ition and diet and food produetion have made people feel un- processing is causing the essen- hhature of foods to be progressively lost to Wolff's aim is to enable consumers to form their own opinion about the food they eat. He takes guidance from the princi- is not the physical substances as such foed us but the power of comes with them, The also done in east Germany), in 1921. He st ‘worked as a hospital physici Otto Wolff What Are We Really Eating? Practical Aspects of Nutrition from the Perspective of Spiritual Science English language edition by A. R. Meuss, FIL, MTA MERCURY PRESS Spring Valley, NY 10977th ianguage version of Was essen wir eigentlich? Praktische Gesichspunkte zur Brndhrang f yeisteswissenschafilicher Grundlage, hed by Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart 1998 (ISBN 3-7725-1244, Includes additional material by Dr. O. Wolff English language edition by A. R. Meuss, FIL, MTA Editing by Andrea Eberly MD and Gerald Kamow MD 2 edition, p Copyright © 2008 ISBN: 978-0.929979-88.5 Printed and published in the USA. By MERCURY PRESS Fellowship Community 241 Hungry Hollow Roud NY 10977 fellowshipcommunity.o-g Contents Preface. delalaalalelald Where Does Life Come From? 7 8 Raw Food Is “Sun Food”... ell 3 Can Preservation Maintain Life? 0. 16 Milk and Milk Processing... : 19 Souring..... nnn eoaes 25; Vitality and Fertility... alte 30 The Role of Vitamins 2 Sugar—Energy Source Devoid of Life... 36 The Problem of Food Additives. 40 Understanding Digestive FUnCtiONS ...0.c0ccewecnne 47 Protein sesenees _ 47 Fats 50 Carbohydrates .. 31 Our Daily Bread... 34 Baking—the Most Characteristic Human Activity on Earth : ol ‘The Problem of Using Yeast in Baking... men 66 Meat or Vegetarian?........... 74 Eggs—Concentrated Life z 84 The Various Fats and Their Effects... 86 Butter.... Alle ol Margarine i eon OF The Cholesterol Problem ..... : su 102 Future Prospects... a 108 Notes and references eccrine 2Preface Onee you begin to think about the food we eat you will soon find that there are endless contradictions in this field, proba- bly more than in any other. It is true, for example, that in civ lized countries food is more than abundant in peacetime Many people therefore believe that our diet is better than it has ever been, Others will insist, however, that this only re- fers to quantity, and that the quality of our food is worse to- day than it has ever been, They think we should go back to humanity’s original diet. But what was that diet? Some say it was meat, others bread. And what meat and what kind of bread? Some people feel it is self evident that only whole grain bread is real bread. Others will actually wam against it and advise us to eat only white bread, because it does not cause problems with the digestion. Others again advocate “doing without bread, Many people are convinced that only a raw food diet is a healthy diet, After all, they say, animals do not boil or fty their food. Other people will argue, however, that cooking makes the food more digestible and that raw foods are not easily tolerated Opposing views are also held on the kind of fat to use Which is the better and which is best avoided—buter or margarine? Opinions continue to clash unabated on this sub- ject. Tt would be easy to give further examples of this kind. “The question is, who is tight? People want proof today. ‘The situation is grotesque, however, for every protagonist provides “proof”, often from personal experience, So someone may say they were sick for years until they changed their diet, Since then they have been well. The inevitable conclusion is that if everyone were to eat the way they do, all would be well. There is no reason (0doubt people's personal experiences, but the question is whether others will react in the same way There have of course been scientific investigations in the field of nutrition, It has been carefully established how many calories a person needs, how much of vitamins, protein, fat, ete. It is important to know, however, that these investiga- tions can never produce final results. There will always be something “new”, which immediately spreads around the world, with the “old” views considered completely out of date When scientific investigation first started, it was estabe lished that only the starchy part of grains provides nourish- ‘ment, The marginal layers eamot be digested and were there- fore considered useless roughage. Now the view is that such oughage is absolutely essential for good digestion. Justa few years ago, only vegetable fats were considered to be healthy. It was said that all animal fats should as far as possible be eliminated. Meanwhile it is known that fats from coldwater fish such as mackerel have valuable propertics and can help to prevent heart attacks, for instance. These fish oils definitely are not vegetable fats We also hear it said quite often that from the scientific point of view, people must have specific “essential amino acids". These are found mainly in meat, and a vegetarian diet is therefore thought to be inadequate. On the other hand, nu- ‘merous investigations have shown that vegetarians do not suffer from dietary deficiencies and are undoubiedly fitter in the long mun, This is not to say that the scientific findings are wrong! They do, however, tend to be theoretical or biased, and there are other factors involved which are not so easily assessed in scientific studies. So what should we do? Try every suggestion? Leave out anything that may be “questionable”? Mark Twain (1835 — 1910) knew all about this dilemma, He once wrote that the 2 safest food was water—taken in moderate amounts, Even this may not always be true today. Drinking water is often barely palatable in many places, because excessive amounts of chlo- rine have deen added, pesticides or agricultural fertilizers have drained into it, or it has already been cycled through people or industry several times, So we can no longer say absolutely “safe”, Even the water treatments used today have their problems. They may remove most of the toxie substanc= es, but they cannot restore the water to its original purpose which was to be the essential sustainer of life. People who live in arid regions of the world know the importance of wa- ter very well—without water there is no life. The question is, however, whether the much maltreated water available to many people as their only drinking water really can still sus- tain life—compared to fresh spring water. Even the rain fall- ing from the skies has its problems today, as we know from “acid rain” How can we find our way through all the opposing views and find our own independent answers? Success stories and scientific findings may be most impressive. They may be perfectly correct but they can still miss the point. The contra- dictions make us aware of a fundamental problem in modern fe. We know masses of details, are able to measure and change them, but fail to perceive the essence of the thing, let alone understand it, When it comes to diet, the question is: Why do we necd to eat? Why do people die if they have no food? Why can we not just live on water, salt, stones or wood? People had the right instinct in the past when they called bread “the staff of life”, something to sustain life," (In German the word is Lebensmitiel = mediator of life) Stones, here t one of the German worls for food, Dp Wolft is refer Lebenywoad or salt evidently have no life in them, and this is why human beings cannot have life from eating them. Other life forms may be exceptions, e.g, wood worm can live on woods for them, wood is sustenance but not for people, Basical is true to say that “foods must contain life io maintain life This may be new to modern people, but it is an old idea, Angelus Silesius (1624 - 1677) wrote: The bread does not feed us; what feeds us in the bread is God’s etemal word, life, and spirit (It is possible that originally the verse said “tight” in- stead of “word” but it would have seemed more appropriate at that time to use the then widely known term “God's word”, “Light” is clearly more apt.) Angelus Silesius wanted to say that it is not matter as such which feeds us but its “content”. It is the power of food which matters—its life and spirit. It must sound positively heretical to modern people to say that we eat God's word and spirit when we eat bread. Do people today actually know what “life” or “spirit” actually are? Those two lines hold more wisdom, however, than the massive information provided for us today. Up to our modern age, people immediately knew that foods are God’s gift and that itis a sin to simply throw them away. This happens with tons of foods today. Leftovers and waste used to be fed to the pigs in the past or made into compost. They would not have been “taken off the market” which is the euphemism for de- stroying tons of food today. As scientific investigations progressed, the focus was no nger on fife as a power, but on the substances, that is, really the “packaging”, for life is a special form of power that must always be bound up with specific substances. As people lost sight of the fact that food is derived from formerly alive plants and animals, they switched from honor- ing food as a gift of life from one being to another, to viewing food as biochemical nutrition (In German the word for this is Nahrungsmittel.) There is some justification for this, for not everything we eat sustains life. Salt, for instance, docs not serve life but higher purposes, as we shail see (see page 44) Roughage, which is really indigestible, also docs not contain life and therefore does not feed us. It does, however, serve the vital functions. ‘A third group is the stimulants, which do not feed us nor help the vital fimetions. They are only for enjoyment, and almost always have a destructive effect on lize, The most widely used stimulants are coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, sugar and products specifically sold as “stimalants”. Foods bus maintain life; they pass the gift of life from one being to another. People feel today that one cannot really quantify life as a form of energy. Declarations on packaging will therefore tell us how many calories are contained in, say, 100 ml of milk. The number of calories tells us how much heat is produced by combustion of the substance in question (The more recent term “joule” is just a different unit of meas- urement.) Reference is therefore also made to the “calorific value” (calorific = heat-producing) or “energy content” of a food, Useful to a degree, this nevertheless misses the real point, These are technical terms, and have their justification as such, With foods, however, it is not the calorifie value which matters but the life they contain, Gasoline ot wax, par affin and so on, have high energy content and caloric value, but this docs not make them foods. Listing the amounts of carbohydrate, fat, protein, mineral, vitamin, ete. is another ‘expedicat which does not tell us much, for it does not relate to the essential factor, which is lifeWhich foods have a lot of them? Life cannot be measured the way we measure calories. We therefore need to start from life itself, ‘Unborn human beings get their life from their mothers. they are bom, their mothers provide milk for them, ideal form of infant food. From the age of about cereal grain foods, cow’s milk, and so on troduced, all of them containing fe ftom? From the pl eaten meat from animals that are not carnivores, We may wonder why. Cows ob jemselves arc vegetarian, To un- id this we have to know that only the plant world is dircotly, but it comes indirectly from plants. This means the life which is active in an animal people were quite r plant is much more concentrated. If we were to eat the meat of animals which themselves live on animals, being carni vores, we would still have food, but hardly any life, for the nally came from the sun’s light has been gradually reduced in the passage from light > plant —> ani- no theory but has real prac tical significance. The only possible conclusion must be that a vegetable dict has greater vitality. Feed quantity ‘The graph shows that this is truly the ease. It presents the amount of food (vegetable matter) in half kilos needed to produce a half kilo of meat. It means th takes about 4.75 kg of cereal grain to produce 500 g of beef, for instance, but only about 1 kg of cereal grain for $00 g of chicken. These data are highly informative with regard to feeding the world If the areas of land needed to grow food for cattle and pigs, both of them bred for food, were instead used to grow cereal and vegetable crops for human consumption, there enough to feed the whole world. Generally speaking, a vegetable diet thus contains con- siderably more life than a meat diet. T! have its own role and justification, and cussed later.Where Does Life Come From? As already mentioned, cows get their life, their vitality, from plants, This principle applies to all animals which are there- fore called “heterotrophic”, meaning “sustaining their life by cating other living forms”. Where, then, do plants get their \ife from? Plants are called “autotrophic”, meaning “sel feeding”. This is, of course, misleading, as they have to get their life not from themselves but from somewhere or other Today people are brought up to think that plants “live” ‘on potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen just as animals live on fants, There’s an error in this, however. Animals get their fe from the life of plauts. Life is an energy, a power, and only bound to matter for limited periods. Plants cantiot take fe” from potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen because these substances are completely dead. Simple observation will show that light is the most im- portant thing for plants, Light is a form of energy, a power, just as life is. For as long as they are green, plants are able to fake in light directly. ‘This has been fully investigated, It is known that plants take up light with the help of a green pig- tment called chlorophyll. They are then able to produce car- bohydrates from water and from carbon dioxide taken from the air. Carbohydrates are the material of which plant bodies are made, and life is active in them, Life thus comes from sunlight. In other words, Life is transformed light ‘The question is, why ate the above-mentioned minerals important as fertilizers? Life is the most universal thing there is. It