Not so long ago before the onset of the scientific-industrial revolution
– that has happened in some countries earlier and in some later – it was a
time when people could see from the church tower the fields and meadows from
where the majority of their food was coming. Now one goes to a local
supermarket and buys foods coming from all parts of the world. This is
possible because nowadays we have the so-called 'global food market' as one
of the results of industrial revolution. In modern history there was no
other revolution which had such powerful impacts on the way we live and on
our food culture.
Since the emergence of the organic movement we also have various trends
and initiatives which are counteracting the mainstream process of
globalisation in the field of food production. Among them is also a trend to
produce and consume more local food. Now we will look at some hidden
spiritual dimensions of this issue with the aim of making us capable to
choose appropriately in regard to the geographical origin of food we eat.
The Nature of Geographical Influences through the Food
In NUTRITION AS A BRIDGE TO THE WORLD
is presented the threefold connection of human beings with the outside world
– via sense perceptions, breathing and nutrition – and the fourfold nature
of food we consume on daily basis. With the help of these descriptions we
can realize that we don't consume just physical substances, but also
etheric, astral and spiritual 'components' contained in our food. These
supersensible components are dependent on the plant or animal species from
which food originate, on the way we produce and process our food, and on the
way we prepare it. But beside these influences there are also other more
hidden influences as well: these are so-called geographical influences. These come about because "the
whole Earth is an organism, an ensouled organism, permeated by spirit.
And, as an organism has its separate, distinct differentiated members, each
of which has a special task – the arms have not the task of the legs, nor
the heart that of the brain, and so on – each part of the Earth has its own
special task. The special task of the separate human organic members is
perceptible in the form of these separate members. The arms are formed
differently from the legs, the heart from the brain. This difference is not
so marked in regard of the Earth on the physical level. To an external
materialistic geographer, who observes the separate continents or any other
parts of the Earth arranged according to this or that point of view, it does
not occur straight away that these different parts of the Earth have
different sorts of activity; that only occurs to one who can, to a certain
extent, grasp the nature of the psychic and spiritual element of the Earth.
To understand this, really signifies rising concretely to the perception
that the Earth is an ensouled, spiritual organism, and that man, living on
Earth as physical man, is a member of this organism." [1]
This is possible only when we accept that "the whole earth which we as
collective humanity inhabit, is a kind of huge living being, and that we
stand within this great living being, as members of it. The life of the
earth is expressed in manifold ways. Among others it is expressed in the
fact that certain relations exist between the different parts of the earth
and the man who lives upon the earth. As true as it is that, on the one
hand, the human race is a unity, so it is also true that the separate groups
of the human race distributed over the different parts of the earth differ
according to these domains and are dependent on them. Not only is this the
case on account of the many forces which external natural science and
geography investigate, but they are also dependent on many other, more
hidden forces of the separate parts of the earth's surface.
There exist certain inner relations between man and the
ground which he inhabits – part of the earth from which he springs.
Roughly speaking, these things are what first of all draw our attention to
certain connections between the great organism of the earth and the
different members of this organism, the different groups of the earth's
population." [2]
Here we are dealing with the very complex issue of the origin of various
races (which has happened in the earlier stages of human evolution)
[3] and nations (which is a more recent development)
across the Earth globe. For the sake of this principle it is enough to be
aware about "the influences under which the various plants and animals are
standing. You can gather, for instance, that one who knows that plants and
animals standing under certain celestial influences flourish in a certain
country, can also learn to grasp how a quite definite national character
must arise. For in everything that man consumes from his environment he
eats, not only the substances analyzed by chemistry, he eats at the same
time definite spiritual forces, and it is these spiritual forces which enter
through his mouth into the stomach and spread out through his being. There
the perspective opens to us of how the character of a people can be known
from the deeper geographical constitution of a country.
Folk-character is formed from the spiritual forces which are absorbed
into man with his food. It is one of the means by which the great spiritual
guidance of the earth distributes the different national characters over the
earth; foods which produce one or another effect have been distributed in
such a way that the character of a certain people arises from the
nourishment that it obtains. That does not lead in a round-about way to
materialism: spiritual science shows how everything of a material nature is
a revelation of the spirit and how in a way unknown to man spiritual
influences are themselves diffused within him." [4]
It is not just food which influences people in the manner described
above, because "by taking outer
nature into ourselves through nourishment, breathing, and perception, one
creates within oneself a sphere of action for" [5]
those forces which originate from the earth and work in the way that
differentiate us into groups with various folk characteristics. These
geographical influences work primarily on our etheric body and then via the
etheric body on our physical body. There is evident difference between the
general soul character of people living near the sea and those living on
high altitudes near the mountains. Everyone can also experience the
different qualities of the air and the sense impressions provided by these
two different landscapes. Of course, these influences cause more permanent
effects on our etheric body only after a very long time, including the
transmission of inherited characteristics from one generation to the next.
But the influences of food on our etheric-physical organism have been
recognised even by modern scientists with the conclusion – on the basis of multiple evidence –
that "it is abundantly clear that the foods and food components that are
consumed interacts with the human
genome, either directly or indirectly."
[6] Or, with other words, what we eat has an impact
also on
our genes!
