I believe that we need to eat a somewhat healthy diet in order to be able to think properly. If you are able to think properly then you can be a more effective witness. You can also retain more of the Word. With a strong mind, you are better able to utilize what of God’s Word you know. (The picture above, is “supposed” to be of a house a garden and a fence.)
Ramblings Written As I Wrote The Healthy Eating Links Page:
The first thing I want to put in these “ramblings,” is a joke from a 1930’s joke book. I hope “they” don’t mind if I stick it here. I include it to show you, that, things haven’t changed much. And to show that you also have to take everything you read or hear, with “a grain of salt”, (Including some of the things on this web site!). It is always good to study up on things. Don’t believe everything you read or hear. What works for me might not work for you anyway. It takes some “trial and error” to figure things out sometimes. God can teach us loads of things about health and nutrition and how our bodies work. God made us as individuals. Each person’s body works slightly differently than the next person’s.
METHUSELAH AND SANITATION
There's no telling how long Methuselah might have lived if he had had his appendix, teeth and tonsils out, used the right brand of toothpaste and eaten the proper breakfast food, according to modern ads.
If you want to read about Methuselah, you have to read the Biblical book of Genesis. He is said to be the longest lived person in history. Genesis 5:27 “And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died”. Methuselah lived 969 years. That is a long time by today’s standards.
RAMBLINGS:
Animal fats are not necessarily “bad” for you. Soy is not fit for Humans or Animals. These are some of the facts I have learned from the websites on this page.
I hope you are able to enjoy the information contained here. It has been a fun learning experience putting this page together.
Real Milk, and dairy products are not pasteurized or homogenized. This is the healthiest way to drink milk. It is believed that processing causes a lot of lactose intolerance. It is not necessarily the milk’s fault that it makes you sick. Anyway, God created the cow in such a way, that ideally it would not pass along disease to it’s young via milk. Raw milk has antibacterial properties. If the milk comes from a clean dairy, and the milk is handled properly, there is no need to pasteurize it. How many of us had grandparents and maybe even parents, who drank raw milk on a regular basis? I know many people who drank raw milk and ate raw dairy products. I know people now who still have raw milk available. I know of no one who ever got sick from this milk. That does not mean it NEVER happens. I think getting sick from milk, would be a rare occurrence if they were to keep clean dairies with disease free cows. One reason, milk is pasteurized, is so that people in the chain of milk production do not have to keep their facilities as clean. Also the food producers want to have foods with a long shelf life. At least that is how I understand it from my reading. I was reading today, how that unpasteurized milk goes “sour” and pasteurized milk goes “bad”. There is a difference! I have some old books with “household hints” in them. One thing they say to do with milk that is not quite right, is to add baking soda to it. That will sweeten it. Each book has it’s own formula. I would not dare do that to milk I buy in the store. When that milk has a “funky” smell, you don’t dare drink it. It reminds me of what my grandfather said about “store bought” buttermilk. He said it tasted nothing like the buttermilk he had from the farm. Now I know why. His buttermilk was allowed to naturally ferment. It is very healthful giving the gut natural bacteria that is necessary for digesting food. Now to make buttermilk, they use a process that is more “controlled”. I dream of drinking “real” buttermilk some day. Raw milk is legal in some European countries. Why can’t we have it here? As far as I know, it is regulated and inspected in England. Why not here?
Beware of “Cold Pasteurization” that is another name for the “irradiation” of food!!
The Slow Foods Movement is also something that is popular in Europe. The whole concept reminds me of the wonderful family dinners I have had over the years. My grandmother Penn would cook for two days knowing we would be coming. Of course she was urged to serve us something simple, on our arrival, like sandwiches. Then my grandmother Bitner would have family gatherings at her house. There were always dishes of various types. My aunt and cousin would bring something new and maybe a little exotic. My Granny and Papaw would always have the traditional fare. With all the wonderful food it is surprising we did not end up very fat. I did not begin to put on weight until I moved away. One meal my Granny was known for, was “beans and cornbread”. This was a term for simple home cooking. Beans and/or cornbread were not necessarily served at this meal. Granny would invite someone over for “dinner”, the noon meal, and add the disclaimer, “All we’re having is beans and cornbread”. If you want to learn more about “beans and cornbread” type of food, please see the recipe page on this website.