needs different substrates or vehicles with which to con- rect, Waier is one of the main vehicles of life. “Living water” is something very different, however. In antiquity people made very clear distinction between ordinary and living wa- ter, Plant sap that is alive, ot stil alive, contains potassiu for example, because this element “belongs” to water through every one of its properties. Water has been brought to life in the carbohydrates which the plant produces. The name “ear- bbohydrate” means “compound of carbon and water”, which describes it exactly. Plants need phosphorus as well as potassium to help them work with such substances. Phosphorus does not be- come part of the live carbohydrate, though without it, the plant camot produce carbohydrates and manage its carbohy- drate metabolism. The same applies to nitrogen and protein (Protein is a compound of nitrogen and carbohydrates.) It is certain that no plant consists entirely of carbohydrates. It needs a certain amount of protein, which is a vital substance. Proteins only gain real significance in animals and humans, however. Some plants are able to take nitrogen from the ait (green manure), Otherwise the elimination products of ani- mals have to be used as fertilizers, for they contain nitrogen in an organic form. Plants are able to take in larger amounts of water if of- fered fairly large quantities of potassium salts, which ate ac- tually present in all soils, This does not inerease the level of vitality in the plant, however. It may, after all, be dead water which the plant contains, or hardened cellulose without any life in it. Since life is energy and unlike yields in weight ean- not be easily measured—as already stated—people think that greater quantity also means grester food value. The same ap- plies to nitrogen. Organic nitrogen can be taken up from ma~ nnure, thus maintaining the cycle of life. Artificial fertilizer contains nitrogen in form of nitrate. This is easily soluble and therefore easily taken up into the plant; indeed the plant is forced to take it up, which may result in nitrate residues, The- se resichucs are highly problematic for they may be converted to nitzosamines which are toxic and cause cancer. The solu bility thus forces the plant, in a way, to take up these sub- stances. It is another matter if it can process and transform 9them in the right way for its metabolism, By the way, wrong- ly treated or stored stable manure may be as bad or even worse than artificial fertilizer. Fertilizers and manure thus only provide plants with in struments or aids for producing life from light. Plants cannot take life itself fiom them. Fertilizers are all the more effective the more alive, that is, the more organic they are. There are ways of approaching “fertilization” from a completely different angle, and that is through light and life itself. This is the approach farmers try and use in biodynamic agriculture, a method introduced by Rudolf Steiner. Biody- namic products are sold under the Demeter label. Farmers using the method accept that plant growth depends not only ‘on sunlight but on the whole cosmos. With insight into indi- vidual cosmic factors—which we can certainly have today— one can stimulate plants to take up those influences by using suitable organic preparations. This will strengthen their genu- ine vital quality. Oue can see the effect achieved with the use of such preparations, Not only are the plants in better condi- tion, but animal health and the flavor of produce are also im- proved. The whole food situation has changed in recent decades use yields per acre have risen enormously. This has been achieved by intensive farming methods. In the first place, it proved possible to develop plant and also animal varieties that gave better “yields”. Selective breeding aims mainly to maximize high yields, and tends to measure casily assessed Variables such as gluten and starch content, baking qualities and so on. They do not take into consideration variables such 8 vitality, nor do they scek data from long-term nutritional experiments like those done with milk (see page 24), It is, however, important to realize that selective breed- ing demands high performance which is soon exhausted, New seed must then be bought. This applies to potatoes as much as to other plants, and even animals. What it actual means is 10 that their reproductive powers are exhausted. The original varieties of cereal crops were undemanding and resistant. Se~ lectively bred varieties depend on artificial fertilizers and ag: ticultural chemicals such as “plant proteetives” to be viable at all, New varieties are tested on fields where the application of antficial fertilizers is carefully prescribed. Plants that do not tolerate them are eliminated, This is perfectly logical, but it is not biological thinking, for selectively bred varicties depend on those fertilizers to give high yields Selective breeding and artificial fertilizers thus go hand in hand. Maximum yieids call for appropriate “instruments such as the application of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that we described above. Plants which are not yet specialized (o high performance but live in balance with their environ- ment do not need these artificial fertilizers. A living, cultivat- ed and tended soil with an abundance of different plants achicves an harmonious balance, ‘The same applies to selectively bred cattle, pigs, laying hens and other organic “producers”. They depend on special feeds. The high performance of a “modern” cow with a vast udder that produces 20 to 25 liters of milk twice a day can only be achieved by feeding concentrates. It is quite impossi- ble to say where the “concentrated energy” of these feeds comes from. Statements conceming calorie, joule, protein, vitamin, mineral, etc. contents say as litte as declarations on milk cartons tell us about the true vitality and the quality of the substances contained in the product. Such data are neces sary to a degree, but they miss the essential point. Basically this is almost as if we were to judge a piece of music only by the volume of sound. A cow producing such an amount of milk clearly need extra calcium. It matters, however, where the calcium comes from. For many years, people had no qualms about feeding cows bone meal, together with protei, which the animals would also “need”, both taken from dead animals, ihe fact that cattle are strict vegetarians was completely ig- nered, Feeding them animal products largely derived from cattle went totally against their nature. The animals were forced to be cannibals, as it were. This kind of feeding shows that people have completely lost all feeling for the natural needs of a creature. It is based on a purely materialistic way of thinking, where only material substance matters, with qual- ity neglected in favor of yield, These additives finally came to be banned between 1988 and 1990 in different countries, when mad cow discase (BSE) developed, in which the sub- stance of the animai’s br ‘more appropriate to speak of “mad human disease”, for the disease was provoked by people being under an illusion, The illusion was that animals or plants should “produce” accord ing to the same laws as a chemical factory and therefore be managed by methods like those used in industry, This is a truly pathological illusion, It has meant not only indetermina- bi losses but also great suffering for people and an- imals, The time has come when it has to be realized that this was not a kind of industrial accident but a serious error in the wey people think about and relate to nature and to life, Our innate instincts about working with nature have clearly been lost, and instead we must now leatn to comprehend these and other connections with our intellect, More examples will fol- low which show that it is not the short-term or most obvious problems due to wrong or inadequate feeding which matter bbut rather the long-term effects that influence the whole of life. Insight can never be gained by studying ever smaller units such as prions, active principles, genes and so on, We need to perceive the nature and meaning of life and nutrition. By the way, Rudolf Steiner gave a lecture on 13 January 1923' in which he said what would happen if an ox, for ex- ample, were fed meat. t would “produce harmful substances” which “would go to the brain, and the ox would go mad.” That is exactly what happens with mad cow disease. 12 Raw Food Is “Sun Food” ‘The question we must consider is: How can we preserve the life in the plant or in meat? Customary use provides a first answer. Fruits are generally eaten raw. But why do we then cook potatoes and bake cereal grains into bread? The heat that is used changes the food, breaking it down slightly. Ke advocates of a raw food diet dislike the idea intensely. They feel something is destroyed and “lost”, If we consider the matter more closely, however, it looks like this. Ripe fruit has been “cooked” in the sun, The term “sun food” applies to it Wf there is little sun in autumn, grapes will be sour, apples hard, and so on. To put it more exactly, the sun’s warmth changes the starch and acids produced in the plant into sugars and aroma, which indicate ripeness. The situation varies from plant to plant. Ripening is fast with cherries and strawbersies, it is slower with apples, giving them in general better keeping qualities. Every consumer knows that unripe fruit can be made palatable by cooking. Cooking is, in fact, a form of late ripening or predigestion, The ancient Greeks knew this. They used the term “pepsis” for both cooking and digestion, Suitable heat treatment will thus predigest a food, mak- ing digestion easier. It depends on each particular food whether and for how long it should be exposed to heat. Peo- ple tend to go to extremes, Some will oaly eat cooked foods, finding them “more digestible”. In the long run this wil however, weaken their digestion. At the other extreme, a diet of nothing but raw food can be a strain, for it wilt get the whole person too much involved in the digestive processes, A raw food dict taken for a few weeks as a treatment can, how- ever, retune the whole organism, something which has often proved effective especially with chronic diseases, In the same way a “special diet” can relieve a weakened organism for a 13time, which may be helpful, but in the long term it will weak- cenit Healthy people therefore do not need to cat raw foods all the time, A raw food diet is medicinal. It is, however, advisa- ble to eat about one thitd of the daily food intake raw. It is important to realize that “raw” should also mean “fresh”. A six-month-old apple has clearly lost much of its vitality Dried fruit, even if uncooked, can only be called fresh within limits, We hardly need mention, of course, that “fresh from the can” is anything but fresh, The choice between cooked and raw depends primarily cn the food in question. Fruit has been “cooked” jn the sun, bbut not potatoes. Cereal grains, which are fruits, are in a sepa rate category. They have been ground and cooked to make grits or porridge from early times, or made into bread in a special process which will be discussed later. For some peo ple, however, such preparation may not be appropriate. Thus it has been found, for instance, that especially people who tend to develop repeated infections (above all influenza, i.e. virus infections) can be helped by taking fresh-grain muesli Fresh-grain muesli differs from Bircher muesli in that it is not based on rolled oats, which are usually not really fresh,” but on whole grains, ideally a mixture of two thirds wheat or spelt (German wheat) and one third rye, barley or oats (grains, not rolled oats). The capacity to germinate is of deci- sive importance in determining the “freshness” and vitality of gzains. About two tablespoons of the mixture are coarsely ground freshly each day (not in advance and stored), Soak in ‘water (not milk), ideally ovemiight, using just enough to cover the grain, About 12 hours later, in the morning (or vice versa) sweeten the mixture with a mashed banana (no sugar, though perhaps a very small amount of hontey), which will also make it smoother. Sour milk, sour cream ot yogurt may be added (not milk), and fruits of the season as well as nuts and sun- 14 flower seeds, if desired, or presoaked raisins for the sake of the taste. Medical evidence has been produced that his fresh-grain muesli (after Kollath or M, ©. Bruker) will stimulate the im- mume system if taken daily. It does, however, mean that for a time (four weeks at least) all sugar has to be avoided. 15Can Preservation Maintain Life? ‘We know that all plants have their own period of ripening and yielding fruit. People have always tried to bridge the winter period by storing food. The ant cannot be pre- served; the aging process cannot be stopped. It ean, however, be slowed down or almost stopped. Probably the oldest met raspberries or apples, ean be deep frozen, but they will not be were before once they are thawed, It has also been ital processes are stopped by the cold. Liv- hould not be deep frozen for any length of | changes oveur even in the deep-frozen state that may actually prove harmful Another ancient method of preservation is drying. It made grass into hay for winter feeds. Natural drying happens when cereal grains ripen on the kaulm, and this makes them keep for years. The test for showing # have life in them is germi in water and warmth, There is some doubt, however, about the stories that cereal grains found in Egyptian pyramids were still able to germinate in our time, 5,000 years later. The reports are contradictory. Heat will also preserve, not only cold. Modern sc investigations have shown why will not keep. When an drawn from life. This life has not some degree be there, though the meat has been withdrawn from wholeness, from the body of life. (If this were not the case, organ transplants ‘would not be possible.) The same applies to fruit, wi ing once harvested. Once ripeness has come to ing substance is " however. To 16 however, aging begins. This goes at a different pace for dif ferent fruits. If the protective outer skin has been injured, or if in will rapidly follow. We know from Pasteur’s investigations (see below) that fermentation is due to microorganisms called yeasts, If these are cans is based on this process. Once the containers are opened, so that air gets in with all the bacteria and yeasts which are present in it, rotting or fermentation ¥ broken down further. Preserves undoubtedly in them, but evidently not at the same level duce. The amount of life which is left wi method of preservation, ‘his no longer fit for ‘There are creatures for whom maggots and bacteria, They live on re for creatures with speciale ized needs, Human beings clearly need “more” life, or a higher quality of this exists when the meat is sti fresh. ‘Smoking is another old method of preservation. Smoke contains substances which kill the bacteria that cause rot, It also contains carcinogens, however, substances that cause cancer. (IF smoking were not an old-established traditional method, and someone wanted to introduce it today, it would undoubtedly be strictly forbidden because of those carcino- gens.) “Alcohol also kills germs. Lactic acid, on ihe other hand, only inhibits other microorganisms. Fi ly chemicals may also be used to conserve foods. Some have more or less disinfectant properties that hibit bacterial or fungal grawth for a time. Benzoic acid is anexample. It occurs natur: ly used in preserves wi 18 in resin and bark and is frequent- ‘ted keeping qualities today. Milk and Milk Processing There is one food which in the natural way goes straight from one living organism to another. This is n differs from ‘one animal species to another. Human milk also has qualities of its own which cannot be found in any animal. This has been discussed in detail elsewhere and we cannot go into it here.’ Infants take their milk diccetly from the nursing moth- er’s living organism, which gives them the fall vital energies it contains ‘This also applies to mami ever, taking milk ftom the cow that is intended for the calf, ‘This creates a problem, The milk, intended to be taken fresh, can only rarely be consumed that way today. Most of us don’t have a cow near the house, We know that due to bacteria which are always present in the air, milk will turn sour rela- 'vely quickly. Depending on temperature and “hygiene” it will do so in two to four days. Today we are able to lengthen this period, thanks to the discovery made by L. Pasteur (1822 ~ 1895). He found that certain bacteria which are present eve~ rywhere live on the sugar in the milk. The milk sugar (lac- tose) is changed into lactic acid in the Human beings are, how- to change the milk protein even after pasteurization, 1 sour, but often bitter. In any ccase, it no longer serves as food. 19Anyone who has still got an unspoiled sense of taste can tell the difference between fresh and pasteurized milk. The difference is clear to everyone as sav n get in, we have “st forever unless the container is It will keep practical opened. The “skin” which forms when mi that at least part of the protein has coa is called “denaturing”, for the prot longer natu has been changed. Souring also causes coagulation, but of a completely different kind, It produces fine flocculation, which we can see. As one would expect, the lange is even more marked and problematical if the milk is heated to a higher tompera- ture, which can be done in closed vesscls, It has been known for decades that at temperatures of about 140 degrees ce: great deal, and above all protein that toxins may arise. In spite of more and more widely used today. mperature of 135 to 140 degrees for is produces UHT milk (ultra high rem- perature). Bottled under sterile conditions this will keep for ig sensitive foods such as milk therefore has its problems. Saying that ultra heat treatment is only given for 20 two seconds again misses the point, If we were to treat blood in the same way it would immediately be obvious coagulated and can no longer be used for life. Aw nutrition expert once compared UHT mille graphically to a corpse that had been stabbed, shot and then hung. This ap- plies to an even greater degree to condensed milk, Mi conditions. This means massive intervention the whole structure of the mi be seen from the complete change in taste when the re added. This former milk wi residue of | weight ergy but nat life, We will come back to this essential difference. Sadly, many mothers have no idea what UHT mi buy it to ensure “long ir children. To put it anoth er way, the use of UHT milk will not cause direct damage, but involves a deficiency in which may only show after years, or perhaps even generations (see below). You may of course say that meat is exposed to tempera- tures of 200 degrees centigrade or more is fried or roasted and that this does no harm. That is not quite true, however, as will be scen when we come to discuss meat Compared to milk, meat is extremely “robust”. Milk is highly sensitive by nature, just like the infants for whom it was ere- ated. Babies are distinctly more sensitive and susceptible than adults. T once it has been “drawn off” and does so in a we completely from meat. So it matters a great deal is also why milk changes much more rapidiy that differs: t only whether and wirat one does but above all for whom. Measuring calories, minerals, vitamins, ote. serves purpose when we want 10 assess The biological vscan, however, be determined in feeding experiments, though these are expensive and take a long time. The American physician and scientist F. M. Pottenger did such experiments as early as 1940.‘ Unlike other scien- tists who evaluate a nutrition experiment after a few weeks, he did long-term trials, feeding cats with either raw or cooked meat as well as milk treated in four different ways, 1) raw milk 2) pasteurized milk 3) dried milk 4) condensed milk. Surprisingly, no differences were seen even when the feeding experiment had run several weeks, Pottenger contin= uuod with it for generations of cats, however. The result, after period of ten years, was as follows: Cats fed raw milk stayed healthy and gave birth normal- ly generation after generation, Cats fed heat-treated milk had ‘miscarriages within a few generations, the length of life was reduced, and they developed a number of mostly degenerative diseases, with malformation of bones, jaws and teeth. The degree of severity depended on the way the milk had been treated, Pasteurized mill caused relatively few changes, whilst dried milk had distinetly greater negative effects. Con- densed milk proved disastrous where the above-named gen- eral damage was concerned; it has least biological value, Af ter about four generations, all animals in that group were sick and no longer able to reproduce. (The taste of condensed milk also differs most from that of fresh milk.) The experiments were repeated with white rats, giving the same result. (UHT milk was not available at the time.) Many other scientists lat- ce did similar experiments, practically always with the same result. Kollath was one of them.* The important point about these experiments is that the damaged animals were in no way undemourished, nor did they show the well-known vitamin deficiencies or perhaps toxic symptoms. It was a general weakening in the “whole- ness” of the organism, as we call it today, an etheric weak- ness, What really gives pause for thought is that the damage did not show itself immediately but sometimes only after one, two or even three generations, Would anyone in our fast- moving day and age consider that the food we eat can have such deep-reaching effects? Another method of “processing” milk for the market is homogenization. This is primarily for practical purposes. If milk is left fo stand, the cream will rise to the top. After some time the cream clots, and it will not properly dissolve again afier this. This thick milk fatis, of course, “the best part”. Itis sold as créme fraiche. Whole milk left to stand for some time will go “lumpy”, the fat sticks to the edges of the container, and all one can do is serape it off. This makes it more diffi- cult to deal with milk in bottles or cartons, Homogenization prevents the cream from separating, The milk is forced against a wall at high pressure, breaking up the relatively large fat globules into much smaller ones. The main argument in favor of the process is that the milk will coagulate more evenly in the stomach, which makes it more digestible, This is true, but the question is why God or nature did not arrange for this in the first place. After all, these two creators have invented things that are much more complicated than this. So why is milk not homogenized by nature? Modem people— naturally—want to “improve” nature, but always only for practical or economic reasons. Biological aspects are usually ignored. Some people said, when homogenization wes intro- duced, that the bigger, natural wlobules were not absorbed but had to be emulsified first in the gut to make them digestible. This was, after all, ft from another species, and the organism had to cope with them specially. The fine globules produced 23mogenization, on the other would pass through nmediately~where they should not go in was said, or caused other problems, such as allergies. These ar- guments were vigorously refuted, but so far no experimental work has been done to resolve the issue, either substantiating or refuting these views. 24, Souring Let us go back to the further fate of milk products. As already ‘mentioned, fresh milk left to itself will tum sour after a time, because the ever-present lactobacilli convert lactose into lac- tic acid. In modem cowsheds, the milk has to be cooled down immediately to 5 degrees centigrade to prevent bacterial growth and make the milk keep better, This is a justifiable compromise to allow milk distribution, This shock” e milk to the effect that natural souring 0 spontaneous, and the taste will also differ “fresh from the cow’ nitely is a breaking-down process, and 1 fine floccular coagulation which results does change the mi part of the garicus. Much more yogu tral Europe, th was quite unknown there before the First World War, Kefir and longmilk (Sweden) are also produced industrially in dairies today selectively bred lactobacilli. Changing lactose to lactic acid and the change in {ein due to lactobacilli certainly do not mean loss of vi in spite of these being breaking-down processes. ther a form of predigestion, for milk is also soured in a Ta denature it, which is a first step in coming to grips with the surrounding world and over- coming forcign influences (sce chapter on digestion).Souring may happen naturally not only with milk but al- so with some vegetables, especially cucumbers and cabbage, Sour cucumbers and sauerkraut have been produced by this method for centuries and all over the world, They were known to have health-giving qualities. To produce them, one does have to use salt, however, and exchude air to some de- gree, The method is different from that of pickling cucumbers in vinegar. Every farmer’s wife used to know the natural souring method in the past.® Cucumbers pickled in vinegar have largely taken over, however, as they are easier to pro- duce and will keep practically for ever. Other vegetables and even fish (Norwegian graved laks) may also be preserved by the lactic acid method. In agriculture, silage is produced in the same way. The acid prevents the growth of putrifactive organisms, Thus the method will make food keep for some time, though this is not unlimited. The lactic acid also has a general strengthening effect and makes the foods more di- gestible, Most people who do not tolerate cabbage or cucum- ber have no problem eating the lactic acid soured products. In Russia, kvass is still a universally popular drink; it is made from soured rye bread. A version of this is sold in central Eu- rope as Brottrunk (bread drink). Lacite acid is a kind of tumtable in human metabolism where many different metabolic substances meet to initiate new anabolism (constructive metabolism). New synthesis means there must first have been break-down, This relation- ship is typical of higher life forms. It means, there has to be an active process, which is very different ftom what kappens in plants. The degree of catabolism (destructive metabolism) of sugar in muscle is actually only a beginning process, mod- erate and gentle, only going as far as lactic acid and not so far as to become “waste” which has to be climinated. The organ- ism is largely able to synthesize the lactic acid itself back again into sugar, with only a small amount “burned up”, ie, broken down completely into carbon dioxide. Lactic acid 26 holds a position between catabolism and anabolism, the two polar opposite metabolic processes, It enables and indeed guides the transition from catabolism to anabolism, This is the principle of the middle, and it is healing in character. This is also the difference compared to alcoholic fermentation. Alcohol cannot be re-synthesized in the organism. It does not stimulate metabolism and Aes fo be burned up completely. (This is why drinks with high alcohol concentrations warm you up.) The development can, however, proceed beyond alcohol it that it is further broken down to acetic acid, i.e. vinegar. This does not present the acute danger of alcohol, but it also does not contain the nourishing, anabolic quality of Jactic acid. ‘The lactic acid fermentation method was known all over the world in earlier times. We can be sure that this “inven- tion” was not based on chance observation, perhaps because people did not have refrigerators then, Like all old traditions it arose because people then still had profound insight into the influence which foods have on human beings. Today, alt- hough still used widely, it is often not appreciated enough Still quite familiar today is the Norwegian preservation of salmon by lactic acid fermentation, as well as the Russian custom of the fermentative preservation of cabbage, onions and turnips, ete. Certainly a significant aspect of the healthy nutrition in the Ukraine is due to the Kefir consumed in that diet, We know that yoghurt is consumed in Egypt, Ayran in Turkey, Miso in Japan. Less familiar is, for example, the easi- ly digestible lactic acid fermented chicken meat in Argentina (Pollo al barro). A process is permitted to occur there that could not be achieved by the mere addition of acid. The way we use milk today is totally different from the situation in those times. In “civilized” countries, milk is pro- duced and consumed in vast amounts, It is often specially recommended for elderly people, thinking that the calcium contained in milk will slow down or ptevent