I would say this. That artificial sugars must be broken down by the digestive tract into simple sugars before they can be utilized by the body, and thus they put an undue strain upon the system. The use of honey presents no such troubles as it comprises entirely of natural sugars that do not have to be oxydized by the digestive tract. Honey is absorbed at once without excessive stimulation or shock to the system and it does not result in a craving for more. Sugar is no replacement for honey as, chemically, it's of an entirely dissimilar nature. So why be dictated to by the heavy hand of commerce ? |
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