Editorial Volume 16 # 3
By Richard Pitt
As the year draws to a close, our final issue of the year is appropriately addressing food and all that it involves. A joke I make occasionally is that after say 200,000 years on the planet, modern man seems no nearer being clear what we should eat than ever before. Particularly in modern industrial societies, it seems the further we are removed from a more basic instinctual relationship to our bodies and surroundings, the less sure we are of what we should be putting into it. It shouldn’t be that hard but as many have pointed out, including some of the authors of articles in this journal, the food we eat in modern society is killing us. The industrialization and commodification of the sustenance of life is leading to levels of disease unknown in previous generations, let alone previous eras. Yes, humans have always struggled with getting enough to eat. It is not easy and as we have developed farming methods and new crops to feed an ever increasing population, we have also brought with us health challenges as our bodies adapt to different diets and living habits. In the book review I wrote of From Cradle to Computer by Maria Jetvic, these issues are discussed in some detail, including some of the controversial conclusions the author draws upon from her interest in the Paleo diet, one of the more influential books on diet in the last few years. The author weaves some of these ideas into an understanding of homeopathic miasms and how diet and lifestyle may be key factors in understanding the origins of chronic disease.
Some of the other articles are interesting in looking at the perspectives of a meat-based diet v. a vegetarian diet. It seems few things aside from religion and sport evoke such strong feelings, and it is interesting here to explore these perspectives, looking also at the homeopathic perspective on disease and how diet and nutrition can help or hinder the homeopathic treatment. Dr Deborah Gordon gives us the benefit of her experience as a homeopathic doctor and also as an advocate of the Weston Price method, one that quite a few homeopaths embrace. On the other hand, Dr Nandita Shah of India explores her work with diet based on Vegan principles and the changes she has seen dealing with patients using diet along with homeopathy. Two different perspectives, both very interesting and well thought out. Myra Nissen shares her experience with the Metabolic Diet, an individually based dietary regime coming from Germany that examines blood work and finds individual dietary regimes that seems to allow more optimal function and for many real weight loss.
Some of the scientific principles of dietary needs are revealed in an article by Karla Shantal Hernandez Jaramillo, a Mexican nutritionist who also has studied homeopathy. She explores the necessary role of diet in enhancing the body’s systems and ensuring that homeopathic treatment is truly effective. At times, homeopaths, like allopaths, have diminished the role of diet, believing the right remedy will do everything and reestablish equilibrium even if the diet is imbalanced. Karla’s article seeks to balance this point of view. In an interconnected way, the essay by Dr Ifeoma Ikenzie looks at treating allergies with homeopathic desensitization methods, a fascinating approach to addressing food and other allergens.
Veronique Gaultier, who suffering from multiple sclerosis, has explored the dietary ideas that have been used to help many sufferers and her experience and research of the dietary impact on this disease is a fascinating one. Her research on this subject has shown the significance on the quality of fats that are taken in one’s diet, and how evidence shows that high doses of saturated fats have a negative effect on MS sufferers. The question of the type and amount of fat in one’s diet has been a polarizing force for many years in the world of nutrition. Deborah Gordon talks about this and how a low fat agenda has tended to dominate the nutritional and medical worlds, especially when addressing weight issues and heart disease. This has also led to the use of cholesterol medications being grossly overused based on this obsession with fat in one’s diet even though there are many other factors that are involved in how fat is absorbed into the body. The Weston Price ideas are more about the quality of fat and they espouse the need to use full fat animal products, as long as the quality is good. Alternative arguments to this, and that do espouse a low fat diet, especially when it concerns heart disease have been put forward by doctors such as Dean Ornish, who has been very influential in this movement. Other more radical advocates of a low fat diet include Joel Furhman in his books, including Eat to Live and Fasting and Eating for Health; by Caldwell B Esselstyn Jr, in Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease and by Stephen Sinatra in Reverse Heart Disease Now. All of these Dr’s advocate a fairly stark low fat style diet and show the evidence that especially in certain types of heart disease, it is necessary to adopt dietary measures that seriously curb saturated fats in one’s diet.