osteoporosis. Asin other areas, not only nutrition, overdoing things creates a new problem. It is an established fact that for some years now, increasing aumbers of children, and also adults, are showing allergic reactions to milk. This is undoubtedly due to ‘many things, but the “resistance to anything foreign”, which is the basis of allergies, may aiso be connected with milk be- ing taken at the wrong age and with its quality being reduced by processing methods. If we drain the whey from curdled sour milk protein and. leave this to stand for a while, we get quark, a soft curd cheese which still contains the milk protein and fat. Quark is not just much more digestible than milk but altogether the ‘most easily digested protein. It may thus provide an important basis in the diet~providing one docs not overdo things, which is always possible, If the curds are left to stand for a time, specific protein- digesting bacteria will grow on them. They produce a new product—cheese. Starting with curds and the bacteria which will naturally grow on it, we get a degree of putrefaction, and also the powerfull smell typical of the small matured curd cheeses which were originally made by hand. Again it will depend on the kind of bacteria, which have to find the right nutrient base. Variation may be produced by heating the milk a little, to a greater or lesser degree, before curdiing it, Curdling is traditionally effected using rennet, In the past it was obtained from the stomachs of unweaned calves, but today it is produced using genetic engineering. Depending on regional variations, different bacteria are in- volved, and this gives rise to local differences in cheeses, which need months to mature. Cheeses are therefore named according to their place of origin (cheddar, edam, gouda, ete.) ‘The manufacturing processes and the specific bacteria, needed are known today, so that cheddar can now be pro~ duced all over the world, though it has to be said that the fla- 28 vor is often very different, so much so that one need not even be an expert to be aware of it Inoculation with specific molds will take the process fur- ther, producing strong-tasting gourmet cheeses such as gor- gonzola, roquefort, blue cheese, and others. ‘The process of breaking down the protein may also go so far that substances are produced which consist of degraded amino acids such as tyramine which can trigger headaches or migraine in suscep- tible people. Individuals who have this sensitivity will have to avoid all mature, ripe (yellow) and aromatic cheeses, but may consume curds (quark), They must also avoid chocolate, as this also contains such substances. The intestinal flora may be affected as well. There can be no abjection to cating such del- icacies by people who are not sensitive to them, providing they are eaten in the small amounts appropriate for delicacies. 29Vitality and Fertility The role which diet plays in health has become topical from quite a different angle recently. The number of couples wna- ble to have children for biological reasons is knowa to be on the increase. For a long time this was thought to be the wom- an’s problem, for that used to be the way of thinking. Howev- er, a number of recently published papers have shown that sperm quality has been deteriorating dramatically over the last 50 years. The men affected were not sick in any appre- ciable sense; they simply had not enough vitality (not sexuali- ty). ‘Other investigations published in recent years have pro- vided clear evidence that fertility is largely dependent on diet More than 30 years ago it was found that the potency of breeding bulls was decreasing in spite (or because?) of feed- ing them concentrates. It was restored by feeding hay from unfertilized alpine meadows, Experimental work later con- firmed these findings and added to them. Comparison was made between rabbits given fodder produced in the conven- tional way and others given biodynamically produced fodder (Demeter quality). It is important to note that no difference was seen in the composition of the fodder as far as nutrient value was concerned, nor in the usual analyses, e.g. for vita- ‘mins. In spite of this, the biodynamically produced fodder gave the rabbits better health and fertility, Thus the pregnan- cy rate was the same for both groups in the first generation, In the second generation it was 59% with conventional fodder and 86 % with biodynamic fodder. Similarly distinct differ ences were seen in the number of live births per litter. Sus- ceptibility to infection also showed marked differences in the second generation. Other scientists obtained the same results, showing that organic or biodynamic fodder improves fertility 30 and health, whereas the intensive use of mineral fertilizer has a negative effect,* How is it possible to have such different effects? The reason is that we do not know what life really is, where it comes from, and how it is connected with physical substanc- es. One thing we can know today is that life is a power. I is transformed light, as statcd above. We also know that only specific substances, foods that give sustenance, contain cor ought to contain it. The above-mentioned investigations were done a tong time ago (see chapters on milk) but hardly any notice was taken of them, Nor were the conclusions applied in practice. We may definitely conclude that the effect of diet goes deep, addressing the life of the whole organism. The methods of agricultural production play an essential role. Processing also has a major influence. Preservation of any kind will not retain the life in foods in the long run. Suitable methods ean, how= ever, take that life forward. Compromises will have to be accepted today. The above investigations were given in some detail to enable you to judge how far we should go in our acceptance.The Role of Vitamins issue of how far a food, which can only come from life, actually still has life in it, also counts in another area. The freshly pressed juice of a healthy fruit or vegetable clear- ly still contains vital energies that will nourish us. It has been shown in the above that they can only be preserved in part Human beings arc, of course, known to have the desire t0 iprove” on nature, The “unnecessary parts” of a juice or other vegetable product are therefore removed from those that are desirable. When nutrition first began as a science, it was stated that only the “energy content” and atilizable substances mattered. The indigestible parts of cereal grains ot rice, for instance, were removed, and people were proud to have showy white flour or rice. This went well for quite a long time in the case of rice, Then people began to develop strange symptoms such as paresis and other forms of nerve damage The condition was given the name beriberi. Later this was found to be due to a deficiency. The substance which was lacking was found in the very hulls which had been thrown away or fed to the pigs. Chemically it proved to be an amine. It clearly was a vehicle for life (Latin vita), And so the name vitamin was used for the very essence of a vital substance which must be pact of the humen dict. This first vitamin was Vitamin B. Later others were found and named using letters of the alphabet. By definition, vitamins are thus substances which the organism is not able to produce itself. They have to be supplied from outside. Requirements differ, Most animals are able to produce their own vitamin C, which therefore is not a vitamin in their case. Humans and strangely enough guinea pigs are unable to do so, They must take in vitamin C their dict. It occurs in all fresh fruit as well as in many other foods, If vitamin C, or rather fresh food, is lacking, people develop scurvy. It used to be common among seafat= 32 ers on long journeys when no fresh food was available Symptoms were hemorthages, great weakness, and the teeth would grow loose and drop out. ‘Vitamins do indeed arise from a vital process. For a long, tnme they were therefore thought to be the essence of health Unfortunately it was discovered too late that over-dosage can cause severe damage, This was noted particularly with vita- min D. We know now that vitamin D is not actually a vitamin but rather a hormone witich the organism is able to produce itself. [tis able to take up tight, and this activates it. The real vitamin in this case is the light, The substance, vitamin D, only acts as a mediator. Childhood rickets can therefore be prevented or cured with cither light or vitamin D. Vitamin D is “sunlight held in a test tube by a spell”, as someone has put it (von Piaundler), Atificial radiation made it possible to produce vitamin D and give it in high doses. Rickets, a disease where insuffi- cient calcium is deposited in the bones, was completely elim- inated. Then the opposite happened, however—early calcifi- cation causing severe damage and sometimes proving fatal. It was years before it was realized that this was due to vitamin Dover dosage. Cod-liver oil has a particularly high vitamin D content This will generally not be harmful, however, for the high fat content prevents excessive intake, Cod-liver oil also contains vitamin A (as does butter), which counteracts vianin D, Where the latter causes deposits, hardening and calcification, vitamin A is involved in anabolic processes, This is why vit- amin A and vitamin E, which is similar to it, are often rec- ommended today to prevent hardening, for instance in the hheart (myocardial infarction). Vitamins A, D and E are fat- soluble, vitamins B and C water-soluble, Taking a limited view on vitamins as essential to life, people believe that the health issue as such is ‘in hand’, Thus vitamin D is added to 1 milk m the USA in the belief that the organism ‘needs’ itIk (and milk products) to which extra vitamins have been added in order to prevent possible osteoporosis. Vitamin D will get the organism to take up calcium, but it does not determine where it is deposited, The calcium in the blood may then deposit in irregularities in the vascular walls caused by cholesterol, for example. This may lead to the grotesque situation where blood vessels calcify more than the bones do. If such calcium deposits form in the vessels that supply the conditions may arise that will ultimately lead to cerebral sclerosis or myocardial infarc with asteoporasis because there is a which depends on silica, not calcium. ter makes tissues hard, and exactly because of this also indeed even more so, Organ times its own weight of water, creating If solid and skin, hair, nails and connective ct, barley and horsetail have a high silica content, as produced by Cartilage is found not only on the bone surfaces in joints. Itis also responsible for the elasticity of all long bones. ica levels are reduced in osteoporosis and as a result the bones are no longer elastic but Further investiga c.g. vitamin F in fats, later called unsaturated fatty acids below). Finally it became evident that the term “vitamin” does not always apply. In recent times, chemical names have come to vitamin active substances and the ve- hicles for specific vital processes. These may be stimulated by giving the relevant vitamins in relatively high doses. It is 34 not so much the isolated substances which matter, however, but the whole situation. Many people are today taking not just the recommended daily dose but mega doses, that is, many ics the amount of vitamins prescnt in the This may occasionally serve a purpose for medical rea: does not change the general situation as regards diet. On the con- may lead to situations where the increased dose wi no longer prove adequate and have co be increased further— am endless drag, We arc confronting the problem toda to sell foods as well as vitarnins and that marketing and advertising efforts by this issue, 35Sugar—Energy Source Devoid of Life always needs a watery environment. Plant saps, milk or blood therefore comtain the wholeness of vital energies, It is human nature that we like to take our pleasures pure, with nothing else mixed in. In practice it means that people did not just use the juice expressed from sugar cane but concentrated it, removing any part that was not sweet. This led to the es- sence of sweetness, refined white sugar that is 99.97 % pure. ‘The concentration and refining processes were soon done on the industrial scale. Factory-made sugar became cheap and available in large quantities. Later bect was specially bred to produce relatively high concentrations of sugar. This has be- come the sugar generally uscd in Europe, for sugar eane only grows in hot climates, Refining has reached such a high de- gree, however, that there is practically no difference any more between the two kinds of sugar What does such “refining” signify? No living creature consists of one pure substance only. The infinite variety of life depends on a wide range of substances being involved. This immediately tells us that no isolated substance— whichever it may be—can be a vehicle for life. At best it w hhave preserved a very small detail of life. Sugar does in fact still have this small part, but it is no longer life—which de- pends on variety—but merely “energy”. Anyone will know for instance when onc’s energies are depleted after doing hard physical work. After a biggish shopping expedition in town, the tiredness can be instantly overcome with sugar, which will, of course, be most effective in a cup of coffee. One has new “energy"—and that is perfectly true. Getting such a “high”, one will no longer realize that this nergy is not life. It is borrowed energy which we obtain directly, without making any effort. No food can or should enter di- rectly imto the blood, only sugar! Anything else must first be 36 digested and inwardly processed. But the sugar energy is not something we have gained by our own efforts; it is really something we have stolen from nature, literally in a “refined” way. It is most important to realize that there is no pure sus in nature. The highest concentrations of sugar are found in which by its nature is rare and difficult to obtain. Honey is not the same as sugar, however, for it also contains many enzymes, vitamins, trace elements and “active prinei- ples” as vehicles for fife. These come from the flowers as ‘well as the bees, Honey has therefore traditionally been used ‘more as a medicine than a food. It will be clear by now that such nergy, being strength gained fiom sugar, is really