Alimentation

A natural diet is certainly better in every way. But what is anyway, a really natural diet?
It is a diet without artifice, as nature offers us, and which corresponds to the physiological data of our organization. Everything suggests that our digestive and metabolic characteristics were first adapted to the diet our ancestors had. This adaptation dates back to ancient times, during which the laws of natural selection eliminated the least efficient bloodlines. Then man invented all sorts of tricks, culminating in recent centuries in ever more sophisticated cooking recipes. In the latest decades, chemistry and the food industry came to mess bodies up even more.

The question therefore arises as to to what stage of the history of nutrition we are best suited. To a primeval kind of supply (hardly possible as original plant species we used to eat aren’t widely cultivated nor even known for most of them), to Middle Ages’ diet, or to a more modern one to which dietetics add some vegetables to get a bit closer to nature ? The issue is very complex and only empirical experience may decide. But such experience is ethically difficult, because you can’t lock a human in a form or another of feeding enough time to draw meaningful conclusions.

The problem merits further study, knowing that it relates to our health and perhaps our mental functioning. For time beings, we can draw inspiration from experiences of « natural » diets such as rawfoodism, and from nutrition knowledge. It is known that many molecules present in our daily food have harmful properties. Along with foods where they are found in higher concentrations, we can already avoid some of the problems they are responsible of. These issues are discussed in detail in the training.

The notion of natural diet also addresses the table manners and habits. and proper mastication are certainly favorable for digestion. But it is possible that other factors, less known, are also involved. Evolutionary Ecopsychology made us aware of a transcendent dimension present in our psyche as in the universe in general. We must therefore consider each food shall be seen not only from the aspect of its molecular structure and its nutritional intake at the biochemical level, but from the perspective of a transcendent energy it could convey and of which we would be the receptacles.

It is true that the taste of a fruit, for example, takes a very different dimension after being chewed and swallowed quickly, or if we take the time to “capture” its flavor, letting it expand as fully under the roof of the mouth. There occurs a phenomenon that recalls something magical, as if we were connecting it with a sense of wonder in the face of the universe. A bit like when love fills our chest and we feel like flying to the end of the universe on its wings. We can talk in both cases of ecstasy, this word meaning going from of an ordinary state of consciousness to a different state, in connection with supramaterial values.

Anyway, the epistemological consideration of a transcendent dimension of the cosmos involves a thorough review of all our patterns and representations of common sense and scientific level altogether. The fruit’s flavor can not be exhaustively reduced to a simple chemical signal. Beyond the molecular process, something more subtle and essential may well exist. The inability to perceive this extrasensory dimension of food could even explain bulimia…

Experience shows that eating habits have far more repercussions than generally believed. At the gustatory enjoyment and stomach fullness obviously adds a spiritual kind of fullness. The food nourish not only the body but also the soul, as does love or contemplation, according to the sages.