25/09/2012
“You are what you eat and more importantly,what you have eaten that is still within you – it’s going to play a major role in your health. If you are eating all the proper nutrients but putting them into an environment that is toxic, your body is not able to absorb and utilise them to the fullest extent. If you don’t cleanse your body, then the toxicity builds up, creating ever-increasing detriment to your energy level,overall health and well being.”
I read this in a promotional catalogue for a self help, the power of positive thought etc, etc company based in Nairobi,and they do good work. There is a lot of truth in this statement – but it is a complex subject, and there are no absolutely correct answers (which by the way, vary from decade to decade by doctors with the latest views). Metabolism in each of us is different and often we know our own needs –it is excesses that are wrong, like in so many other things.
Here are my comments on some of the issues –
Drink8 glasses of water (or more according to some people). Well -nomads in the desert don’t suffer dehydration and they sure don’t drink anything like that amount. In my opinion, and also that of a good friend, a retired surgeon, you can overload the kidneys by constantly keeping them filled with water. Drink by demand,but don’t mistake thirst for hunger and stuff a bag of crisps down your throat,always try a drink first.
(just an insert which came to mind writing the word crisps – the number of people in Kenya who can’t pronounce this word is amazing. They say crips. I get them to split it – chris – pss, and they can do it slowly like that but then revert back to crips. I wonder why; it doesn’t seem to be connected with tribe or education.)
Back to my theme -
Years ago I read a great book by a renowned herbalist who healed animals, especially dogs, of almost anything with her herbs, and also advised and helped people,and she said ‘Do NOT drink with meals. Drink half an hour before or more than 2 hours after, but drinking with meals will just dilute the digestive juices and hinder absorption and digestion. The only exceptions, she said, were a small glass of milk (which is a food anyway) and a small glass of wine – which aids digestion.
The basic foodstuff, broadly speaking, is potatoes in England and Europe, rice in the east, corn in America and it used to be centuries old crops in Africa like sesame and sorghum. Not now. They are forgetting the old crops which canbe traced back 6000 years, and were well suited to the climate and, for the last 100 or so years, they have been planting maize (which does not grow welle very area) and grinding it to make flour – which is now the staple diet –boiled to a stiff paste and eaten with a vegetable or meat stew, or cooked soft and taken like porridge, or boiled to a thick liquid and drunk. And it’s bleached, so a lot of goodness isl ost. And in poor families that’s often all the children get.
A swell, they got their sugar needs from raw cane, now that is overtaken with carbonated sodas,available for every occasion, and every meal. And white bread is a top favourite now. I read the most popular lunch now is sausage and chips, So they are slipping down from their original natural foods to processed whenever they can. The majority of Kenyans do not like salad, at best it could be sliced tomato and onion, which has the name katchembari (I hope I’m near enough with the spelling!)
However,my point is – look what the Kenyan athletes do on this diet!.
Look at the Indian mystics, the Chinese philosophers, the great Greek thinkers – I am absolutely sure they didn’t eat according to the prescribed modern diet of what’s the right food.
My father came from a poor family (rich in love I might add, such high quality,wonderful people, so closely bonded it gave me a grounding which has stood me fast in the storms of life), but his father and all his older brothers went to war as soldiers and at 13 he was the man of the house for his mother and sisters. He told me how he would walk for miles to a village to get ‘pig’ potatoes (small mis-shapen ones fed to animals not send to market) for the family meal. A hard life, but they were all strong, lived to a good age.
Me– I eat what I like and I will not diet. Life is too short and harsh todeny yourself the things you like but fortunately I love salads and vegetables and could happily survive on them if I was told I could only live on one food classification (meat, cereals, carbohydrates, dairy food, fruits etc.) I’d miss some things, but all the wonderful veg, raw and cooked, I have to have. ButI also love sweets things, and have to admit I eat children’s sweeties – and I’m not going to stop. And I like to fry food (in moderation, to be fair to myself) – and I look ok – maybe not the same as when I was 20, but I believe a woman with good bone structure will age well.
(again, a departure from the main theme– Estee Lauder,famous beautician, whose perfumes I lov – La Fuite des Heures(flight of the hours0 my favourite,, said “a girl can’t help how she looks at20, but it’s a woman’s own fault if she doesn’t look beautiful when she’s 40” –and there’s a lot of truth in that. You should have learnt your style, particularly your hair, what colours and clothes suit you and so on.)
It’s distressing to see overweight teenagers, it seems an American symptom – on CNNthis morning, they stated that in the next few years it is anticipated over 40%of Americans will be obese – but I think what they are not analyzing is it’s the quantity people eat these days, andthey do not work as hard or walk anythin glike people used to. We used to eat homemade cakes, bread and honey, and so oncoming in from school, as well as good meals, pastries and dumplings, but you rarely saw a fat child then – and if you did, it was a glandular problem rather than over-eating. Children don’t walk now, they are driven to school, they don’t go for long rambles in the countryside looking for flowers, or berries, or wild mushrooms. We used to walk miles on Sunday in summer to the seaside as a family outing, play all day, and walk home in the evening. I would guess the major pastime is sitting in front of a screen playing video games.
Ifa Kenyan person says to me “I’m putting on weight, I don’t know what to do” Isay simply – “Eat less and walk more”
25/09/2012