an illusion, We can also sce this from the fact that the effect disappears in just a few hours. A reactive drop in blood sugar to subnormal levels follows, and we then feel tired again, What better solution than to take some more sugar? A “sugar dependence” develops, truly a vicious circle in which many people are caught up today. This has been discussed in more detail elsewhere.” We only have to look at some sugar to understand the above, for sugar is a crystal, Crystals are never living. They are typical representatives of the dead world. Other crystals in the mineral world do not, of course, contain “energy”; that is a special property of sugar, which therefore is also combus- tible, Sugar is not just dead; it also kills if used in concentrat- ed form. It can be used to make preserves such as home-made or factory-made jam, Ifthe fruit is boiled with at least 50% of sugar (“pound for pound”, as people say when they make jam) it will not ferment, for the yeasts needed to effect fer- mentation cannot live in such sugar concentrations (60% of sugar is considered absolutely safe; the product will then def- itely keep; with 50%, mold o fermentation are still posst- le).It is important to realize that sugar does not provide life, only energy. This is evident from the fact that no human be- ing or animal can live on sugar only, exactly because it does not provide life. People are perfectly aware of this today; they kenow that vitamin B is needed to digest sugar. If there is none available, sugar becomes a vitamin B robber. In the long run this again means damage, above all to the nervous system. In nature, there is built-in prevention. The starch in a grain of cereal or rive is surrounded with the vitamin B which is need- ed to digest it, This has, however, been removed from highly refined flour. In some countries, vitamin B must therefore be added to white flour by law—using, in accordance with the accepted mode of thinking, the synthetic vitamin, of course, Methods exist for dissolving the natural vitamin out of the hull and introducing it into the starchy part (parboiled rice). We should ask, however, what other effects such industrial processes may have. It should be clear that whole grain still retains the wholeness of life, It should be easy to see from the above that it is more natural and better to grind and use the whole grain rather than refine it to produce suowy white flour and then add synthetic vitamins, iron ad other things which have first been taken away. This will not give us a product of real quality. We can- not produce an organism such as a whole grain but “puting it together”, even if adding anything missing may avoid the worst problems (see chapter on vitamins). ‘What has been said so far should provide a basis for us to judge what matters when it comes to diet, and what we really take in with our food, or indeed fail to take in. Its life with its various qualities, There are problems, however. It will hardly be possible for anyone who wants to have a com- pletely healthy diet today to do so. The products one would need are not always available. It cannot be a matter of refus- ing every single gram of sugar, for instance, or doing without 38 condensed milk or sterilized cofite cream to make a cup of coffee more of an all-round pleasure. (Even people with a fine palate no longer notice the difference from fresh ercam.) Such situations often call for compromise. The long-term consumption of maltreated milk, sugar or preserves will, however, cause considerable damage or deficiencies, espe- cially in children who after all depend on immediate life in order to grow. The damage is not generally noticed. With children and young people, sugar consumption has often reached quite uncontrollable levels, something we can ob- serve all around us, It is well known that the health, or rather overall vitality (not one or more specific diseases but consti- tutional health) of children is rapidly decreasing today. Pco- ple will only rarely see the connection with the diet, howev- en” 39The Problem of Food Additives ‘The many additives in foods add to the problem. This starts with agrochemicals (insecticides, pesticides, etc.) used to “save the erops”. (Slogan: “All we have to eat is what the pests leave for us.”) In reality most pests are indicators to show that something is not right, for instance excessive amounts of fertilizer have been used. Monoeulture offers an invitation to other creatures to help themselves freely. On the other hand, selective breeding aiming only at high yields ero- ates one-sidedness in plants and animals. This calls for cor rection in the wholeness of nature. So-called pests make the correction, just as so-called weeds tend to balance out defi- ciencies in the soil, In reality they are therefore often the remedy for a maltreated soil. Ecology has developed a great dca! in recent times, It involves the study of interconnections and relationships in nature and among life forms, This is in contrast to economy, which has so far been dominant, a sei- ence where the focus is on cost effectiveness In most cases, the chemical “club” is used to combat un- desirable inseets or plants. Residues of this remain on foods, but the real problem is that the approach is fundamentally flawed. In the long run, nature will react and sttike back. It took decades of using DDT, which was highly effective, for example, before people realized that the insects grew re- sistant, The outstanding weapon had thus become completely ineffective. At the same time DDT had spread all over the world and was present in the fat of practically all mammals and of ftuman beings. The battle against malatia, so promis- ing at first, has in effect also been lost. The relatively harm- less forms of malaria (tertiary) have practically vanished. In- stead highly aggressive forms have gained the upper hand (plasmodium falciparum and vivax). We have the same sttua- 40 ith disease-producing germs which have grown practi- insensitive to antibiotics. Only small amounts of insecticides, pesticides and other “plant protectives” actually get into the foods we buy. How- ever, vast numbers of “improvers” are added during pro cessing, from preservatives to colors, emulsifiers, stabilizers, thickeners, flavors, flavor enhancers, and many for which no names are given. In the USA, for instance, ¢. 2700 food addi- tives are permitted that da not have to be declared. They have, of course, all been “tested”, though it is not apparent how and for how long those tests were conducted. People have been trying for a long time to imitate, and indeed improve on, nature, This only scems to be possible, however. A nice meal should be not just nourishing and healthy but tasty as well. Flavor and aroma are genuine quali= ty criteria. The act of cooking ties in retaining or developing them. Heat has been used for this purpose from the earliest days, Generally speaking, the higher the temperature, the more intensive the aroma and taste which develop. If meat is boiled, for instance, a special aroma develops which is stronger than that of raw meat. The aroma gets much more intensive, however, if the meat is roasted o fried. Coffee beans only develop their aroma on roasting, which involves even higher temperatures than with meat, Humanity has made an art of all these methods, We may also say that they serve {o ripen the food to some extent, and this always needs time to be given in preparation, People don't have time today, and because of this many aromas have now been artificially pro- duced, They are manufactured by the ton today, and techni- cally this is no longer a problem, A single factory will pro- dace about 7,000 different aromatic componenis—from pine- apple to lemon flavor. If declared at all, the label usually just says “nanue-identical aromas”. That may be true, but it is misleading if nothing else, Every natural aroma or scent is made up of not one but a large number of substances thatserve as vehicles, Synthetic production usually only means @ ngle substance for strawberry or banana flavor. This offers a tremendous advantage, for the aroma can be added in practi- cally any amount. A product, which otherwise may be rather tasteless, will then have a powerful flavor. One will notice the one-sidedness immediately with synthetic (so-called nature- identical) strawberry flavor. Natural vanilla flavor has been found to contain about forty different substances, Synthetic vanillin is a single, chemically “pure” substance. Its flavor is not only stronger, of course, but quite one-sided, real kitsch, artificial rather than artistic, which is what we may call the aroma created by nature. Human taste buds have got so used to the strength and one-sided nature of synthetic vanillin that the majority of consumers demand it. The mote subtle natural aroma scems tasteless fo most people today. Vanillin is there- fore dominant in almost every vanilla ice-cream and in prac- tically every kind of chocolate. Modern consumers have had the excessively strong sensory stimulus of synthetic vanillin fiom childhiood and are used to it, There is also the question of provenance. If natural vanilla pods were to be used to fla- vor the vast amounts of vanilla ice-cream and chocolate which arc consumed all over the world, almost the whole of the tropics would need to be covered with this plant. ‘The way human taste sensations arc fixed on a “charac- teristic” substance that is in fact one-sided and “off the mark” is a comuption of human sense organs which goes unnoticed It reflects the general flooding of the senses with stimuli and with rising amounts of information that can no longer be con- trolled. The result is that over-stimulation leads to a gencral dulling of the senses. Weaker, more subile stimuli can no longer be perceived. Quantity prevails over quality, and peo- ple’s values are getting entirely one-sided and lacking in re- finement. ‘This makes it possible to produce “chicken soup” which contains no chicken, or “vanilla ice-cream” without (real) a2 vanilla, and so on. A basic product is made which is deliber- ately neutral and easy to package. Aroma + color + lots of salt cr sugar then create the perfect illusion. What is more, it is cheap. Clearly infinite possibilities have opened up here and are eagerly put to use. In spite of the problems of synthetically produced “na- ture-identical” substances which we have been discussing, it must be said that they are very much closer to the human me~ tabolism than many other synthetic products which have nev- et existed before. These may be highly effective, but they make demands on the organism to which it was not geared Actually this is a deception, a substance may taste like a lem- on but the life and the force of the lemon is lacking Flavor enhancers act in a different way. Many of them occur naturally. The first and foremost among them is sait, A dish that is one hundred percent salt free has almost no taste at all. Higher animals also love salt, especially goats. Humans are the greatest salt lovers; they are practically addicted to it Jn earlier times, when transport facilities were not yet what they are today, salt was literally worth its weight in gold. ‘Well-salted dishes have a more intensive taste, which does not mean they are better. Ordinary table salt (sodium chlo- ride) is essential for the function of nerves. For plants it is poison, with just a few exceptions. We can see from this that salt belongs 10 humans and animals. Its significance lies not only in the sphere of biological processes but in higher func- tions, It is chus really a pleasure food, a sort of stimulant. This ‘was known 2000 years ago. Pliny wrote of “sal Atticum” (Ate tic salt), meaning Attic wit, a term also taken up by Byron. It refers t0 “acerbity” or “intellectual wit”. Eating a lot of salt will not only raise the blood pressure but make reactions fast er. The individual is more “wide awake”, which is considered desirable. A constantly raised blood pressure may, however, Icad to a number of diseases.Several years ago the specific flavor-enhancing effect of glutamic acid (glutamate) was discovered. This is an amino acid deriving from protein, It is widely used, especially in Chinese cookery. Excessive use can have a powerful tempo- rary stimulant effect, followed by an equally powerful tired- ness. Smaller amounts of glutamic acid are still added to foods today, above all (o ready meals Sugar is another flavor enhancer. It is often added to salty foods (tomato ketchup contains c. 14 % of sugar). Now- adays every brand of cucumber pickled in vinegar, gherkin, fish preserves and fish salads have sugar or synthetic sweet= ener added to intensify and “round out” the flavor. It should be obvious from the above that such constant, one-sided “stimulation” will gradually blunt the sense of taste, The unadulterated product will not sccm very attractive thea, and subtleties of taste tend to be lost. In reality this con- stant over stimulation means impoverishment. The same ap- plies to the other senses. Constant background music and continually changing lights in garish colors overwhelm the senses and our al to listen carefully and reflect. Ultimate- ly our inner life grows impoverished Most of the additives mentioned serve to make products appear better than they really are, above all by adding color, aroma and so on. To put it bluntly, this is deception or fraud since something is suggested that is not present The number of additives is so vast that it is impossible 10 keep track of them, let alone of interactions and long-term effects. It has been known for some time that many of these sub- stances may trigger allergies, and the mumber of additives is so vast that it is hardly possible to determine which is the culprit ina given case, In 1965, B, Feingold,"” a Californian pediatrician, found that a patient lost her physical allergic reactions once she ex cluded synthetic food additives from her diet. Her mental symptoms, which had persisted for two years, also improved 44 Over the next ten years he saw similar responses in others, especially in hyperactive boys, Hyperactivity was common. ‘The boys were evidently showing hypersensitive reactions to specific food additives. Dr Feingold then developed a dict, the only rule being that all synthetic additives must be cot pletely avoided. Many of the parents who took his advice saw their children's behavior improve in just a