Food - a Spirit's Suggestions

Spanish Paella, photo by Cel Lisboa.

Aedgar's words are written this way.

Nerida and Cara's words are written like this.

The problem with food is greed, as with many other things. We would say, “Less is more.” It’s not about quantity. As I said before, if you need one piece to be satisfied, you shouldn’t have ten pieces just because you can.

That way things wouldn’t be wasted.

I’m not talking about you personally, I’m talking about human beings. And food should be distributed in a different way, so all could have access to the same amount.

Cotton is notorious as a soil-depleting cash crop. Photo by USDA.

There are areas producing lots of things which can take nutrition out of the ground.

They should grow things that are important to feed the humans and the animals and other plants in the area.

They should grow different things in different places for the beings that live there, rather than saying here [gesturing with the hands] is a large amount of some sort of crop and then we send it off to other parts of the world.

It can make people sick — they call it allergy — because a lot of people can’t handle food that comes from other areas. They live in different climates.

Cara: That and it’s poison.

Yes. It all comes back to greed again. Food is poisoned to keep the little bugs away that would feed on it as well, so that they can grow more food for sale.

And it all adds up, this poison. You can’t say that it’s not poisonous for human beings because they are bigger than the little bugs that are killed immediately.

It adds up. The more you have of it, the more of it is stored in your tissues, especially the bones.

C: Why the bones? Or is it into the marrow, the part inside the bones?

It’s in the bones. Some kinds go into the bone marrow too. It depends on the structure of the poison. But the bones tend to store it long term.

It causes problems that are referred to as allergies. (It’s a poetic name they came up with).

Skin prick allergy testing. Aedgar says preservatives or foods from a very different environment, can cause allergies over time. Wolfgang Ihloff pic.

Nerida: I’ve been looking after Indigenous people in the desert, as you know.

Yes.

N: The people I know don’t seem to have allergies generally, even though now they’re eating a lot of food from other places. They don’t seem to have allergies the way that the Europeans do.

They will come later, because the poisons are stored in the bones slowly. The more it adds up, the more it plays out.

If they eat food from different areas that they’re not used to, some of them get physical problems, unpleasant problems, immediately — it doesn’t last long. But if they continue to eat these things, this very unpleasant reaction — they get used to it.

The chemicals get stored in the bones, which we would call a slow storing tissue of the body. And then they will have much bigger problems years later.

You work with people that are still healthy because they grew up as children eating in a traditional way. You know they’re supposed to eat these things, because they grow in the area where they live.

N: My body doesn’t seem to handle wheat particularly well. Is that a reasonable thing to say?

It was a crop produced to feed masses. And it was used to stop people having to go hunting all the time. It made them lazy. It made them content.

They didn’t get much nourishment out of it, but they didn’t feel hungry.

You could feed a lot of people with a field of crops and none of them had to go out and hunt or gather roots or other things.

N: Or tend their gardens.

Yes.

N: They didn’t need their land anymore when their land was taken away from them.

Yes. So it served more than one purpose.

It was easy to take with them when they ran off or were shipped off to other areas. So they took it then, as well.

Back then it took a long time to travel. They could grow it in the new place and have a new supply coming for the way back.

N: It’s a food of convenience but not necessarily a source of nutrition.

Bleached wheat flour -- convenient filler. Photo by Harke.

It doesn’t have nutritional benefits other than that people don’t feel hungry. They don’t get much energy out of it.

If you live in a place like here [in the Pacific], you eat fish, shellfish, things that grow in the soil here. You eat according to the climate. The changing climate will restrict what will grow here and what you can harvest and you’ll be fine.

The problem is that people think that the crops and other things that come here from other places, produced by greedy people in massive amounts — they think they need to eat these things wherever they go.

They are not open to another experience.

They want to come and see nice scenery here but they don’t want to be exposed to the food that’s provided by the climate of the place. They should be more open.

Cara: During the Summer months here, because of the climate it’s very hard to grow certain vegetables and greenery — things like spinach.

They grow lu’u here, a green leafy plant. Being a European and coming here that’s not what I’m used to eating.

People do eat leafy green things. They are related, similar, not the same things.

They do eat ancient leaves — they call it kale — in the cold parts of Europe.

Pacific taro leaves, a Polynesian staple. Photo by Tom Burke.

They eat, what you call, lu’u here. It’s the same source of energy. It’s the same Source that makes foods more nutritious.

But sometimes you can’t eat the green leaves because it’s the wrong season.

In ancient times they swapped to nuts or fruit or roots.

The sea can provide green things as well. (We know our friend doesn’t like the thought of it.)

Nerida [to Cara]: Marie doesn’t like seaweed. [They laugh].

But it is there.

N: I like it a lot. I love it.

Well, it is a matter of taste, but it is there. There is a lot more in the ocean than people know.

You will find a few more things in the future: things that look like fruit.

Cara: Things that look like fruit from the sea?

Yes.

C: Interesting.

It will take another few years for them to discover it. I’m just giving you a hint so that in a few years from now, you can say, 'Aedgar told me years ago.'

N: As we do, all the time.