I personally do not believe that God would give us a food that is unhealthy. I know that because of “sin” we no longer have the good genes and bodies that Adam and Eve had. There are changes in the food chain, since Adam’s time, which can make us sick. Though, I do not see how the foods of our recent ancestors, could suddenly make us sick. How could a food be healthy for humans one minute, and the next minute it is “deadly”? I know there are ways this can happen. But I am wondering how it can happen, without there being poisoning of the food some how, lack of ideal growing conditions, or deliberate tampering? I know that we humans lack a lot of minerals in the diet due to poor soil conditions and the overuse of commercial fertilizers. But if a food has not changed much in 100 years (for the most part) how can it suddenly become “deadly”?
When all we had were animal fats, heart disease was not the epidemic it is today. No one saw animal fats as unhealthy. In fact, food was viewed almost the opposite the way we view food today. About one hundred years ago, sick people were encouraged to eat things like weakened hot chocolate, because of the high fat content. The hot chocolate was something that would be sweet, therefore it might taste good to someone without much appetite. The milk and high fat of the cocoa were seen as nutritious. Another recommended dish was a bland version of egg custard. It was very important in those days, to keep “invilids” from loosing so much weight. The sick person had to, “keep their health up”.
I do not understand how something like animal fats could suddenly become unhealthy over the course of about one hundred years. Man started making imitation animal fats, like margarine and hydrogenated vegetable oils, not all that long ago. And then suddenly these “imitation” fats became “healthier” than animal fats. People ate animal fats for centuries. But according to what I have learned, it was not until “we” started abandoning those animal fats for the vegetable fats, that “we” developed the “epidemic” of heart disease. I wish someone could explain it to me so that I could understand. Why is it that suddenly the man made product is healthier than the food that God gave us? Why wouldn’t it have made “us” sick and then more sick, over time? I know God would have originally created it so that “we” would not get sick from the animal fats at all. If animal fats make “us” sick, that would mean it would have gotten corrupted some how. Wouldn’t that have taken some time? I don’t know. It seems to me that “man” is always trying to do a better job than God. I have an “old” scientific book about foods. (“The Story of Man and His Food” by C. C. Furnas and S.M. Furnas1937 and 1942.) It talks about margarine and the development of it. They say something about how some day they will develop a margarine that is much better than butter. They had not arrived at that when the book was written. The authors of the book were writing as if “man” was going to make a product that could be, “just as” or “more” nutritious than butter. It would have all the health benefits of butter without all the negative aspects. Of course I know of no major negative aspects to butter except pasteurization. But then again, I am no scientist, what would I know.
I am beginning to “feel” from my readings, that heart disease is a fairly recent “epidemic”. Before this, we had all sorts of infectious diseases that were more apt to kill us. We cleaned up and adopted good sanitation practices. (see the page titled, “Interesting Threads of Thought” for more on this.) That was the biggest factor in eradicating those infectious diseases. (I saw a documentary on the History Channel about the polio epidemic. They said that early on the scientists were wondering how it became such an epidemic so quickly. They blamed our sanitary conditions. “Our” (people of the U.S.) immune systems were weakened because we did not battle all the “ordinary” minor infections we experienced in “unsanitary” times. You see, polio was a common “germ” long before the epidemic of the 20th century.)
Eventually we started moving from farms to cities. We needed cheap foods with a longer shelf life. We stopped eating the foods of the farm. People had to eat like “city people”. From what I have seen, people who came from “poorer” backgrounds have always wanted to eat like people who were “better off”. Country food was considered “beneath” the city person I guess. Emigrants also had to eat the foods of their adopted country. They ate the city food too. So they abandoned their traditional foods.
