Proceedings of the forum on non-conventional medicines and the acupuncture european workshop

Rome, 25-27 October 1990

Co-sponsored by
Council of Europe and World Health Organization

Edizioni Paracelso

Vitale Onorato
Rome, Italy
STARVATION, OBESITY, BIOFOODS

When visiting Cuba for the sole purpose of researching a marvellous preparation for vitiligo (which I later discovered to be called "Melagenina"), there was a certain phrase I couldn't get out of my mind, a phrase not at all esoteric, but you all well know that at times phrases surface from memory that were said many years before, with entirely new significance. The phrase in question was said to me by a lean suntanned Cuban who, seeing me puffing and sweating under the sweltering sun while he helped me in my research for that product that even he knew nothing of, travelling all over Havana without perspiring even a drop, sneered at me: "Usted estas bien alimentado!", freely translated as: "You are certainly well fed, my dear trophologist!".

Well we have certainly discussed diet, problems of famine the world over, and the discussion ended in those contradictory solemn stuffing lunches. For us cultured Europeans any excuse is valid for a good meal: we eat for work, to conclude business deals, to close conferences, we eat from hunger as from appetite, but also as a means to pass the time, from habit, as a vice, when we are happy, when we are angry, sad, disappointed, in love, satisfied...

We ought to be ashamed comparing ourselves with animals: there is no animal that eats more than is necessary, from pure greed; animals follow their instinct for survival, and eat only what they need, and as much as they need: they don't eat 3 times as much on their birthday, the contrary they have more opportunity to go without than to overeat, as to small babies before we parents suppress in them their natural instinct. A sick child in fact will not eat from instinct, and he is right, we are the ones who do not understand and force-feed until he chokes, because he needs food (as we think!). Modern methods of bringing up children would have them eating not when they are hungry, but to a timetable, a grown-ups (idiots!) timetable. Therefore if hunger coincides with dinnertime, so much the better, if not, the child eats when he is not hungry and when he is really hungry he will cry in vain.

Who knows why nature gave us the instinct of hunger and thirst....! We are worse than cars: no one could put even a litre much petrol in the tank after filling it, as the petrol tank is not flexible like our stomach; nor less than we would think of filling it with wine instead of petrol, or petrol where there should be diesel, but in our stomachs we can feed rubbish instead of food. If you take the trouble to read the labels on certain products, you will realise that there is everything in there, except for food. But we prefer to throw these products down the toilet after first passing them through our digestive system!

The sad thing is that we silence our consciences, overcame by the UNO figures which grow larger every year, now from the Cairo ("500 million people die of hunger every year!") now from New Yorak ("40.000 children die of hunger every day!"; "500.000 women die in pregnancy or childbirth!"). We send to them that same rubbish that we call food, and consider ourselves generous philanthropist. We hear that the underfed are better off than the badly fed. What do you think about that? Would you prefer not to eat, or to eat nuts and bolts, fabric, paper, stones, drink petrol or acid...?!

Often the body has only one weapon with which to defend itself from this inundation of rubbish, that is lack of appetite, the opposite pole of greed. Mothers whose children have no appetite do not realise that they are in fact more fortunate than those with children who, unable to active that defence mechanism, turn into walking rubbish sacks, continually, growing fatter and fatter....

In Denmark, during the Second World War, at the suggestion of Prof. Hindhede, the raising of pigs was diminished, and the barley, wheat and potatoes usually eaten by them, were eaten directly by humans, as well as ryebread. The consequence was a general improvement in health and reduction in deaths from sickness. We can find similar episodes through history from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the notorious modern day Houn za, from Russian workers to Spanish muleteers, from Japanese peasants to Turkish warriors, all teach us one thing: a sober and frugal basic diet of dried fruit, cereals, wholegrains, raw fruit and vegetables promotes energy, strength, resistance and health. Gastronomy, as a refined art, made overtreated foods, cooked and overcooked, promotes a degeneration of health both of the individual and the species. In fact, a great civilisation comes out of poverty, emigration, work, study and disappear with luxury, softness, and gastronomic eating habits. Study history and learn from it, if you don't want to believe the trophologists.

