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Here is bread, which strengthens man's heart, and therefore is called the staff of Life.
-Matthew Henry
I will make the case that the world’s most popular grain is also the world’s most destructive dietary ingredient.
-Dr. William Davis
Sigh.
-SolanoSnapper
the Apricot Kernels Nonsense
In November, 1921, a great English physician, Sir Robert McCarrison (after whom the McCarrison Society for Nutrition and Health is named), visited the USA at the invitation of the University of Pittsburgh, to deliver the annual sixth Mellon Lecture before the Society for Biological Research.
The subject of his paper was “Faulty Food in Relation to Gastro-Intestinal Disorders,” and its salient points centered on the marvelous health and robustness of the Hunzas, who dwell on the northwestern border of what was then British India (now Pakistan).
The sturdy, mountaineer Hunzas are a light-complexioned race of people, much fairer of skin than the natives of the northern plains of India. They claim descent from three soldiers of Alexander the Great who lost their way in one of the precipitous gorges of the Himalayas. They always refer to themselves as Hunzukuts and to their land as Hunza, but ignorant modern writers insist on calling the people Hunzas.
Most of the people of Hunza are Ismaili Muslims, followers of His Highness the Aga Khan. The local language is Brushuski. Urdu and English are also understood by most of people.
The Hunza valley is one of huge glaciers and towering mountains, below which are ice-fields, boulder-strewn torrents and frozen streams.
The lower levels are transformed into verdant gardens in summertime. Narrow roads cling to the crumbling sides of forbidding precipices, which present sheer drops of thousands of feet, with many spots subject to dangerously recurrent bombardments of rock fragments from overhanging masses.
The Hunzas live on a seven-mile line at an elevation of five or six hundred feet from the bottom of a deep cleft between two towering mountain ranges. Some of the glaciers in this section of the world are among the largest known outside the Arctic region. The average height of the mountains is 20,000 feet, with some peaks, such as Rakaposhi, which dominates the whole region, soaring as high as 25,000—a spectacle of breath-taking beauty, too steep to hold snow and usually scarfed by clouds.
Because of the scarcity of food, supplies and transport, the region is closed to the general public and special permission is required to enter it. Travellers to the region have thus been few but those who have seen the wonder of Hunza have returned with glowing tales of the charm and buoyant health of this people.
Snow is a constant factor; long winters keep the entire population more or less housebound for several months at a time. Yet in summer the mercury may climb to 95 degrees in the shade.
For months in the winter the landscape is all one drab, monotonous, monochromatic stretch of grey houses, apricot trees, fields and walls, all are of a uniformly dingy and depressing gray, with lifeless, low-hanging clouds.
Then in life miraculously returns and color is reborn in the rich greens and yellows of the crops and trees. Leading the explosion of awakening, the apricot blossoms in spring stud the landscape with a riot of pastel-tinted pink and white, in vast profusion.
However, it’s not all about the landscape and crops; Sir Robert McCarrison and other travelers who have visited the Hunza-land, have all been particularly impressed by its atmosphere of peace and by the splendid health and amiability of its people.
Cancer researchSo vibrant was the health of those Hunzas with whom McCarrison came into contact that he reported never having seen a case of asthenic dyspepsia, or gastric or duodenal ulcer, of appendicitis, mucous colitis or cancer. Cases of over-sensitivity of the abdomen to nerve impressions, fatigue, anxiety or cold were completely unknown.
The prime physiological purpose of the abdomen, as related to the sensation of hunger, constituted their only consciousness of this part of their anatomy.
McCarrison concluded this part of his lecture by stating, “Indeed, their buoyant abdominal health has, since my return to the West, provided a remarkable contrast with the dyspeptic and colonic lamentations of our highly civilized communities.”
In fact the Hunzas are not perfect: there is one tiny aspect of ill-health. They seem to suffer from eye disorders that are due to the lack of stoves and chimneys. A fire is made in the middle of the floor and the smoke escapes from a small hole in the roof. The gathering smudge in the air is a constant irritant to their eyes.
McCarrison was otherwise amazed at the health and immunity record of the Hunzas, who, though surrounded on all sides by peoples afflicted with all kinds of degenerative and pestilential diseases, still did not contract any of them.
Travelers who have lived and worked with the Hunzas are unanimous in praising their general charm, intelligence, and physical stamina.But the Hunzas were not entirely a benign or benevolent people, by our standards. There is a paradox here.
In his Mellon Lecture McCarrison told us, “They (the Hunzas) are unusually fertile and long-lived, and endowed with nervous systems of notable stability.
Their longevity and fertility were, in the case of one of them, matters of such concern to the ruling chief that he took me to task for what he considered to be my ridiculous eagerness to prolong the lives of the ancients of his people, among whom were many of my patients.