That is not always a good thing. I found a photograph of Prince Charles on a newspaper web site. He was grinning a large grin. You could see how crooked his teeth were. His whole life, he has had available the best food in the world, yet it is obvious that he did not always get proper nutrition. It is not always good to eat the foods of rich people. One thing that you hear about, the rich people of history, is that sometimes they suffered from stomach ailments or digestive troubles. Napoleon had very good chefs. He must have eaten “well”. According to an ad. for mayonnaise that I heard on radio once, after the battle of Mayon the chef invented a sauce in celebration of winning the battle. The chef called the sauce “mayonnaise”. The portraits of Napoleon that I remember from history class, show him with his hand on his stomach. Apparently he suffered from some sort of gastric complaint. (Actually, “mayonnaise” was invented after the battle of Port Mahon on Minorca. It was made by the chef of Duke Richelieu. It was originally spelled, “mahonnaise”.)
One of the things “we” did, was go from eating animal fats to vegetable fats. As the death from infectious diseases dropped, the rates of death from heart disease increased. The Native Americans have stopped eating the diets of their ancestors. Now they have an epidemic of “type two” or “adult onset” diabetes. I was reading an article on the Weston A. Price Foundation website. I was learning about the traditional Native American diet. It was vastly different from our modern western diet. No wonder they get “type two” diabetes!! I guess I will quit this part of the rant now before I write myself into trouble. You can read more on this “theme” via the Beans and Cornbread page.
It always seems like I get so hungry writing E-mails and such. I get so busy I forget to eat is what it is. So as I write along, the “conversation” naturally gravitates to food. This page has been particularly fun since it is one of my “pet” subjects.
I am going to have to finish this soon. There is a murder mystery on later. We get the CBC out of Canada, our neighbor’s to the north. They have a television program on Monday nights from French Canada. It is about a police psychologist. It is a very “edge of your seat" type of program. It has subtitles so if you look away you miss some dialogue. I don’t know French. (Nov. 2003--They left us hanging. They never finished this drama. Either there were no new episodes made, or the CBC did not renew their contract and air the new episodes. OR, I simply missed the new episodes somehow.)
Actually, I keep adding to this page. I keep finding these “neat-oh” web sites to add on here. I still watch that murder mystery program. It is very good. I doubt it would ever be available on “American” TV. If they ever do an “American” version of it, it won’t be “near as good”.
There is more to this “rant” on the Beans and Cornbread page. I may also have a whole page of “ranting”, where I tell the story of how I came to know about all of this. It is a very personal page, and I am being very careful with the information that I stick on this web site. Which means, I am not 100% sure at this point that that page will make the “final cut”. As it looks now, August 28, 2002 it will be on here. Just look for, “A Story From Robyn’s Journey Through Life”. (Nov. 2003-- It is on here.)
See you later. Robyn
Here are some articles dealing with healthy foods and other health items of interest.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/542205.stm This is from the BBC News web site. Children’s diets in the UK were “healthier” in the 1950’s.
Another article from the BBC that tells about how in the U.K. they are warning parents against “milk free” diets in children.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2210198.stm
This is an article written by Dr. Mary Enig on a web site of “California Oils Corporation”. It is about which oils are healthy. http://www.ospc.com/coco.htm
Coconut Info. Com page with articles by Dr. Mary Enig.
http://www.coconut-info.com/links.htm
There was an interview with Dr. Mary Enig at this address. I can't find it now. Maybe you can search their site for it. I think it was a good article. http://www.healthy.net/Library/Interviews/ Paswater/index.asp
Dr. Stephen Byrnes “Power Health” web site.
Don’t know if I stuck this on here already… It is from the UK food industry. Institute for Food Research. http://www.ifrn.bbsrc.ac.uk/
This one is in the “soy” section of the first "Healthy Eating Links" page. But it is really good, if it still works when you are looking at it… This one is a list of very good soy links. http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/