Guess the stage we are at in our civilisation?.... Our grandfathers resisted well to adversities: they were made of strong stuff; they were so robust that they could even give in to vices of drinking and smoking and still live to a ripe old age (it is what smokers don't understand when they cite them as examples of the harmlessness of smoking); our parents' generation is already a little weaker, like today's people in their forties. Some of us suffer from tiresome aliments: loss of hair, going grey, backache are all quite normal for our children, descendants of a worm-eaten tree; well, you can see them: is it normal that a child of four or five years should wear spectacles like a whitehaired professor, or that he has a chronic bronchitis like a croaking old woman? Are they already condemned? Not inevitably; we can escape the condemnation, but we have to fight hard and cleverly, everyone according to his own needs and according to the condition of his family tree. But how? Going back to tilling the land? No doubt, sooner or later, but in their own way back to a more natural way of life. Without unloading the problems onto "society", without pointless debate, each person can do a great deal. Now we are waiting for heaven knows who to come along and change things for us. Ecological groups who teach us about safeguarding the environment can demonstrate a more active rate, they take certain major decisions in their private lives: with many small actions, considerable collective results can be obtained.

We don't need to run away to the woods (although it would be ideal, let's not forget!), or sign up to any ecological organisation with high ideals, but what we do need to do is to build a way of life based on natural living for our own family, in our homes, even in the city, even without sacrificing the car. And to do this there are only 2 things to do: fill the machine that is the human body with the correct fuel, that is natural foods, and come to terms with the consequences of a lifetime of bad habits. No point coming to me saying: "But I've been eating properly for 2 months now, why do I still feel awful?"

What about the other 40 or 60 years spent slothfully stuffing ourselves with rubbish foods. So we need not only to adjust our eating habits but also to turn attention to repairing damage already done with concentrated food supplements to aid this recovery and also to counteract stress and illness and fight premature ageing.

To those who object to taking concentrated biofoods in capsules as unnatural, I could reply that there are certain sweets on the market with no food value whatsoever which would be better taken out of circulation. In any case, even listening to Mozart on the radio or on a record is... against nature! But I would not give up all the possibilities of recorded music for a live performance, even if that would be more preferable, more perfect and more natural. I could never get to know as many works, unless one day I may be able to afford an orchestra and soloists to come and play for me, like the King of France or Mendelssohn, even in my bath or out in the street or in the car (also not as natural as the horse!). Otherwise, how long would I have to wait to see a live performance of Schuman's "La Genoveva" or Donizetti's "Il Furioso all'isola di San Domingo"? And to listen to them again?

So, how many tons of soya and sesame would I have to eat each day for a gram of colin? So, if biotechnology has given us concentrates of natural nutritional substances which can improve our lives, our bodies, our minds, why not make use of them? I don't believe anyone would balk at the idea of living to a hundred years of age in perfect health for the sake of taking a few tablets of biofood each day.

It may seem that I have spoken too much music, but even music is a "food", a biofood: even Beethoven is "orthomolecular", and Vivaldi's adagios can have the same effect as magnesium and vitamin B; and as anions, the vitamins of the air, are beneficial to our lungs, so musical notes influence cellular oscillation with an orthomolecular effect, strengthening "quod est devius", warming "quod est frigidum". Music therapy or sound therapy therefore is not just listening to music which caresses the ear, but listening with the whole body, with every cell, according to Lakhovsky's theory of cell oscillation, elaborated and updated by Professor Luciano Bajardi from Torino in his "Kosmobios", and by the Brasilian Livio Vinardi who added cromotherapy.

However, many would pull a face at the first session of classical music, as they would at the first dish of wholemeal pasta or at the cod liver oil capsules: people strangely enough, for some distorted reasoning, suffer a feeling of ridiculous caution, when faced with those good things, and while they have no qualms about stuffing their faces with chips or fizzy drinks, wheatgerm oil or royal jelly fills them with trepidation. "Won't it make me sick to eat too much of this?". "Won't it be too much all togheter?". "Perhaps it would be better to have a blood analysis and consult the doctor, first". "Won't it make me fat, those vitamin B?". "Do I have to take all these tablets of bone meal, garlic and kelp? And for how long? All my life!!! A condemnation! For the whole of our lives to be fit and healthy: torture! For the children as well? Isn't it too early to start on these good things, full of health and vitality?".

Often, those who obviously have deficiency problems are afraid of going to excess, a fear of poisoning by overeating, and in fact often writers (not sure what side of the fence they stand on) seem to advocate vitamins and minerals while on the other hand inveighing against the danger of poisoning by an elevated dosage, or against the uselessness of taking substances as all substances are to be found anyway in food generally, and certain ones like pantotenic acid, or "ubiquinone" (co-enzyme Q10) can be found everywhere, are "ubiquitous", according to Greek and Latin etymology: but when? Once upon a time... Now, in accordance with etymology, hospitals would be empty and there would be no serious illnesses in winter and in summer (in summer many people think to have no need of vitamins...).
Results are what counts! The facts speak for themselves!

By Claudio Capozza MBBS (Italy), Naturopathic Doctor (Australia) & www.laleva.cc