few weeks. The improvement would, however, disappear as soon as the chi dren went back to eating foods containing the additives in question. Again it is important to leave out all sugar, at least for some weeks. At almost the same time pharmacist Hertha Hafer noted that sedatives would seriously aggravate the condition of her hyperactive child who had severe behavioral problems, Stim- ulants brought transient improvement. She finally discovered that one particular class of additives, which do not have to be declared, would trigger the symptoms. These are the phos- phates (added above all to soft drinks, instant beverages, saut- sages, processed cheese, and so on). Complete avoidance of phosphates improves the children’s condition in a remarkably short time. Many parents can confirm this, but Mrs Hafer’s findings, as well as those of Dr Feingold, have not been offi- cially accepted. Parents have therefore formed self-help groups in many areas (Phosphate League).'" Why is it that these very small amounts of additives can igger both physical (allergy) and mental (hyperactivity) in- tolerance reactions in some people, and especially children? Human beings depend on the natural world. They live on it. Yet nature must not enter into the human organism without being changed first (see the chapter on digestion below), Most of these additives are foreign matter and the human me~ tabolism is not geared to them, Natural mechanisms to protect against foreign life develop in the course of life. Children must first acquire their immune defenses, These defense 45info the organism “unin- ul are only recognized as forcign matter afterwards, ‘oo late. The consequence is all is not a true allergy but hypersensitivity.) It may also happen that the orga ts vital processes are blocked or undergo pathological changes, as 'Y would in response to poisons. The defenses are thus evaded and the body is no longer in control, as described above. Some of these additives undoubtedly existed also a hun- dred years ago. It is evident, however, that the use of addi- tives has inereased by leaps and bounds in recent years, It seems that the limit of tolerance has been reached, at least in growing number of people. What is so grotesque about is that most additives are put in to improve appearance, and are therefore entirely superfluous, It will need a change in consumer habits, however, to counter people’s health. 46 Understanding Digestive Functions The putpose of nutrition, we have said, is that it provides hue aman beings with life, Life differs greatly, however, from one Vehicle to another. ‘The starch in potato differs from that in a been eating mice for millennia, and mice have a different kind of body protein What would happen if mouse protein got into the cat's blood unchanged? It would mean that in due course of time the animal’s behav- ior. In other words, the cat would gradually turn into a mouse. To prevent this from happening, higher organisms have a di- gestive system. Its function is to break down foreign life and Prevent it from getting in as it is. In other words, the digestive system protects one’s own self from foreign life which would ‘make one’s own organis: all-encompassing, yet only three uur food serve as vehicles for it. They are ing the relevant inter- mediate stages). It is highly significant that no living organ- ism contains just one of the three on its own, They must al- ways work together to provide a basis for life. Accordingly, there are also three different kinds of digestion. Protein Protein is the main vehicle for th id an in egg (the German term for pro- ”). Muscle, intemal organs, skin, and so on also consist largely of it. Protein calls for the most intensive digestion. This begins in Usin which “denature” the protein, making it coagulate. It is then no longer bound up so intensively with its original life This also makes it more open to attack, which is important for further processing in other parts of the gastrointestinal canal, The juices produced by the pancreas break the material down further. Other digestive juices then reduce the protein to ami- no acids, also known as the “auilding bricks” of protein, purpose of the whole process, which is one of destruction, is that the specific nature of the protein is removed. It is now no longer chicken or beef protein, Rather than “foreign” it is now neutral, It is only now that the very fine fragments can be taken up through the intestinal wall. They pass through the portal vein and into the liver. This digestive process is undoubtedly one of catabolism, or destruction. You might think that all life has now gone, and all that remains of the living protein would be a more or less dead amino acid. This is only partly the case, however. As the “destruction” occurs inside the organism, the vital en- ergies liberated in the process can stimulate the organism's own vital body (ether body). Life—like light—is a power and only bound up with matier for limited periods. Re-synthesis in the liver follows, producing specifi cat, bovine or human protein, as the case may be. In the process, the vital powers are bound to matter again, The amino acids are not completely dead either. They are processed further in the intemal metabolism, being either re-synthesized or broken, down into highly effective substances of hormone character that are essential for life. Adrenalin is an example. Problems may arise at different stages of protein degra- dation, If degradation is inadequate, or so much protein is ‘aken in that the organism cannot manage to process it, the undigested protein reaches the large intestine, where it is bro~ ken down by bacteria, This ptocess differs from intermediary ‘metabolism in that itis one of putrefaction, a rotting process. Some of the substances produced are highly toxic. Being sol- 48 uble they are taken up into the intestine and need to be detox- ified in the liver. This puts a strain on the liver. ‘The hydrochloric acid in the stomach and the pepsin produced in the stomach lining serve not only to make the protein digestible in the first place, but will also simply digest undesirable foreign life, such as bacteria for example. Exper iments done with volumtects have shown that cholera baci do not infect individuals if there is enough hydrochloric avid in the stomach. If the acid is diluted, the bacteria survive pas- sage through the stomach and may later spread in the intes- tine and cause cholera to develop. Unfortunately the moder habit of drinking before meals helps to dilute the gastric acid and this favors infection, especially in warmer climates or in conditions where cleanliness is not adequate. Sweet drinks increase the risk, for the composition of saliva and digestive Iuices changes depending on whether it is sweetness or meat we taste or smell. Adding lemon juice to the food, in a salad, for instance, will help to protect against bacteria If protein has been predigested in the stomach but ig not yet properly broken dowa, it is possible for it 1o be taken up through the intestinal wall at this stage. It still has foreign charaeteristies, however, and the body marshals its defenses and tries to eliminate this “semi protein” through the skin ‘This causes skin eruptions. It is one way in which food aller gy ofien shows itself. Omitting these foods from the diet will help, of course, but it does not deal with the situation, Instead, we must stimu- late the digestive functions. This may be done with sour food or bitters (aperitif), but not with sweet drinks, People have also always known that hot spices. especially mustard and horseradish, will help the digestion of meat 49Fats Fats demand less of the digestion, Fat globules, which are relatively large, must first be reduced in size so that they ccan be taken up into the intestine. This is the fonction of 2 fluid produced by the liver. It emulsifies the fats so that fats can now be combined with water, The fats in milk, cream and mayonnaise are already emulsified and therefore more easily digested than solid fats, Later the fat is broken down into fat- ty acids and glycerin, whieh are then taken up into the organ- ism. Bile production and therefore the ability to digest fats al- so depends on the time of day. The greatest volume of bile is available in the mornings and as the day goes on, The process is at rest during the night. Anything fried eaten late at night, possibly with french fries and mayonnaise, is a challenge, for bile is then no longer available, The organism will frantically try and squeeze the last drops of bile from the gallbladder, and the person develops biliary colic, It is a problem connect- ed with life rhythms. Eaten at midday, the same meal would usually provoke no such reaction, The classic English break- fast of bacon and eggs also stimulates the bile and the indi- vidual’s activity. Bile makes us active, Activity in its tum encourages the flow of bile, even to the point of “explosion”, as may be seen in choleries. They are “bile people” (from the Greek chole for bile). If they cannot discharge their activity to the outside it will tw inwards and they may go pale with rage, as the saying goes, The bile does not go into the intes- tine but into the blood and the skin in that case, and this is dangerous; they poison themselves. Eggs, fats, fried foods and roasted products such as coffee will stimulate bile pro- duction most; people with biliary problems should therefore avoid them. 50 Carbohydrates Carbohydrates, as they are called, are even easier to di- gest. You can see this if you make the following experiment Chew a piece of bread or boiled potato for a few minutes and you'll notice a sweet taste developing. This is because saliva contains an active principle which the body produces, an en- zyme which reduces the starch in the bread to glucose. It is an ‘amazing fact that practically all vegetables and plants are based on this one substance. Glucose is condensed into starch and stored by plants, in cereal grains, for instance, or potar toes, It can be broken down into sugar again, As the plant ages, however, the starch may condense further to form indi gestible cellulose. The woodiness of old vegetables is evi- dence of this. ‘This type of digestion also calls for activity. If there is no activity, ox people eat too much sugar, the sugar will reach the rectum where bacteria will thrive on it, In the case of pro- tein, the bacteria induced putrefuction; here it is yeasts which thrive on sugar. Yeasts are known to ferment grape juice to wine, or malt to beer, These are not the same yeasts or fimgi, of course, as those used in beer brewing and by bakers, but degenerate forms. Whichever way this may be, their metabo- lism differs from human metabolism where sugar is mainly reduced to lactic acid, as shown earlier. The wild yeasts pro- duce not only “pure” alcohol but also many intermediate products, the equivalent of rot gut, in the process of alcoholic fermentation. They are easily soluble so that they are ab- sorbed and may seriously upset the fuman metabolism, Headaches, tiredness, bad moods and a yast mumber of differ- ent problems may arise as a result Fact is that sugar consumption has risen enormously in the “civilized” world in recent decades. On the one hand the human organism is continually flooded with more sugar than it is really able to cope with, On the other hand sugar calls forpractically no effort in digestion, This means that we do not develop, or use, the power to produce the sugar we need our- selves fiom the starch in bread or vegetables and thus leads to 2 weakening of digestive activity. As a result the organism is progressively less able to control the sugar. This explains why sugar provides a good soil for the microorganisms which live on it outside the organism—yeasts. Like all microorgan- isms, yeasts are highly adaptable and happy to change. No wonder, then, that, harmless in themselves (they are fungi), they will coloaize not only the whole intestine but also the hung, and may even cause fatal damage. Evidently the fault Hes not with the “bad” fingi but in a faulty attitude in hue ‘mans. We are then no longer “master in our own hous Essentially, the situation is the same as that described for Protein. Overloading the organism with protein lends to putre- faction, whilst too much sugar results in fermentation, in ci- ther case the kind of process that should not take place in the organism, Mention has alrcady been made that in the inner metabo- lism sugar is reduced to lactic acid. The acid is also produced outside the human organism—in sour milk, and lactic acid fermentation of cucumbers and sour cabbage, and in making sourdough bread. This involves a problem which has so far been ignored. We will consider this in detail in the chapter on baking bread, Suniming up, we may say that the purpose of digestion is not only to provide us with life but also to induce us to make efforts in order to obtain this life. We have to come to ‘grips with physical matter in a most intimate way and change it. The power to do so has to be developed in childhood; in- fants only have the potential for it. Such development also makes us stronger to resist anything “foreign”, as has been shown. If protection of the self from anything non-self takes lace inside us, itis called an ‘immune response”. This, too, 52 has to be developed in the course of time. Digestion is a first way of practicing it. An important part of our immune system thus needs to be developed and will be weak unless we prac tice it. Rudolf Steiner put the relationship between cating and digestion very succinctly: “People eat themselves sick and digest themselves healthy.Our Daily Bread The use of grain to make dread undoubtedly goes back to times when the whole of life was still a deeply religious expe rience. The last thing still 1o remain from that age is the cen- tral role which bread continues to play in many religious rites, The method must have come from ancient mystery knowledge, for we also say in the Prayer of Prayers: “Give us this day our daily bread.” ‘The prain is first of all ground. In earlier times this was done slowly between two stones. The method has changed a great deal today, for metals are now widely used instead of stones in milling technology. It has been found that tempera tures may go up as high as 1,000°C at certain points in the machinery, Clearly this means that the sensitive protein in the rain is