Through the process of photosynthesis, plants convert the energy of the sun, carbon dioxide from the air, and minerals and water from the earth into atomic bonds that are solid enough for teeth to sink into. We can consume these forms of energy directly, by eating plant foods, or indirectly, by eating animals that have eaten these plant foods.
The process, by which food gets broken down in the body and by which the energy released from the atomic bonds, is called digestion.
Eating the right combinations and amounts of foods to provide energy and make it possible for that energy to be released in the body is what nutrition is all about.
In the field of nutrition there are new vitamins and being “discovered”, average daily requirements changed, dietary rules changed, etc., so that most of the nutritional information that you read anywhere is never the absolute last word.
To this day there are some hundred plus labels or names that scientists have given to different nutritional elements that they have become aware of, yet there are probably many more that have not been identified.
Please keep in mind that I am not neurotic about measuring milligrams of this sort or that when I feed my family, or myself nor do we take any kind of supplements other than organic sulfur crystals. Because there is such a perfect balance in nature, using the great variety of fruits and vegetables, as fresh as they can be gotten, and unrefined, unprocessed whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, will easily and naturally provide all the necessary nutrients.
Understand, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that refined and enriched foods will never include all the known nutrients that were taken out. And there is a very high probability that nutritional elements, which have not been identified yet, are also removed. But then again how can they be replaced if we don’t know about them?
Good nutrition calls for a balanced diet, which means the right proportions of the right things. In discussing what the right proportions are, whether recommended daily allowance of the different nutrients, we hear the terms “grams”, “milligrams”, “International units”, etc.
The three nutrients that are required in larger quantities by the body and which make up the bulk of our nutritional intake, as well as providing the body with burnable energy, are: carbohydrates, proteins and fats. The recommended daily allowances of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are measured in grams (1 gram = .035 of an ounce). The recommended daily allowance of minerals and vitamins are measured in milligrams (1 milligram = 1 thousandth of 1 gram, which is pretty “micro”-scopic).
Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are called “macro” or major nutrients because they comprise the major part of our diet as far as quantity is concerned. They are not called major because they are more important.
Vitamins and minerals are referred to as micronutrients because they are required in such small amounts, not because they are microscopic in the role they play in our bodies.
The presence of the proper portions of nutrients needed in both grams and milligrams is essential for energy to be properly released in the body.
The three macronutrients – carbohydrates, proteins, and fats – are the foods that give our body energy to burn, kind of like fuel, wood and paper give a fire energy to burn. It’s important to include all three in a well-balanced diet, and, in fact, if a diet of whole, natural foods is eaten, all three are naturally provided.
The nutrients, which make up the bulk of our diet – the “major” or “micro” nutrients – are sources of calories in our diet. Because of the obesity situation in America, the word calorie has taken on a negative connotation. Calories are simply a measurement for energy, not really a dirty word or something harmful to our health.
The amount of fuel or energy in a food is measured in terms of calories, which basically tells us how much energy may be released as heat when the food is metabolized.
We eat to put energy into our bodies, which is exactly what carbohydrates, proteins, and fats do. The problem begins when the amount of calories, or energy consumed, is more than the amount, which is burned up or utilized. This is what has led to so much calorie-consciousness in the United States, which, in general, is a place with very sedentary lifestyles.
If too much energy is consumed and there is not enough activity to burn it off, the energy becomes stored in the body in the form of fat, which ultimately can lead to disease. So, it’s not that calories are undesirable, it’s just that it’s undesirable to consume more calories than are burned off.
To keep calorie consumption in the healthy perspective, two things are important. One, to consume the right proportion of calories to the amount burned off in daily activities.
In the United States, where calorie consumption is high and the lifestyle is sedentary due to a dependence on fossil fuels for energy to do most of the work, energy has to be burned out somehow or it will turn into obesity.
To burn off excess energy we see everyone jogging or engaging in other “leisure activities”, which amounts to physical work that doesn’t produce anything. The right amount of calories needed to balance how much are burned has to be determined by each individual through an analysis of his or her daily activities.
