The Message of Food
Normally, everyone eats food several times a day. Food provides the body with the building blocks it needs to function properly.
In this context, we speak of food in terms of essential vitamins, minerals, trace elements, carbohydrates, protein and fat.
But considering the high consumption of dietary supplements and the enormous number of overweight and sick people in the so-called civilized world, a lack of these substances can hardly be a problem.
But what is the importance of a food, if not in its calorie content, vitamins or trace elements?
Food's True Value
This question has occupied entire generations of scientists, but only today does one seem to have come closer to an answer.
Renowned German biophysicist Fritz-Albert Popp gained important insights in the field of biophoton research, discovering that the value of food is more than just a mixture of its individual components.
"Essentially, it depends on the holistic order of food," says Popp. Just as a poem cannot be judged by the frequency of the letters used, but must be seen as a work of art in its entirety, so individual building blocks have little significance for the body.
Our body cannot do much with an isolated vitamin in the form of a tablet. However, if it is part of a fruit that is subject to an ordered, natural blueprint, it can also be used by our body.
The Light and Message in our Food
The most important element of a food's value, however, lies in its ability to transmit order to us in the form of light. Now you may shake your head and wonder if this is purely jabber.
Not at all! German biophysicist Popp investigated many foods and discovered that high-quality foods also have a high light-storage capacity. If a food can no longer store light, it is also no longer balanced.
The prerequisite for storing light and composition is an ordered geometric structure, such as we find in perfect crystals. Plants, animals and humans also consist of ordered geometric structures if they are healthy. Health is order, disease is chaos. If we take a closer look at the word "food," its true meaning becomes clear to us.
Food conveys life and is therefore the carrier of life and information. Food itself is not the intermediary of life, but rather its inherent content. This does not mean that we do not need calories or vitamins, but they are not as important as food's ability to organize and can only be seen as part of a whole process.
The quality of food can only be understood through its effect on our bodies. If health means order and disease means chaos, then we can actually transfer order and thus health through foods that have a high light storage capacity. This is what is meant by the message of food.
The Quality of our Food
Now you will ask which foods contain this light. In principle, the more natural and fresh and the less processed a food is, the higher its light storage capacity.
In the case of fruit and vegetables, the intensity of sunlight is particularly important for quality. Fertilization and the use of pesticides also influence the quality.
An apple that is prevented from rotting for half a year in a dark gas chamber by the use of chemicals has only a fraction, if any, of the light storage capacity of an apple picked fresh from a tree.
For this reason, give preference to the foods that grow in your region at harvest time. Take the opportunity to shop at farmers' markets. Here you will find fresh produce from the region, which is often cheaper than in specialty shops.
Meat and fish are also good light stores; in principle, they even have a very high ability to transfer order. Unfortunately, nowadays the consumption of meat and fish is problematic. Animals are raised in questionable conditions. Often they have never seen a day of sunlight. Hormone doses are supposed to accelerate growth and antibiotics to protect against infections. If the animals had been raised in a natural way, mad-cow disease would never have occurred.
When it comes to meat and fish, look out for organic products from naturally fed and appropriately raised animals. The same applies to eggs.
Signs of Quality
How can you tell whether foods are fresh or not? Use your senses! Feel a fruit, smell it, eye up its appearance. All of this can help greatly in your choice.
Taste is naturally also of great importance. A strawberry picked fresh from the field in the sunshine at time of ripening simply tastes better than a greenhouse strawberry harvested half green, preserved with chemicals and then driven thousands of miles across the US in refrigerated trucks. This strawberry, which tastes of nothing, contains neither vitamins nor light. When possible, ask to taste before you buy!
If you don't want to do without exotic fruits, choose fruit that's air-shipped. These are harvested ripe because transport times are short. However, this luxury is also reflected in the price.
It is also important to note how you feel after eating. When it comes to the organizing ability of high-quality food, you will feel a comfortable warmth after eating. This feeling is a sign that order has been successfully transferred.
Food Processing
In general, the light storage capacity of food is best when food is left untreated. Yet processing, such as in cooking food, can make sense. Meat, for example, is better tolerated when cooked because our body has adjusted to cooked meat over the course of evolution. In reality, cooked meat and fish experience no dramatic loss of quality. Potatoes and green beans are also more digestible when cooked than when raw. Especially in the autumn and winter months when we desire a warm meal, we should always heed this need. Take care not to overcook the food, but only to steam it briefly in order to preserve the active ingredients and composition.
If you now ask what an optimal diet should look like, a general answer does not suffice. A right diet does not exist, but rather an individually optimized diet. Subjective elements play a key role here. It would probably be better to feed the Chinese with rice and Europeans or Americans with potatoes and wheat, although from a biochemical and regulatory point of view, they could be equivalent food.
In 1943, three million people died in Bengal because attempts had been made to replace their usual but scarce rice supplies with wheat. Eskimos would freeze to death if we were to provide them with vegetables instead of their usual raw, fat-rich fish; conversely we Americans would have considerable digestive problems if we ate raw fish exclusively. Even among us with the same backgrounds, there can be great differences. While one can very well tolerate raw food and whole grains, another experiences digestive problems. In such cases, the vegetable and also the fruit should be lightly steamed, and the grain finely ground. Listen to your body and learn to understand its signals; it will tell you exactly what is good for you and what is not. Observe how much you must eat to feel full, or how little makes you feel really satisfied. Satisfaction from eating also comes as a feeling of well-being.
Listening to a Healthy Appetite
Countless times my patients have asked me: "How should I eat? What can I eat?" My answer -- "Anything for which you have a healthy appetite!" -- has caused incredulity and relief at the same time.
But what is "healthy appetite?" Of course, this has nothing to do with a ravenous appetite for desserts or fast food. Being guided by your healthy appetite only works if you are eating unadulterated food.
The problem is that people only consume what their appetite demands from their food. They eat food without getting really full, because their healthy appetites were not satisfied. Studies with cats have shown that cats fed with low-quality canned food ate much more than those fed with fresh mice.
This can also be applied to humans, which would explain the high percentage of overweight people in the so-called civilized countries.
Cooking with Awareness
Gain experience to restore your healthy, natural appetite and develop an awareness that will help you distinguish good from bad food.
Everything is a question of quantity and frequency. Never be dogmatic. An eating sin can easily be remedied the next day, but a frustrating evening has stolen the most important element of those hours: The joy of life.
A good meal with family, friends or just the two of you is one of the best activities we can enjoy. Eating means indulging, enjoying and satisfying an elementary need. The future belongs to conscious eating.
Beyond enjoyment, a meal should regenerate, organize and inform the body: That is the message of food.