In Which I Argue Vigorously Against Common Cannibalism

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Oct, 2001  by Michael Blate

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As longtime readers of this colunm know, I consider food -- what we eat, and especially what we don't eat -- to be the most important factor in determining our health. By far!

Two food groups, in particular, are the worst culprits in destroying our health: Abusive substances; and "good" foods or drinks to which we have allergies. (Often, though, these allergic responses are "hidden," or disguised as symptoms which bear little relationship to allergic reactions as most of us know them -- the sneezing, coughing, hives, etc. Hidden allergies may include heart disease, obesity and many other chronic disorders.)

I consider these two groups to be "enemy foods."

I have written in general about enemy foods in other columns. Now, I'd like to focus upon one category of such detrimental foodstuffs: Slaughtered products.

A recent documentary on the Discovery Channel reminded me I've been meaning to respond to the strident assertions of a fellow columnist in this fine publication. He-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless (no, not Voldemort, you Harry Potter fans) an otherwise-excellent fellow, and the producer of an admirable e-letter on health news to which you ought to subscribe -- has long pounded the table in defense of eating (organic) meat.

Worse: He seems to consider grains as ranking somewhere just above the devil itself; in terms of their destructive power upon our well-being.

Balderdash! Forget the fact that man has thrived on grains as his staple food for many millennia. Forget the fact that diverse populations-- admittedly, most of them Oriental -- have long, healthy traditions of eating little or no meat.

And forget the fact that grain, alone, will support human life (e.g., the Chinese character for "rice" and "life" are the same, I'm told), whereas meat, alone, will not (except in impossibly frigid climates, such as the arctic). Recall those faddish ultra high-protein diets that soon led to widespread kidney dysfunction amongst their proponents?

Instead, all you need to think is "cannibalism."

OK, admittedly cattle, pigs, poultry and sea creatures are different species than ourselves; and classic cannibalism is defined as "consuming members of one's own species." But just below the surface differences, how truly dissimilar are we from other animals? Could it be as little as not having a common language?

In that Discovery Channel documentary -- which focused on how emotionally expressive animals actually can be -- one chimpanzee had learned more than 200 sign-language "words," many of them expressive of the emotions she "said" she' was feeling. This chimp had been in captivity for many years and was almost "humanized".. .so much so, that she had even taught her offspring how to also communicate in sign language with their handlers!

One might rationalize that because chimps are so close to humans, there could be some link. But another segment of the show clearly revealed that even sea animals -- ranging from dolphins and whales to the "lowly" squid, which most people consider to be a nearly-primordial sea creature -- clearly demonstrate emotional expression. Primarily fear. Remember this.

Our squid promptly changed its colors in response to what researchers finally determined were emotionally charged situations. The animal repeatedly turned bright red under what seemed to be anger-producing conditions. And it instantly turned white when its survival seemed threatened.

But even if you missed that very enlightening program, we who own pets need to look no further than our own Fidos and felines to realize that emotions and feelings are not limited to humans. And because feelings are the expression of the heart, we must seriously consider how far we are truly removed from other animals...or they from us.

As I have explained in prior columns, slaughtered foods affect us negatively in many ways, not the least of which is within our minds. This occurs through a complex, organ-related biochemical process long known in "energy medicine" but apparently unknown to proponents of the Allopathic Way.

Energy medicine is the source of acupuncture, homeopathy and other methods about which I typically write. It holds that each organ and gland plays an important role in creating or neutralizing the ingredients which constitute our everchanging biochemical "soup." And to me, the most important aspect of these effects deal with our thoughts and feelings.

Here's how it works: Too much adrenalin, say, and we feel like fighting or fleeing. If this mindset stays too long -- and is not neutralized by a healthy shot of insulin from the pancreas (plus other self-produced "medicines") -- we become greatly distressed. That biochemical flush of adrenalin is produced by the adrenals, which are controlled by their "parent" organs, the kidneys, according to energy doctors.

So we can say that fear -- the underlying emotion causing the "fight or flight" syndrome -- is a kidney-related distress. If the kidneys are in a "normal" state of balance (that is, not distressed enough to cause an abundance of adrenalin), we are relatively free from overt fear. But the more distressed the kidneys become, the higher our fear level becomes.