MAN BETWEEN EARTHLY INFLUENCES AND FREEDOM OF INSIGHT
So far we have focused on influences coming from the earth which would,
if they were active alone, make man into what he eats, breathes and
perceives. But man is not just the outcome of outer influences working into
the structure of his physical and his etheric body, because he has inside
himself the force which is capable to counteract and transform these
influences. Otherwise "man would be condemned to be
quite specialized and differentiated by any particular part of the Earth,
and would in a sense not be able to be in any way a complete whole, but only
a part of the Earth's organism." [7]
What is the nature of this force which enables man to develop
independence from the Earth's
organism? This force can be found in "the deep
being of man to which he says 'I'. In the real sense, 'I' can only be
connected indirectly with the racial and national differentiation of men
over the Earth – that
is, the psycho-spiritual kernel of man's being in a
sense only dwells in what is in us specialized through the peculiarity of
the Earth. Thus man can obtain, from this very circumstance, the
knowledge that his spiritual-psychic kernel cannot subsist in what
immediately confronts us in man. That with which, in a sense, man confronts
us in the physical world, can only be the 'dwelling place', the dwelling
place of man determined by virtue of the special circumstances of the
Earth." [8] In this way human beings become, "in a sense, twofold beings.
With one part of their being, with their psycho-spiritual part, they reach
up into what is called the heavenly or supersensible world; and with other,
with their physical-etheric part, they belong to that nature which came into
being as the nature of the Earth." [9]
Thus we have in our interior an ongoing battle between higher and lower
human nature. What are the main tools of our higher nature which we can use
to transform the lower one? "At no other period could it have been said,
with regard to the inner necessities of evolution, that
clarity of thinking is as essential as eating and drinking are for
the maintenance of physical life. For if human thinking lacks clarity in the
present age, in times to come we will be unable to see in the right light
the ripened truths which are to fall from the spiritual world. The previous
epochs still enjoyed a heritage from the days when spirituality pervaded the
more atavistic inner life of human beings. Now, for the
first time, we must actively strive for spirituality – if we desire
it." [10] This is a necessity of the present time "because it is ordained
that in the future what human beings consider themselves to be, that they
will become. This development is part of the wise guidance of worlds, so
that human beings may attain full and free consciousness of the Self…
That is why the spread of thoughts and ideas corresponding to the
realities of the times is so necessary. Thought will gradually have to be
known as a concretely real power of the soul, not merely as the miserable
abstraction produced so proudly by the modern age. People living in earlier
times were still linked, by an ancient heritage, with the spiritual world.
Although for many centuries now,
atavistic clairvoyance has almost entirely
ebbed away, this heritage still lives in the feeling and the will. But
the
time has come when everything that is conscious must become real power."
[11] This is possible because we have inside us the spiritual core of our
real being – the 'I', the source of our consciousness.
In the realm of nutrition there exists in the present time a conflict
between supersensible influences entering unconsciously through the food we
eat, and the conscious striving for understanding of the impacts of various
foods on our being on the physical, etheric, astral, and spiritual levels.
On the one hand we are dealing with more or less deeply ingrained eating
habits which bind us to what we have become till now, and on the other hand
we have food choices based on the freedom of insight with which we can
regulate towards what we want to become. Only when we take the second path
can we say: "What we think ourselves to be, that we are obliged to become."
[12] Thus knowledge becomes the real power which has
influence both on the evolution of our spiritual individuality and our physical organism.
[13]
For a complementary perspective see:
♦ GENERAL VERSUS INDIVIDUAL DIET
DIETARY CONCLUSIONS & PRACTICAL INSTRUCTIONS
Here we have an important insight about the reasons behind the origin of
various food cultures. Although the choice of food of old cultures was
obviously influenced by the natural environment, this cannot account for
all differences in traditional food cultures. For one needs to take into
account how the methods of processing and cooking contributed to the
special national character of people. Then it is easier to understand why
people who nowadays live in foreign countries (e.g. Indians, Pakistanis,
Chinese in UK, etc.) take with them their traditional food habits and even
their traditional foods which are available in specialised shops in their
communities.
From the content of this principle it is also evident that a one-sided
focus on food miles (i.e. the issue of how many miles food travelled before
it get on the plate) cannot safeguard against wrong nutritional choices.
Until one does take into consideration the development of human
individuality from traditional groups of people linked to specific
geographical area, one cannot avoid one-sided food choices. The main thing
is the question: Does the food support or work against my aim to develop
myself as a free human being?
On the other hand this does not mean that one should embrace the modern
globalised food production without proper evaluation of its effects on
nature, animals, and the society. The problem of long food miles and many
other problems – such as low quality and great waste of food – are secondary
effects of profit-motivated food production. In such cases the local or
regional food production of organic food can be the right solution. But one
cannot expect people who are vegetarian to adopt a meat diet just because
the local environment is mainly suited for animal husbandry.
[14] With such an extreme
locavorian
standpoint one is imposing on other people what they should consume; this
obviously goes against human rights for freedom of choice.
There is even more to this: a human being's freedom of food choice is an
integral part of development of his or her individuality. Each human being
has an opportunity – if she or he decides so – to influence his future
development by the choice of food. This means that people can 'experiment'
by eating various foods from foreign places or even adopting particular
eating habit(s) from another food culture. All this is possible because of
the global food market we have today. This is the positive side of the
present globalisation which is not usually mentioned. Of course, while
experimenting people need to be aware that what is good for one person can
be harmful for another. [15]
Nevertheless, there is one food culture which is harmful for all people:
this is the fast food culture with its modern mass production of cheap food by the
help of agrochemicals, food additives, and genetically modified organisms.
It is harmful for the simple reason that it produces extremely bad quality food.
[16]
This is the reason why is this food eliminated from the
HOLISTIC FOOD
'PYRAMID'.
♣ For additional arguments see
ORGANIC vs CONVENTIONAL FOOD
WARNING: You always have to put the above
practical dietary instructions inside the framework of
GENERAL NUTRITIONAL
GUIDELINES with the aim to know their limits when looking for a solution
of a specific nutritional problem. You also need to be familiar with
THE ROLE OF NUTRITIONAL GUIDELINES
with the aim to avoid any one-sided conclusions.
