Freedom in nutrition through a holistic view
It is probably a fact that there is hardly any field in which we feel so unfree as in the area of nutrition. Of course – we are free to eat and drink whatever we want – but when we do, it seems to be detrimental to our health. There are ideas like “Everything that is healthy does not taste good and everything that tastes good is unhealthy!” We all know that this is not true, but it feels that way. Behind the surface of our more superficial emotional world, however, we all know how important nutrition is for our physical and mental well-being and that many of our eating habits are not good for our health and are in great demand for improvement.
The “freedom in nutrition” meant here refers to the many diets with contradictory statements, as well as all the fragmentary individual information from science, which cannot be logically understood and put into context by the normal citizen. A so-called “holistic view” makes it possible to understand each of the many diets in its sense and to put them in the right place. Freedom lies in your own decision, which nobody can take away from you.
Let’s take the “raw food diet”, for example, in comparison with “macrobiotics”, a science of nutrition in which almost exclusively cooked food is consumed. What both have in common is that they can have a healing effect on certain diseases. How is this possible? How can two dietetics of such different kinds both be correct? It is possible. To understand this we have to put the respective statements into context. Then it becomes clear what the particular effect is based on, because there are always different factors that can play a role. If, for example, eating raw food has a healing aspect, this does not automatically mean that cooked food cannot also be healing. It would be illogical to think like this and one would be excluding many possibillites in the field of nutrition.
The deep healing effect known from experience in macrobiotics is based on different factors than those also proven in raw food diets. The latter is based, among other things, on the vitamins destroyed during cooking, which are known to promote health and are found in greater quantities in raw foods. Although this partial logic is certainly not wrong, it is still missing an important piece. The idea of being able to achieve health only with the “right substances” such as vitamins and supplements is based on a purely material point of view, which ignores the manifold possibilities of the non-material dimensions.
Macrobiotics” is a nutritional culture in which the nature and quality of the food also plays a role, but in addition to this, man himself seems to exert a decisive influence in his entire inner attitude towards the world. What the cook does is considered important, how he cuts and shapes the vegetables, his attention and respectful attitude when preparing the food, up to the table setting and the selection of the cooking pots.
The healing effect of macrobiotics is therefore also based on non-material, soul-related factors. We can only put these two diets in their place if we add the soul to the material level. In this way the view becomes more comprehensive and approaches a “wholeness” (1). The wonderful feature of this insight is that it grants us a certain freedom in the area of nutrition and silences those often postulated claims like “This is the only right diet!
The absolute and much too regide judgement of “right & wrong” can now be replaced by looking, thinking, comparing, trying out, learning and putting into context. Everything has its place in this world, even chocolate! According to Alyosha Schwarz and Ronald Schweppe in their book “Healing with Spices” (2) it can be a remedy. They describe the effect of pure chocolate, Theobroma cacao, as both calming and stimulating: “Problems where a lack of energy is the main concern and where mild calming is also indicated can be very well harmonised by chocolate in their initial phase”. At the end of the book, there is a list on which, according to the two authors, chocolate can be used for the following complaints: diarrhoea, pain, loss of water, high blood pressure on the physical level, as well as depressive moods due to loneliness, withdrawal of love and loss on the mental and spiritual level…
The path to a self-responsible and healthy life is a path of learning that starts right now and never ends. An absolute “right” or “wrong” is not intended on this path, but a growing understanding, which is always trying to put things into context and put them in the right place. The person himself grows and discovers many possibilities that come from himself, such as the role of attention, respectful behaviour and the countless possibilities in the design of a meal, which thereby gains significantly in quality and value for health.
Erika Stolze, certified biologist
(1) Wholeness always requires the consideration of a soul-spiritual reality in addition to the material level.
(2) Aljoscha Schwarz und Ronald Schweppe “Heilen mit Gewürzen” (Healing with Spices) – Die Heilkraft heimischer und orientaler Gewürze geziehlt einsetzen (Using the healing power of local and oriental spices in a targeted manner), Knauer, 1996.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