changed if nothing else. Traces of metal from the ma- chinery may also cause aging in the active principles that are liberated in the milling process. Many different varieties of grain used to be grown in the past. They were originally bred from grasses. Many of them are no longer economic to breed and grow today, Thus 9S per cent of the many varieties of wheat that used to be grown in ancient Greece have died out over the last 40 years, The same holds true for rice. In about 1900, $0,000 varieties of rice were grown in India. Today 10 per cent of them make up 90 per cent of all rice grown. In recent years, scientists have, however, started work to save older varieties, and they may just be in time. ‘Only a very few generations ago, rye was the main bread arain for Europeans, while wheat was used for refined bakery goods and cakes. Today, wheat is generally considered to be the bread grain. Thete is « problem connected with this which is not generally recognized. Thus mice fed entirely on wheat and prevented from cating anything else were found to die 54 after a time, for wheat protein is of limited quality; it lacks for example one amino acid called lysine which is essent life. The varied dict we eat today does, of course, make up the deficit, but we cannot deny that it exists with wheat. This ap- plies even to whole wheat or Graham bread. It is difficult to say if the original wheat varieties were better in quality. Rye definitely has better mutritional value. This is why rye bread used to be the staple in Central Europe. It was above all also given to soldiers who needed to be fit and tough. The issue is, however, also a geographical one. Wheat grows in warmer regions, rye in cooler climates, Truth is that the things that grow in different climates are just “right” for those regions. Eskimos eat a very different diet in their natu- ral habitat than do people living in the tropics, Both would fall sick if we were to swap their diets over! We are referring to their staple foods, for it does not mean that one “should not” use lemons in cold climatcs because they don’t grow there. The problem is one of one-sidedness, because wheat has replaced practically all other grain crops. In 1893, for instance, the ratio of rye to wheat was 67 33, so that people ate twice as much rye as wheat. By 1970 it was 25 ; 75, meaning that three times as much wheat was eat- en compared to rye. People are also eating much less bread In 1800, 300 kg of bread were eaten per head each year, by 1910 the figure had gone down to 157 kg, and by 1977 to 62 ke. Let us take a look at the different grain crops Wheat is grown most in the world. It can be used for many things such as bread, cakes and the many delights sold in patisseries. All the different types of flavor can be used with it (sweet, salty, sour), especially if one takes highly re- fined wheat flour. This is easily digestible, has little flavor of its own, and provides @ neutral base for anything one wants, be it butter, meat, cheese or jam. Our daily bread has there- fore sunk to the level of a more or less tasteless base for 55things and has litile vitality. The same applies to snowy white tice, for being without any taste of its own itis “perfect” with any kind of dish Mote and mote people are developing allergic reactions, to mille and wheat in recent years, especially children with neurodermatitis. This is no doubt partly due to the fact that ‘modern wheat is to some extent deficient and people tend to eat only wheat bread baked with yeast. Modem wheat has been specially bred for its gluten content, that is, glutamines that stick together, but qualitatively speaking these have a low sulfur content, Breeding thus focuses not on biological quality but on properties that are useful for baking technolo gy. This qualitative change in the protein is probably the rea- son why more and more people have allergic reactions to wheat, for allergic reactions practically always have to do with proteins. ‘The extensive use of wheat in bread-baking in recent decades is really a tragedy. Wheat is really the most refined and highly developed of all grain crops, and as always with something highly bred, it is not exactly robust and therefore not ideal for daily use, It seems that people had a feeling for this in earlier times, for white bread and cake were eaten only on Sundays and holidays. They were mostly reserved for more well-to-do people, which was accepted in those days. ‘The general way of thinking has changed completely since then, Everyone is “king” today, and all pleasures are available at any time, requiring very little individual effort to ‘obtain them, People fail to realize that this is an illusory life style lacking in moderation. Where wheat is concemed, it means that this sun fruit, king of grain crops and Sunday food, has been degraded and made a low-grade servant for everyday use. When we said that its biological quality was not quite up to seratch, this should be taken to mean that it is like asking a concert pianist to chop wood every day; he would be unlikely to make a good job of it, as his abilities lie 56 in quite a different direction, We might also say that there is no point in using a race horse (wheat) to pull a plow. The quality of the work would be poor and the animal would be ruined in the process. In the same way wheat that is misused in such a way cannot provide the right nourishment for peo ple, and the organism reacts to such misuse with an allergy if it goes on for long enough. Please do not take this to mean that wheat is “bad”— quite the contrary! It is actually too precious for biological use only. In Old Testament times people had a feeling for this, for “fine flour” would only be used for rituals and at specific times. It was meant to be the basis for life in the spir- it rather than biological tite (see p.76). Specialization is always a problem, in the breeding of grain crops as much as with farm animals ~-cows bred specif jeally to give high milk yields, pigs to pat on meat, and chickens to be egg producers. The problem is always that high performance in onc area goes hand in hand with defi- ciency in another. Such high performance may also lead to susceptibility to diseases, Pedigree dogs are a good example have much greater resistance to disease and are more vital This is not to say anything against breeding as such, but only that economic viability and high yields should not be the only criteria, Spelt is similar to wheat, but not so over bred. It needs the special climate found above all in the Baden region of Germany and in Switzerland. A special characteristic of spelt is that it does not, or hardly at all, tolerate artificial fertilizer, so that it is not possible to increase yields. Spelt harvested when milk ripe and kiln dried is called green com. It makes excellent tasty soups. Spelt bread is light and similar to wheat bread, Aye is more hearty, stronger tasting and “heavier” than wheat. It has been the main bread grain through the ages butis less suitable for cakes and biscuits. In recent decades, if not before, people have tended to go for an easier life, avoiding, effort of any kind. This means that they also prefer a diet, and sweet things, which do not call for any kind of digestive ef fort. Many people hardly know the taste of good, hearty bread today. Bread manufacturers will offen use wheat because it is lighter than sye, which is much more substantial, Bread made with 100 % rye is indeed too heavy for some people for daily consumption. The ideal would be rye bread lightened by add- ing 10 - 20 % of wheat. It should be mentioned that in Ger- many pumpernickel, made of 100 per cent rye, is considered a delicacy. Rye prefers a rougher climate, whilst wheat does well in milder, warmer regions. In the last few years attention was frequently directed to the so-called acid-base balance in the organism; it is often an essential factor. Here (00 it was noticed that sweets and above all white flour had an exireme effect on the acid-base balance in the direction of excessive acidification. Rye is especially fich in silica (silicic acid) (600 mg/ 100 gm, while rice has only 17 mg/ 100 gm. Although it is an acid it is frequently added (0 alkaline powders in modest quantities as a helpful additive and is considered an exception. Oats have the highest fat content of all cereal grains (11 1%), and a relatively high protein level, so neither needs to be added, Oats are generally used on their own in postidge, oat cakes, and so on, They do not make bread. Diabeties in par- ticular can profit from the combination of protein, far and carbohydrate by having an “oat day” a week, when they eat only dishes made with oats and no bread, potatoes or other forms of carbohydrate. A study at the University of Wuerzburg by Dr. Kasper clearly shows that the relatively high fat content in no way elevates the cholesterol level; on the contrary, the formation of bile acid out of cholesterol is stimulated and the cholesterol level drops, The outer husks of oats are extremely hard, and it needs special milling technol- 58 ogy to remove them. ‘The grain is then rolled to produce oat flakes. Taken raw or cooked, these are a hearty universal food, with a high magnesium content, It is in the nature of things that rolled cats can rarely ever be perfectly fresh by the time they reach the consumer. Cats develop a bitter taste when the fat in them has aged and grown rancid, Barley on its own also does not make bread. In antiquity it was the food of gladiators who were called hordearti, bar- ley eaters, Slaves were also fed barley. Both groups of people needed to be strong and capable of great physical effort. A special feature of barley is that it has a high silica content, Homans need this mineral for their hair, skin and connective tissues, The ash of the outer paris of the grain contains up to 70 % of silica. Long awns are typical of barley. They grow on the flowering glumes and act like antennae to receive cosmic influences which are then mediated by silica to act on con- nective tissues and the configuration of the whole organism. Silica relates very much to light, and barley has also been called “arrow of light” (Grohmann, G. The Plant). Taken as part of the diet, barley not only gives form to all eomnective tissue but especially also helps the sense organs and brain development. Barley also has a high protein (1 - 15 %) and low fat content (2 %). The hulled whole grain is still used as pearl barley today. Hearty soups are made with this, especially in ‘mountain regions. Grits are a mixture of oats, millet and bat- ley. Today, barley is mainly used as animal feed and to pro- duce malt, For the latter, barley is soaked until it germinates, then kitn dried and coarsely milled. The resulting maltose (a sugar) is used together with beer yeast and hops to make beer, Barley water also has a long tradition behind it. It is made by soaking the barley, boiling and then straining if and is still excellent for colds, influenza, diseases affecting the mucous membranes and for nourishmaett. 59If problems exist skin and connective may be help! only carbohydrate in the diet for some wecks. This also helps impure skin”. Barley flakes may be used, or barley flour in rissoles, or a kind of porridge, ‘Millet was a staple in the diet of poor people for a long. ir diet was sparse bu were eating themselves sick, Today everyone is icomed, and the situation has changed accord- is also rich in silica and can complement barley. the sphere of silica action—hair, the bread tastes “sandy”. Cercal grains have their origins in Europe. Rice is native to the East, The way it grows immediately shows its nature, with every grain on its private little stalk, as it were, floating freely. The other cereal which comes closest to this is oat, Barley, t00, is lose to tice, the West, maize (corn) is dominant. Here the grains sit close together on the stem. This plant is closer to the soil, itis more earthbound. Another characteristic is that maize is a ize and rice, West and East, they have also left their fe siyle and mentality of people, The European mark on the cereals do in every respect ‘© two extremes. Wheat, with the posi aspects we have described, is at the center. id a middle position between we and negative 60 Baking—the Most Characteristic Human Activi- ty on Earth It is not only the choice of fertilizers and the selection and mixture of cereal grains which matter in baking bread, but serain is then treated. Insight and experience \¢ bread should as far as possible be made with Ideally flour is milled the day it is baked, for its own integrity. Aging starts as soon as the grain is milled, for this removes the protective layers and the structures separating the germ from the starch. Enzymes needed for germination are released and ean no longer serve that original purpose. 1) gains access, and all this leads to chemical changes, which ultimately mean aging, with life fading away. Energy in terms of calories is of course pre~ served, In order to get the cereal into an easily digestible form a fine grinding of the whole grain is suggested. By no means can a greater vitality be expected when whole grains are soaked and then used in baking, still as whole grains, Feeding experiments on rats have shown that days after ing, life has been reduced to such a degree in whole meal flour that a fourth generation fed on whole meal flour that was 14 days old, or bread made with such flour, was no longer viable, In rats fed fresh whole meal flour or bread made of it, the fourth generation suffered no harm. I is he bread as soon as the gra add, however, that Le meal flour, for this alone contains those hly reac \bstances. Highly refined white wheat flour I stay practical enzymes and vitamins .