The operation for senile cataract appeared to him a waste of my economic opportunities, and he tentatively suggested instead the introduction of some form of lethal chamber, designed to remove from his realms those who by reason of their age and infirmity were no longer of use to the community.”
But there is no questioning the physical fitness and stamina of this race of men. One writer, R. C. F. Schomberg, commented, “It is quite the usual thing for a Hunza man to walk sixty miles at one stretch, up and down the face of precipices to do his business and return direct.” This author passed through the Hunza country many times. He describes how his Hunza servant went after a stolen horse “and kept up the pursuit in drenching rain over mountains for nearly two days with bare feet.”
Schomberg also tells of seeing a Hunza in mid-winter make two holes in an ice pond, repeatedly dive into one and come out at the other, with as much unconcern as a polar bear.
Sir Aurel Stein records a trip of 200 miles made on foot by a Hunza messenger, a journey that imposed the obstacle of crossing a mountain as high as Mont Blanc. The trip was accomplished in seven days and the messenger returned fresh looking and untired, as if it had been a common, everyday occurrence. The word “tired” does not seem to exist in their lexicon.
In the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts for January 2, 1925, Sir Robert McCarrison wrote: “The powers of endurance of these people are extraordinary; to see a man of this race throw off his scanty garments, revealing a figure which would delight the eye of a Rodin, and plunge into a glacier-fed river in the middle of the winter, as easily as most of us would take a tepid bath, is to realize that perfection of physique and great physical endurance are attainable on the simplest of foods, provided these be of the right kind.”
Now we are getting down to the real message.
McCarrison postulated four main reasons in explanation of their fabulous health. I think it both interesting and advisable to give them all in his own words. He said:
1) “Infants are reared as Nature intended them to be reared–at the breast. If this source of nourishment fails, they die; and at least they are spared the future gastrointestinal miseries, which so often have their origin in the first bottle.”
McCarrison is absolutely in tune with (or rather modern holistic and food experts like me are in tune with HIM!), in saying that if anything other than Mother’s colostrum is put in the infant’s mouth at birth, disastrous food intolerances follow, as night follows day.
2) “The people live on the unsophisticated foods of Nature: milk, eggs, grains, fruits and vegetables. I don’t suppose that one in every thousand of them has ever seen a tinned salmon, a chocolate or a patent infant food, nor that as much sugar is imported into their country in a year as is used in a moderately sized hotel of this city in a single day.”
I’m surprised at the dairy but raw milk fans will make a lot of this. But the number one here is, without question, NO SUGAR and not the apricots!
No manufactured food is also crucial. Never never eat anything that doesn’t look the way Nature created it (and never never eat anything that Monsanto and similar biotech companies have had their dirty hands on).
3) “Their religion (Islam) prohibits alcohol, and although they do not always lead in this respect a strictly religious life, nevertheless they are eminently a tee totalling race.”
(Colonel Lorimer says that the Hunzas occasionally drink a little wine at festivals. Alcohol is not forbidden to Ismalai Mohammedans, but in Hunza the distilling of alcohol has been prohibited in recent years, since McCarrison’s time). So a little quiet wine drinking seems to be no big hazard, if everything else is in place.
4) “Their manner of life requires the vigorous exercise of their bodies.”
No surprise here; we know that staying active is an essential part of health and definitely does protect from cancer.ers take note.
Indian Corn on display at Meadow View Farm.
Have a great Monday everyone!
Will catch up with your photos after work.
Kernels on a cob of corn, showing an interesting phyllotactic defect where regular columns of kernels suddenly make a checkerboard pattern and then revert to columns again.
Harvesting grains and oilseeds begins in Saskatchewan in August, so during a recent drive outside the city is stopped to capture some images of crops before the combines arrive to harvest. This image was taken at the edge of a field on the Regina Plains, near Pense.
During the recent visit to Oyo, we visited a traditional palm oil making place. During this visit I saw these two helping the older women...
In each one, ensconced within a protective shell of tough fibre, lay an embryotic version of its parent. Each one of those harboured a thousand shells of tough fibre, in each of which lay tiny versions of the parent, dormant, slumbering. Each of the snoozing grandchildren protectively cradled a multitude of their own offspring, shielded from the elements in noiseless cocoons.
In this way, the People of The Cone travelled the cold, quiet, vast emptinesses of the Universe, seeking a final sprouting place.
Dried wheat kernels from Sweden. These are about 38 years old! Believe it or not, when I lived on a farm in Sweden I sometimes helped with the harvesting of the wheat by driving a tractor....oh those were days long ago...
