It’s not just because of inadequate nutrition that the average person’s health is so poor and their bodies disease ridden, but it is also because of the average person’s refusal to do HARD work. Most people work at a desk job and rely on cars for most of their transportation. Rarely do people walk to places or work in very physical jobs, the job of a housewife is a breeze compared to what our foremother’s endured.
When the body moves, not only does it burn calories but it goes through a detoxification process. The blood and lymph fluids moves faster, glands sweat out impurities, the muscles release stored impurities, fat is burned and the toxins stored in the fat are released and every cell becomes oxygenated (OXYGEN=LIFE). Cells are more likely to become cancerous when they don’t recieve enough oxygen.
One hundred years ago (a very short span of time in the scope of history) it was not uncommon for the average person to require 3,000-4,000 calories to complete his everyday work. The human body has 650 different muscles, the body is MADE for motion and is best maintained by motion. It’s very simple, if you don’t use it you’ll lose it!
It is often the high caloric foods (like meat and raw dairy products) that contain most of what the body needs, more proof that the body is made for motion. It is only by regular physical activity that the body can ingest these high calorie, nutrient-dense foods and not gain weight. Vegetables and fruit serve a place, the body often uses them to detox and to keep the GI tract running smoothly. But to require the body to live off these alone (or to live off processed factory produced foods with ZERO nutrition) makes the body age faster and often results in mental problems like depression or extreme irritability.
I often like to relate food groups to building materials…the body, when properly cared for, is a strong and mighty fortress. God don’t make no junk 🙂 The stone and mortar of this mighty fortress is protein and fats, they are what keeps it built up and well maintained. Most bodily functions rely on amino acids, found in whole form only in protein (and in grains, in an incomplete form), to carry out the complex chemical processes needed to maintain the fortress. When these aren’t available, the body will use its small amount stored in the muscles and once that runs out the fortress starts to suffer wear and tear, crumbling and disease.
Fat is the mortar that keeps everything together, our cells NEED fat (especially saturated fats) to maintain fluid cellular walls to allow for the passage of nutrients from the bloodstream to the cell. Trans fats do the opposite, they actually harden cellular walls (vegetable fats, polyunsaturated oils, also do this) and it’s trans fats not saturated fats that are the main cause of heart disease and cancer, America’s two biggest killers. Saturated fat is also the preferred fat of the brain and heart, the brain is made almost entirely of saturated fat, and so is the cartilage of our joints.
In conclusion, the body is made to work hard, play hard and eat hearty! And in the greater scheme of things it just makes sense, a loving God wouldn’t curse us with toil and hard work without giving us the means by which we can carry it out. He gave us bodies that LOVE to MOVE, that are IMPROVED through movement and use. Despite our fallen state, the original plan has not changed. God’s best for man is to LIVE in and WORK in creation, not separated from it in jungle of concrete and steel. To care for, keep, tend to and have dominion over it; and when we do this God, through His creation, will provide for us.
For example, you have some land, you tear up the sod, till the soil and strengthen it with compost. You plant your seeds in a sunny area and water them and they grow. You care for the plants, you carefully weed around them and keep them free of pests. You watch over your little plot of land, you turn it from plain wilderness into a garden; you give the land order, beauty and purpose.
In one season, you are rewarded with healthful life-giving food, you use this food to feed yourself, your family and your livestock. Your livestock in turn give you delicious eggs, milk, and meat which sustains you and your family so you can continue to work in God’s creation and care for the land. The harder you work, the more you will receive. Not only are you directly sustaining yourself and your family by the work of your own hand, you also reap the benefits of humility and patience which comes only by way of hard, honest work.
The more I study this simple way of life, the more I see how everything is connected to everything else and that it is all contained there in Genesis, in God‘s original plan for mankind. Here’s another example, you could start out with a plot of land and two healthy cows, non-genetically manipulated and produced through natural breeding, who feed on fertile green pastures (after you clear the land and plant the pasture grasses) and produce delicious high-fat milk. They are cheerfully milked by you and your family and you use the cow manure to increase the fertility of your fields and orchards. You also get chickens who run around turning over cow paddies and eating bugs to produce nutrient-rich eggs.
The cows give birth to calves every year and soon you have a herd of 30 cows, all producing delicious healthy milk. You slaughter the male calves for veal or beef , you make naturally yellow butter from the cream, and you make delicious cheese. You feed the whey and skim milk to a small herd of hogs who thoughtfully turn it into bacon and lard for cooking. You also make lacto-fermented drinks from the fruit of your orchard, and pickles and chutneys from your garden produce. You may even have honey from keeping bees, who will also better pollinate your gardens. You could even have real maple syrup made from the sugar maples found in the woods on your property.
And you would HAVE to have sheep, if not for the wool, then for the constant reminder of how we are “like sheep” and of what the Good Shepherd has done for us. What better way to understand Jesus, than to have a taste of what it’s like to be a real shepherd 🙂
Of course, you end up producing more than your family needs (as often is the case when God is giving the increase) and so you sell the extra at your farm store or start a Farmshare program to help the poor and needy in your community. Or you could start your own program where the local “troubled” youths could come help out on your farm and be ministered to. Or you could have teaching classes where you teach others self-sufficiency skills, gardening and animal husbandry. If you have enough land, you could maybe run your own gun range even.
There is unlimited potential here, and the ability to do some real good. Not only on a health level but on all levels. Your children benefit greatly, because they are raised on whole REAL food they grow properly and their brains get wired properly and they suffer very little sickness. They are inquisitive and curious and a joy to teach. Through your example they also learn the joy of hard work, they end up being one of the few of their generation who develops a work ethic. Their scope and understanding of God’s creation (and therefore their understanding of God) is expanded because they are in His creation on a daily basis.
When they read Jesus saying “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone” They can sit on the ground and put in a seed and cover it and pat it down, “but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” The seed, buried and dead in a very real sense…almost forgotten about …but then, by water and the warmth of the sun (SON?) sprouts appear and push forth towards the sun (SON?). And the plant gets stronger and bigger, and they can watch day by day, week by week and begin to feel the reality of what Jesus said…that by the death of one grain life is given to many (a picture of Jesus Christ).
“He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” There is great simplicity and yet complicated depth here, to come to a point where we want to die to self, to lose our lives and give God the control, the process is more vivid for the person who is living in the seed-plant-fruit-harvest cycle. That this choice of death to oneself is not half-hearted , the seed is truly dead and gone, but it’s death was replaced by something so much greater than itself, something the seed could not do on it’s own had it chose to live. Not that it had a choice, and if we wish to call ourselves Christians, we don’t have a choice either.
Your children and your extended family and those who know you, watch you and learn and see what true freedom in Christ is like. You answer to no boss (other than Jesus), all your needs are met, you have good health, you aren’t wasting 3 hours a day in rush hour traffic, you aren’t a slave to debt, you have happy children who actually LIKE being with you, and you yourself actually have TRUE JOY. And you have TIME, time to teach and show others that life doesn’t have to be so hard, and that God in all His love and mercy, through His Word, has shown us the best path to take.
(first written and published on my blog December 2006)
Musings Of A Mountain Mama 