¢ boon removed. We might also say that white flour keeps better because it is dead, which also makes it very digestible. In the USA, for instance, it is a legal requitement to add iron and vitamins to bread made with refined flour. As many other 61(synthetic) vitamins as possible, minerals, trace elements and so on are added to get “high quality” bread. The longer the list of additives, the “better”, so it is believed. Above all a fat which has been hardened to a high degree is added; this makes the bread very soft, rubbery and rather like styrofoam. It seems that people in Furope are beginning to feel that the usually available kind of white bread has no real qui This is also why innumerable additives are used. People pro- duce not only bread containing wheat and rye, but bread of four or six grains, with added muts, linseed, sunflower seed, pumpkin seed, potato flour, soya, milk, raisins and many oth= er things. This is definitely justifiable in some cases, but does not always appear to improve the bread, Millet is an excellent grain food, as already mentioned, but does not make better bread, ‘We need to decide what really is sensible, Rye bread, be- ing relatively heavy, can be lightened with wheat. Potato flour does not belong in bread, however, as will be evident fiom what has been said so far and will be said on page 78. ‘The addition of fats is an “achievement” of more recent times. As already mentioned, it makes the bread very soft, so that one hardly needs to chew it, or even not at all. Adding milk produces soft milk rolls, which are really more for spe- cial oveasions and not a staple. OF course one can't object to cating them on special festival days and holidays, but if at ail possible they are not for daily or exclusive consumption. The degree to which the flour is milled matters, that is, the rela- tionship between the weight of flour obtained and the weight of grain milled. The starch in a grain contains only 0.4 %, the hull e. $ % of ash, ie, minerals. The ash which remains when 100 g of dry matter is burned can therefore be used to deter- mine the level of milling. The higher the figure, the darker the flour and the higher the degree of milling. Flour containing 0.405 % of ash, for instance, is referred to as type 405. It is 62 it in color and has not been milled to a high degree. Whole meal flours are above type 1000. In earlier times, flour was mixed with water to bake flat breads. Their low water content made them keep well, but it also meant that they were hard. They are hardly made any more today, ‘The usual method of baking bread is to let the dough rise, Bubbles of carbon dioxide gas loosen it up. The resulting bread has many small holes in it, which makes the bread easi er to chew and digest. Sourdough was used for millennia to make dough rise ‘This is brought about primarily by carbon dioxide, a break- dovm product of lactobacilli and yeast. There is evidence that the method was used in ancient Egypt and has been known the world over. It thus cannot have been a chance discovery ‘but must have been developed from profound insight into the way nature works. The souring happens because normal air always contains lactobacilli. As already described, these re- duce lactose to lactic acid, and under suitable conditions will also thrive in dough. Rye is much more favorable to them than wheat, Rye flower stirred with water is kept at about 30° C and turns into sour-dough in about three days, 10 make ab- solutely certain that the process works a little sour milk can be added. The relatively small amount prepared is then worked into the total amount of dough used for baking. A small amount of the sourdough would always be kept back and stored in a cool place for the next baking, It would then be added to the new dough, thus passing on the organisms (the technical term for this is to “inoculate” the dough, using a starter). The method takes time and is sensitive to changes in temperature and even the influence of the weather. ‘This natural souring produces mainly 1: acid in the bread, but—depending on the process used—also carbon di- oxide, acetic acid and other products which give the bread its typical aromatic taste, Natural souring is not a uniform sub- 3stance but a living organisin which adapts to the nutrient base and environmental conditions—just as yeasts do in wine making, This has already been considered in detail (page 27). It is the same principle as with sour milk, salted cucumbers and sour cabbage production. It may be stressed once again that this degradation of carbohydrates to lactic acid is wholly in harmony with human metabolism. The sugat is reduced to lactic acid and not aleohol in this ease, The traditional method of baking with sourdough is very time-consuming and really an art, Time costs money nowadays, and quick or arti souring methods have therefore been developed, They miss the point, however, for it is not the end product which mat- tors, but the road which has been taken, An even quicker method is simply to add vinegar or some other acid to bread, ‘but this goes against the true meaning and puspose of baking, ‘Also the baking process proceeds in time, Temperatures inside the bread do not exceed 80°C even though the air tem- perature in the oven is 220°C, Naturally, the crust, which en= hances the flavour, gets a bit hotter than the inside of the bread. ‘A less familiar way of baking is the preparation of the so-called honey-sait bread which originated in the Mazdasnan movement. (Rudolf Steiner was aot the originator, as has been claimed.) This bread, whieh does not go through the lactic acid formation in the dough and also does not have the certainty of gas formation resulting from yeast, is problematic for bakeries. Stimulated by the idea of the salt and lhoney, the baker Hugo Erbe developed a starter dough to which he still added legume flour. Tais then led to the development of the so- called Backferment (baking enzyme, after Hugo Erbe, a pro- prietary preparation), It consists of specially bred highly ac- tive lactobacilli and yeasts. This product is very practical for simple household use because the bread just tums out well (in older times it was a farmer’s secret to add pea flour to the 64 dough in order for the bread to get a good consistency and cohesiveness). Even cereals not actually suitable for baking can be used for bread making (e.g. com, buckwheat), a fact which ean be very helpful for those suffering from celiac dis- ease In general it can said that the temperature plays a major role in creating the dough one wants, More warmth helps the production of more acetic acid, while lesser warmth favors lactic acid production, The importance of lactic acid has al- ready been considered in detail (see p. 28).The Problem of Using Yeast in Baking The word yeast gocs back to the Indo-European j rican to boil or froth up, seethe. That word undoubtedly re- dough, however. It cannot have meant yeast, as today, for it was only after 1854 that Pasteur, working with alcoholic fermentation, discovered that micro by gen “yeast”, known from 1s if not before, was then given to these isolated and evriched organisms. Much later they ‘came to be classified and were called higher fungi, subclass yeasts, Later still, farther differen bbeer brewing became possible, and baker's yeast was isolated from these and produced industrially. The original method of using sourdough to make bread hhas been almost completely s recent decades, depending on saving of time 1 mentioned, and above yeast calls for no special skills, Everyone is sure to This also means, of course, that the route of breaking down the carbohydrates is a different one. It goes in the direction of alcoholic fermentation, which is not in accord with human nature. The trend is supported by the growing preference for wheat rather baked with yeast. However, is the only “bread” eaten by many people and for generations, carbohydrate break- 1e wrong way, and the consequences is (see chapter on digestion) skins of sweet fruit. They 8 to pounce on their real which is sugar. Sugars and yeast have an “elec- to that between putrefactive bacteria down is programmed and protein, The metabolism of all these bacteria differs from that of humans. There is, however, one exception, Lactobacilli “belong” to milk and tye just as yeasts do to sugar and wheat. They are also able to break down sugar, but in a very different way from yeasts, doing it the way humans break down sugar—to lactic acid. Bread can be baked with lactobacilli (sourdough) just as well as with added yeast, The difference i he routes of degradation are different. Yeasts produce alcohol as well as carbon dioxide. This docs not mean that yeast-baked bread contains enough alcohol to make people drunk. Alcohol has a much lower boiling point than water and therefore evaporates more or less completely on baking. The important point is rather that the breaking down of sugar or starch is taken in another directio added yeast than sourdough. In the human organism, the breaking down of sugar must not produce aleohol ic acid. ‘A problem thus arises which no one in the wor to realize today, How does bread baked with natura dough act on human beings compared to bread—seemingly 1e same—that has been baked with yeast? As already stated, baking—and the grinding of flour which precedes it—breaks in a kind of predigestion. The organism is long the route which has thus been taken. And the routes which are taken are very different. Lactic acid production, which is initiated in the sourdough process, is in accord with the human metabolism, People were clearly aware of this in earlier times, for they used this route Mover the world, with different ki sauerkraut, salted cucumbers, kvass). The route of degrad: leads to alcohol is not at wcoord with hums traces of ale is wit acid have been fully discussed (sce pages 27 and 28), orThe problem lies not so much with the products which arise, however, i, the lactic acid which remains in the bread, or the alechol which escapes on baking, as with the nature of the particular route that has been taken, Human beings are of course able to change a route which is presented to them or which they have initially taken, ‘The problem lies in the long-term effect, which is a goneral problem with nutrition today. The use of yeast not only in beer brewing but also in baking only started just over 100 years ago. It has continued to grow, so that today bread is generally only baked with yeast. Hardly anyone ever thinks about this today and it is simply assumed to be the right and only thing to do, It means, however, that the metabolism has thus been programmed in a different way for several genera- tions now, and that starting from earliest childhood (see page 71). Please note that baker's yeast as such does not do any harm, On the contrary, it is an excellent provider of B vita- mins. It consists of selectively bred, pure yeast cells, We also have to realize, however, that all microorganisms, be they bacteria, yeasts, fungi or viruses, are extremely versatile and adaptable. They will quickly adapt to a suitable environment, changing both the environment and themselves. An added problem is that sugar consumption has steadily increased—also over the last 150 years.° Sugar is, of course, the ideal nutrient base for ycasts, unless it is highly concen- trated. Fruits, naturally sweet, offer yeasts a perfect home on their surfaces, while milk, rye and also vegetables, provide a natural growth envitonment for the lactie-acid-producing lac- tobacilli Itis casy to see, therefore, that both increased sugar con- sumption and the “misguided” degradation of flour in the in- testines create ideal conditions for yeasts. The result is a med- ical problem which is increasingly causing more concer — fungal overgrowth, The wild forms of fungi are often 68 “stronger” than the lactobacilli, but the human organism is able to cope with that. The more important point is that with hhigh sugar and white wheat flour consumption it not only provides a nutrient base for fungi, but also marks out the wrong route to the Slour for the fumgi because baking has been done with yeast. The effects are not immediately appar- ent. They take decades to show themselves. This is a learning problem. Every child must learn when weaned to cope with food which at first is tess familiar—cow’s milk or cereal. The child will then gradually move on to more demanding, foods. Ifa child does not learn to make the necessary effort and de- velop the ability to digest, his metabolism will remain weak. Finally the individual will find that many or even all things “do not agree with him”. Sugar, white bread and similar foods encourage this development, as they make no demands on the organism, as has been shown. At the same time the human organism is generally shown a route for breaking down starch—not just for years but for decades and genera- tions—that is anything but what it should be, Taking this route via yeast in the dircetion of alcohol rather than via sourdough towards lactic acid, doing so daily, the organism will come to prefer this route, and this changes the whole constitution. The consequence is that the yeasts, which de- pend on this route, will increase and also grow stronger. They will finally colonize not only the intestine but also other or- dgans such as the Iung, for example. If these yeast fungi “grown wild” (above all candida) ‘were just producing alcohol, like any decent yeast, we would not have much of a problem—though this also happens. What is much more dangerous is that these wild yeasts do not only spread uninhibitedly but may degenerate further and produce such things as fuscl oils, low fatiy acids and much more. None of these belong in human metabolism. The same may happen in wine-making and with cheap products where fer- mentation has not been properly guided. They will then pro- 69duce hangovers (headache, nausea, etc.). It is not only the intestine which is upset, therefore, but the above-mentioned metabolic products will affect the liver and even the immune system and mood levels. Sugar plays a major role in all this, and many people are aware of this today, Unfortunately cutting down on sugar will no longer do it; instead people have to avoid every kind of sweet and sweetening agent, white flour products and yeast- baked bread (“anti-fungus diet”). Most patients are only pre- pared to put up with this when they have tried everything else and reached the end of their tether. There are, of course, highly effective drugs which will kill the fungi. In most cases they will give marked improve~ ment, The original problem will, however, soon return when fone stops using the antimycoties. Apart from the above- mentioned sugar-free diet, it will therefore be necessary to use treatments taken by mouth as well. Many preparations are available to improve the intestinal flora, among them special ly bred, highly powerful intestinal bacteria that will displace the fungi. Charcoal, ideally made from coffee beans, will also

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