The body burns a certain amount of energy just to keep the heart beating and the lungs breathing, etc. These automatic bodily functions, without any other activity, burn about 60 calories an hour. This amount of energy burned while sleeping or vegetating is called basal metabolism. Different activities, besides the basic bodily functions, burn different amounts of energy. If you go online and put in “energy requirements for various activities” you’ll get a good idea what I’m talking about.
The second important thing to do is to be sure to get all the necessary nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, enzymes, etc., contained in the calories consumed.
Different calorie sources contain different vitamins, minerals, etc. In this connection it is important to steer clear of “empty-calorie” foods – foods that supply calories but contain no vitamins or minerals or protein, etc. – like refined white flour and sugar, and to use a variety of the major nutrient foods, which include other necessary nutrients.
Stay tuned!
To learn more about Hesh, listen to and read hundreds of health related radio shows and articles, and learn about how to stay healthy and reverse degenerative diseases through the use of organic sulfur crystals and other amazing superfoods, please visit www.healthtalkhawaii.com, or email me at [email protected] or call me at (808) 258-1177. Since going on the radio in 1981 these are the only products I began to sell because they work.
Just to put things in perspective, after I graduated from Weequahic High School and before going to Seton Hall University, I had a part-time job working for a butcher. I was the delivery guy and occasionally had to go to the slaughterhouse to pick up products for the store. Needless to say, I had no consciousness nor awareness, as change never came then despite the horrors I witnessed on an almost daily basis.
After graduating with a degree in accounting from Seton Hall, I eventually got married and moved to a town called Livingston. Livingston was basically a yuppie community where everyone was judged by the neighborhood they lived in and their income. To say it was a "plastic" community would be an understatement.
Livingston and the shallowness finally got to me. I told my wife I was fed up and wanted to move. She made it clear she had to be near her friends and New York City. I finally got my act together and split for Colorado.
I was living with a lady in Aspen at the end of 1974, when one day she said, " let's become vegetarians". I have no idea what possessed me to say it, but I said, "okay"! At that point I went to the freezer and took out about $100 worth of frozen, dead body parts and gave them to a welfare mother who lived behind us. Well, everything was great for about a week or so, and then the chick split with another guy.
So here I was, a vegetarian for a couple weeks, not really knowing what to do, how to cook, or basically how to prepare anything. For about a month, I was getting by on carrot sticks, celery sticks, and yogurt. Fortunately, when I went vegan in 1990, it was a simple and natural progression. Anyway, as I walked around Aspen town, I noticed a little vegetarian restaurant called, "The Little Kitchen".
Let me back up just a little bit. It was April of 1975, the snow was melting and the runoff of Ajax Mountain filled the streets full of knee-deep mud. Now, Aspen was great to ski in, but was a bummer to walk in when the snow was melting.
I was ready to call it quits and I needed a warmer place. I'll elaborate on that in a minute.
But right now, back to "The Little Kitchen". Knowing that I was going to leave Aspen and basically a new vegetarian, I needed help. So, I cruised into the restaurant and told them my plight and asked them if they would teach me how to cook. I told them in return I would wash dishes and empty their trash. They then asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was an accountant.
The owner said to me, "Let's make a deal. You do our tax return and we'll feed you as well". So for the next couple of weeks I was doing their tax return, washing their dishes, emptying the trash, and learning as much as I could.
But, like I said, the mud was getting to me. So I picked up a travel book written by a guy named Foder. The name of the book was, "Hawaii". Looking through the book I noticed that in Lahaina, on Maui, there was a little vegetarian restaurant called," Mr. Natural's". I decided right then and there that I would go to Lahaina and work at "Mr. Natural's." To make a long story short, that's exactly what happened.
So, I'm working at "Mr. Natural's" and learning everything I can about my new dietary lifestyle - it was great. Every afternoon we would close for lunch at about 1 PM and go to the Sheraton Hotel in Ka'anapali and play volleyball, while somebody stayed behind to prepare dinner.