Another influential book, one taken up by the vegetarian/vegan community but also connected to the heart disease community above is The China Study by T Colin Campbell. This books seems to lay out the evidence of how a high fat high protein diet as seen in parts of China predisposes people to increased cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other complex, chronic and auto immune diseases. The book is full of scientific data to back its case and has become the focal point of much debate. It has been followed by a movie called Forks Over Knives. However, there is a lot of controversy surrounding the methods and conclusions drawn in the book, which can be found online. One is by the writer Denise Minger and also by Chris Masterjohn, which can be found on Joseph Mercola’s website, www.mercola.com. So the debate continues it seems, unabated.
I wrote an essay called The Case for the Ethical Vegetarian. In the book From Cave to Computer, the author critiques ethical vegetarianism as a form of pathology based on the cancer miasm so I thought it appropriate to write a response to this and to consider the broader implications of what we eat and why we choose what we eat. I try and draw some connections between our personal choices of what we eat with the larger food security challenges in many parts of the world. I also challenge the assumptions of the advocates of the Paleo diet that one can’t get appropriate protein through vegetables and challenge the idea that grains are bad for you. If you want to read more on the ideas that underpin a choice of a vegetarian diet, I would highly recommend Eating Animals by Jonathan Saffron Foer. I found it a convincing and moving analysis of the meat industry, especially in the United States and how if one cares about the suffering of animals, one’s health and the planet, then eating industrial meat is simply not feasible. One other classic book in this field is John Robbins Diet for a New America.
This also connects to an article written by a friend of mine I met in Malawi. He works for a French NGO helping to create food sustainability for local subsistence farmers and he wrote this article when he was living in Rwanda. The ongoing challenge of food security for many Africans is an important issue and having lived in Africa for over 18 months and seen the challenges many face simply to eat 2 square meals a day, it makes the reality of survival that much more immediate. We take a lot for granted in the West and the tragedy of societies that have an abundance of food and yet who suffer their own form of malnutrition through eating ‘dead’ food and who struggle with obesity in huge numbers make the challenges of Africans simply struggling to eat enough even more profound.
This issue is taken up by Carol Boyce in her article Fat in the Era of Thin. Carol looks at the issues of burgeoning obesity in Western culture and also now more in developing societies such as Mexico, which has just taken over from the USA as having the most obese people in the world. Carol’s company Vitality TV, is directly looking at these issues, focusing on educational tools to help change attitudes toward food and what should be eaten.
No conversation about food and global food security should be had without mentioning genetically modified food. I wrote a brief essay outlining some of the issues that GM food has brought up for many people and I also include an essay on the influence of the Gates Foundation and Monsanto in global food policy, especially Africa. For many people the Gates Foundation’s embrace of GM food and working with companies like Monsanto are a dark cloud for the future of food and the lot for millions of subsistence farmers around the world. The obsession with a ‘technological’ fix to the challenge of food security is still very much in the minds of many people, including NGO’s and governments, and being influenced by the corporate agenda of Monsanto and others. The fact remains that we still don’t really know the long term effects on human health and the environmental impact of GM crops and a massive experiment is taking place. Many countries in Africa have attempted to resist the infiltration of Monsanto, but it is not easy and when a lot of money is involved, many capitulate. For those wanted to read more, I recommend Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey Smith. Also go to the site www.pambazuka.org and the websites of the Environmental Working Group, Grain.org, Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association, amongst many others.
As the world’s population grows, the pressure on the world’s water and food supplies will only get greater and right now many millions of people still live on the margins of survival. Also world commodity prices are being fixed and manipulated by corporate and government interests, directly affecting the ability of people to afford to buy basic necessities. This needs to be addressed at every level, local and international but for the millions who survive on what they grow, simple solutions do exist. Organic and permaculture methods, which maintain the health of the land and create more autonomy and less dependence on fertilizers, pesticides and the use hybrid seeds which cannot be reused is simply obvious, and yet are not being applied. In Malawi, where I have been living, the government produced a land use document that laid out many of the important issues and what local farmers could do to protect their soil and optimize their yields. But few are doing it and simply wait for the government to dole out fertilizer which further depletes the soil and takes a huge amount from their agricultural budget. The impact of making the right strategic decisions for food security in Africa not only affects Africans but all of us. The future of the world’s food supply is at stake and we are at an important crossroads in the direction we take and the strategies we use for food production throughout the world.
I hope this issue stimulates your own research and exploration into this issue, both in dealing with food challenges with patients as well as one’s basic position on what is good to eat and the interconnectedness of this challenge for all humanity (and the animals too!!). Enjoy.
Richard Pitt
Editor