NUTRITION & FAITH

     The original diet GOD established for all His creatures in the beginning was a plant-based diet. This was the pristine age when there was no violence in the Earth. "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Gen.1:29-31. The eating of animal flesh did not arrive until after the great flood when the survival of life depended on the sacrifice of life. This method of life's perpetuation has been held from that moment forward. But the Bible teaches that this will not always be. All carnivorous behavior will, one day, be done away.

     Studies have shown that greater physical strength, endurance, longer life, intellectual discernment, judgment, stamina, and overall far less susceptibility to disease are achieved by a balanced vegetarian diet. Even the tooth decaying plaque on teeth is virtually nonexistent in those who abstain from dairy products. This is due to the superior nutritional assimilation that is gained from combinations of fruits, nuts, vegetables, and grains whose combinations through the body’s majestic machinery produces superior nutrition to that of animal flesh. Science agrees that the shapes of human teeth are not suited for a carnivorous diet but a vegetarian diet.

     Although many populated areas are unable to maintain a vegetarian diet (those northern and arid regions where the supplement of meat is necessary to sustain life), the best available diet should always be chosen. All would agree that if eating hamburgers are your only source of food, your strength of mind, body and will‑power would be greatly weakened. Scripture teaches, "the blood is the life" (Deut. 12:23). Therefore the purity of the blood determines the quality of life. Impure blood will corrupt the purity of the life. This is why physical addictions are so harmful, from cigarettes to pharmaceutical drugs, because the snowballing of accumulations of any toxin in our system creates adverse effects on our well‑being, and ultimately will affect our reasoning powers and decision making process (the only means by which GOD can reach the hearts of men). The decisions of the present greatly influence the rewards of the future.

     Today's thinking is combative to the laws of health when the food products of cows, birds, fish, even the scavengers of land and sea, are declared to be the standard by which all plant-based foods have been declared as having lesser value. The literal rampage of disease that exists today did not exist in the 19th Century. This change in the frequency of disease came when society abandoned the plant based diet and turned to an animal based diet. Every nation of earth can trace its exponential rise in disease to the increase of meat consumption. In addition, common sense dictates that whatever antibiotics, hormones, or diseases are found in the blood and meat of these animals, they create a strain on the immune system and vital organs. It is estimated that 80% of our immune system is in the intestine. Therefore, the quality of food determines the overall health of the body. The end result of today's animal based diet taxes the body's strength creating a whole variety of mental and physical illnesses of which dominate society today, affecting everything from one's physical productivity to one's moral judgment. There are many ways to incite harmful results in both moral inclinations and physical weakening through the avenue of diet alone.

     Everything from people's cultivated tastes and government intervention to the recommendations of the scientific community and the profiteering corporations, all of these factors influence where we find ourselves today with its blessings and curses. The corrupt judgment of American corporations is paving the way to a global catastrophe in the world's food supply. They are deliberately making extinct the biodiversity of farm-crop varieties that have historically been nature's only defense against disease and pest, by their imposing only one variety of crop: their own, and then infiltrating government positions to influence government leaders to force farmers to conform to their sinful agenda, while claiming to benefit society. This kind of meddling never benefits life! Virtue is never found in man's tampering with the balance of nature. And now, with the American government allowing corporations to patent life [for a fee of course (I Tim.6;10]): these men are genetically corrupting the balance of nature. Repercussions are already felt in the farming community. Everything from the weakening of nutrition and hybridizing insecticides within the plant itself to the destruction of productive insect populations while at the same time producing resistant strains of unwanted insects.

     Monsanto, Dupont, and other Corporations have forced the farming families to abolish their 150 year heritage of careful seed cultivation, for their so-called necessity to meet the world's demands for food supply. This is in stark contrast to GOD'S commandment for the tilling of the land. He gave His promise: "If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely." Lev.26:3-5.

     Sinful men have chosen another course: one that only centers on only producing profit while meddling with the fragile balance of nature. There is scientific proof of how man's meddling with the intricate laws of nature have come back to wreak havoc on our children. Government and university studies have shown a rapid decline in our children's abilities in education. IQs have dropped dramatically. But that's not the concern of these corporations. Theirs is the here and now. And the harm that has been done is irreversible because reforms are never made.

     The amounts of nutrients found in today's farm crops can be regarded as negligible, when compared to organic farming, which does not use artificial fertilizers. This is verified by the fact that the amount of nutrition found in a given crop is determined by the amount of living organisms contained in the soil. And the fact remains that artificially fertilizing the soil kills the very organisms that provide the superior nutrition, which in turn provides the healthiest life for man. Just one of a hundred examples: a cup of spinach in the 19th Century contained 250 milligrams of iron. One cup of spinach today contains less than 5! Today we live in a very malnourished society and this accounts for the insatiable appetites creating obesity, disease, and emotional instability. Many are incapable of living a rational life based on their diet alone.

     In every conceivable way man has refined his diet to such an extreme that the majority of popular food combinations are combative to the overall health of the human body. One mild example: “enriched” bread. The bread‑maker refines (or strips away) the most nutritious components from the grain, leaving its nearly nutrition-less base. The refined grain is then enriched with man's calculated amounts of nutrients [isolated vitamins without the natural micronutrients; powdered metals such as iron, etc. taken from the stone quarry; and this is presented to society as “enriched” bread. The human body is incapable of productively assimilating non-plant-based nutrients. We were not designed to eat rock!

     The human body was designed at creation to be most efficient in the assimilation of natural food sources with little or no processing. Men of science are just now learning the vast complexity of nutrition (where a simple apple holds an estimated 12,000 micronutrients). Without the micronutrients to accompany the primary vitamins and minerals the human body’s assimilation of nutrition is disadvantaged. This is why we see companies putting 1000% RDA of this vitamin, or 3000% of that mineral in their pills, simply due to the fact that the body passes the great majority of it through the vital organs, thereby needlessly overtaxing them. Even children’s vitamins are now discovered to be dangerously harmful to the health of the child. Man's continual meddling with the intricate laws of nature has led to all manner of harmful consequences. This in turn creates a domino effect in nature from man’s meddling.

     The obvious effects from our tampering with the laws of nature are the raging levels of physical and mental illness permeating throughout our society. Whatever body‑system is overtaxed, whether it be the stomach, intestine, lungs, liver, or kidneys; even the brain: any assault on the organs, inhibiting their intended function, will deplete the inborn strength of that organ and will lead to it's premature failure.

     In summation, the Bible teaches that the motor‑efficiency of the human organism and the strength of its immune system are determined by the quality of the blood. The quality of the blood is determined by the quality of the environment, water, diet, sunlight, exercise and rest.

     All that we see concerning the turmoil of life, it is all due to man's irreversible decision to maintain the maximum distance to the ways of His Creator. This combative stance includes religious as well as atheist advocates. GOD'S intentions of nurturing the physical, mental, and spiritual nature of His children is available to anyone who will merely walk through the halls of learning, found in the Holy Bible, and grasp the essence of our Creator's hope and intended purpose for us, for He has never, nor will ever force His children to walk in His ordained path: it must be a freewill offering. His Word promises the gift of wisdom, of ingenuity, of courage, and above all, a conquering love, to overcome every deficiency. To walk in a path that honors the Creator is the most noble work that can be accomplished in this world.