Since I was the new guy, and didn't really know how to cook, I never thought that I would be asked to stay behind to cook dinner. Well, one afternoon, that's exactly what happened; it was my turn. That posed a problem for me because I was at the point where I finally knew how to boil water.
I was desperate, clueless and basically up the creek without a paddle. Fortunately, there was a friend of mine sitting in the gazebo at the restaurant and I asked him if he knew how to cook. He said the only thing he knew how to cook was enchiladas. He said that his enchiladas were bean-less and dairy-less. I told him that I had no idea what an enchilada was or what he was talking about, but I needed him to show me because it was my turn to do the evening meal.
Well, the guys came back from playing volleyball and I'm asked what was for dinner. I told them enchiladas; the owner wasn't thrilled. I told him that mine were bean-less and dairy-less. When he tried the enchilada he said it was incredible. Being the humble guy that I was, I smiled and said, "You expected anything less"? It apparently was so good that it was the only item on the menu that we served twice a week. In fact, after about a week, we were selling five dozen every night we had them on the menu and people would walk around Lahaina broadcasting, 'enchilada's at "Natural's" tonight'. I never had to cook anything else.
A year later the restaurant closed, and somehow I gravitated to a little health food store in Wailuku. I never told anyone I was an accountant and basically relegated myself to being the truck driver. The guys who were running the health food store had friends in similar businesses and farms on many of the islands. I told them that if they could organize and form one company they could probably lock in the State. That's when they found out I was an accountant and "Down to Earth" was born. "Down to Earth" became the largest natural food store chain in the islands, and I was their Chief Financial Officer and co-manager of their biggest store for 13 years.
In 1981, I started to do a weekly radio show to try and expose people to a vegetarian diet and get them away from killing innocent creatures. I still do that show today. I pay for my own airtime and have no sponsors to not compromise my honesty. One bit of a hassle was the fact that I was forced to get a Masters Degree in Nutrition to shut up all the MD's that would call in asking for my credentials.
My doing this radio show enabled me, through endless research, to see the corruption that existed within the big food industries, the big pharmaceutical companies, the biotech industries and the government agencies. This information, unconscionable as it is, enabled me to realize how broken our health system is. This will be covered more in depth in the Introduction and throughout the book and when you finish the book you will see this clearly and it will hopefully inspire you to make changes.
I left Down to Earth in 1989, got nationally certified as a sports injury massage therapist and started traveling the world with a bunch of guys that were making a martial arts movie. After doing that for about four years I finally made it back to Honolulu and got a job as a massage therapist at the Honolulu Club, one of Hawaii's premier fitness clubs. It was there I met the love of my life who I have been with since 1998. She made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She said," If you want to be with me you've got to stop working on naked women". So, I went back into accounting and was the Chief Financial Officer of a large construction company for many years.
Going back to my Newark days when I was an infant, I had no idea what a "chicken" or "egg" or "fish" or "pig" or "cow" was. My dietary blueprint was thrust upon me by my parents as theirs was thrust upon them by their parents. It was by the grace of God that I was able to put things in their proper perspective and improve my health and elevate my consciousness.
The road that I started walking down in 1975 has finally led me to the point of writing my book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Hopefully, the information contained herein will be enlightening, motivating, and inspiring to encourage you to make different choices. Doing what we do out of conditioning is not always the best course to follow. I am hoping that by the grace of the many friends and personalities I have encountered along my path, you will have a better perspective of what road is the best road for you to travel on, not only for your health but your consciousness as well.
Last but not least: after being vaccinated as a kid I developed asthma, which plagued me all of my life. In 2007 I got exposed to the organic sulfur crystals, which got rid of my asthma in 3 days and has not come back in over 10 years. That, being the tip of the iceberg, has helped people reverse stage 4 cancers, autism, joint pain, blood pressure problems, migraine headaches, erectile dysfunction, gingivitis, and more. Also, because of the detoxification effects by the release of oxygen that permeates and heals all the cells in the body, it removes parasites, radiation, fluoride, free radicals, and all the other crap that is thrust upon us in the environment by Big Business.
For more, please view www.healthtalkhawaii.com and www.asanediet.com.
Namaste!
