Plant Medicine, the Meat Question

Plant Medicine, the Meat Question

I frequently see articles on Facebook urging us to quit eating meat.  The banner headlines usually assert that meat animals are damaging to the environment, that their intestinal gases are a top threat to the ozone layer and in particular that they consume a phenomenal amount of water leaving us humans thirstier and thirstier.

Perhaps the authors of these articles are well meaning, but they write without complete understanding.  On a physical level our planet’s greatest need is for a healthy green carpet on its surface.  Depending on the climate this green carpet is either forest or pasture.  Where there is aridity, only grasses and forbs are able to cover and protect the soil beneath.  In those places a healthy sward of grass gathers the sun’s rays and converts them to life sustaining protoplasm and energy.

Great Nature requires a multitude of species to harvest the bounty from the sun and human beings will not soon be eating grass.  The great prairies and savannahs must have great herds of herbivores and must have their urine and methane rich feces as well.  If a pasture or savannah feeds life and if the waste products of that life are returned, then the soil becomes richer and the pasture grows more strongly.  If nature were left alone to be the herdsman we would eventually have more herbivores rather than fewer.

In our industrial form of agriculture unfortunately manure is poisoned and too often ends up in our waterways, the one place it shouldn’t go.  The land is asked to give without being replenished.  The meat produced by this agriculture indeed should not be eaten.

However, if we are able to consider food, both plant and animal, as it should be we could measure both kinds with the concept of “vitality”.  One remarkable way of measuring vitality was devised and implemented by two Frenchman, Andre’ Simonton and Andre’ Bovis. (Secret Life of Plants, ch. 18).  A pendulum of special make is held over the food substance and the combination of type of food, freshness, and manner of preparation combine to create a radiance which will both deflect and spin the pendulum.  Larger deflections are then a statement about the vitality of the food. 

The Frenchmen’s results were curious.  Fresh fruits and vegetables were all high but smoked pork scored as high as any other food, while other meats were low. Wood stove baked whole wheat bread was very high and commercial white bread very low.  Over cooked vegetables, pasteurized milk and milk products were very low as well.  The complete results are in Simonton’s book, “Radiations des Aliments”.  My supposition is that animal products should be from very healthy animals and handled and prepared with care or they may well devitalize the consumer.

Certainly the recommendations of almost all health/nutritional professionals  is not to eat meat if you have cancer or other chronic illness.  I myself consume my own fresh free range and non-gmo eggs, dairy which is mostly raw, and almost no meat.  I do have some “food demons” which are of great interest to me, because they prove to me my lack of inner unity.  I am no icon of dietary excellence and offer this only to promote consideration and sharing.

There is one final, rarely mentioned, aspect to this debate which I want to mention.  I grow a lot of my own organic vegetables and eat them fresh.  I would grow more except that it is so difficult for me to prepare their beds in a sea of invasive and non-native Bermuda grass.  This is just me, as I have no tiller, tractor, or round-up spray, only hand tools.  But even if I had sod busting power, how would I produce olive oil?  Lacking an oil press, or even the ability to harvest enough vegetable seed to supply oil, the only cooking fat I could hope to attain on my own would be lard.  So long as the world holds together, well off individuals can purchase a healthy and satisfying vegetarian diet.  The authors of anti-meat articles are among this group.  In less modern times farmers and gardeners embraced the raising and consumption of meat, poultry and dairy animals because of the reality of their place in nature.

So what is the proper diet of man?  Plant tissue has cell walls and the magnesium of chlorophyll.  Meat tissue has cell membranes and the iron of hematophyll.  Meat is formed from consumers of plants and so is one note separated on the octave of nourishment.  Opinions abound, but to me one certainty is that is only consciously raised and prepared food can properly nourish us.