INFORMATION ON WHEAT:
Wheat (Triticum spp.), is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Levant region of the Middle East. Globally, after maize, wheat is the second most-produced food among the cereal crops just above rice. Wheat grain is a staple food used to make flour for leavened, flat and steamed breads; cookies, cakes, breakfast cereal, pasta, juice, noodles and couscous; and for fermentation to make beer, alcohol, vodka or biofuel. Wheat is planted to a limited extent as a forage crop for livestock, and the straw can be used as fodder for livestock or as a construction material for roofing thatch. Although wheat supplies much of the world's dietary protein and food supply, as many as one in every 100 to 200 people has Coeliac disease, a condition which results from an immune system response to a protein found in wheat: gluten (based on figures for the United States).
Wheat originated in Southwest Asia in the area known as the Fertile crescent. The genetic relationships between wild and domesticated populations of both einkorn and emmer wheat indicate that the most likely site of domestication is near Diyarbakır in Turkey.
Wild wheats were domesticated as part of the origins of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent. Cultivation and repeated harvesting and sowing of the grains of wild grasses led to the domestication of wheat through selection of mutant forms with tough ears that remained intact during harvesting, larger grains, and a tendency for the spikelets to stay on the stalk until harvested. Because of the loss of seed dispersal mechanisms, domesticated wheats have limited capacity to propagate in the wild.
The exact timing of the first appearance of domesticated wheats is currently uncertain, but is either in the PPNA period (9800-8800 cal BC) or the early-mid PPNB (8800-7500 cal BC). Domesticated einkorn and emmer wheat has been identified at three PPNA sites in the northern Levant, Iraq ed-Dubb, Jericho and Tell Aswad, but both the dating and the domesticated status of these cereals is disputed. Domesticated wheats (and other Neolithic founder crops) are unambiguously present at early-mid PPNB sites in the northern Levant, such as Ain Ghazal, Abu Hureyra and Tell Aswad, and in southeast Turkey at Cafer Höyük and Çayönü. As a round figure, it is correct to say that wheats have been domesticated for about 10,000 years.
The cultivation of wheat began to spread beyond the Fertile Crescent during the Neolithic period, reaching the Aegean by 8500 cal BC and the Indian subcontinent by 6000 cal BC. By 5,000 years ago, wheat had reached Ethiopia, Great Britain, Ireland and Spain. A millennium later it reached China. Claims have been made for independent domestication of wheat outside the fertile crescent, but these lack evidence of the presence of wild wheats or of early domesticated wheat.
Three thousand years ago wheat was grown in the southern Oregon peninsula. Agricultural cultivation with horse-drawn plows increased cereal grain production, as did the use of seed drills to replace broadcast sowing in the 18th century. Yields of wheat continued to increase, as new land came under cultivation and with improved agricultural husbandry involving the use of fertilizers, threshing machines and reaping machines, tractor-drawn cultivators and planters, and varieties adapted to intensive cultivation (see green revolution and Norin 10 wheat).
Raw wheat can be powdered into flour; germinated and dried creating malt; crushed and into cracked wheat; parboiled (or steamed), dried, crushed and de-branned into bulgur; or processed into semolina, pasta, or roux. Wheat is a major ingredient in such foods as bread, porridge, crackers, biscuits, Muesli, pancakes, pies, pastries, cakes & cupcakes, cookies, muffins, rolls, doughnuts, gravy, boza (a fermented beverage), and breakfast cereals (e.g. Wheatena, Cream of Wheat, Shredded Wheat, and Wheaties).
100 grams of hard red winter wheat contain about 12.6 grams of protein, 1.5 grams of total fat, 71 grams of carbohydrate (by difference), 12.2 grams of dietary fiber, and 3.2 mg of iron (17% of the daily requirement); the same weight of hard red spring wheat contains about 15.4 grams of protein, 1.9 grams of total fat, 68 grams of carbohydrate (by difference), 12.2 grams of dietary fiber, and 3.6 mg of iron (20% of the daily requirement). Gluten, a protein found in wheat (and other Triticeae), cannot be tolerated by people with celiac disease (an autoimmune disorder in ~1% of Indo-European populations).
Source: Wikipedia
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The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul. --Chrysippus (Quoted by Cicero in De Natura Deorum)
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. --To Autumn. by John Keats
Another attractive little surprise from the European cornel. These flower buds remind me of canned sweet corn.
One year ago, I didn't even know what kind of tree this was, now I see them everywhere!
First time planting corn. Grown in a five gallon bucket. I picked two ears today, one week before the 78 day maturity that the package noted. They weigh 3/4 of a pound each and are 9" long. Only one good ear formed on each plant. The cobs are pretty much full ears.
grown from native seed in our "three sisters" garden (the sisters are corn, beans, and squash).
it is recommended that you wash before eating.
It is good to have a dream. Dreams get us through the hard times.
What is your dream?
I was never fancy enough to have one of those. or i was to busy, working.
Remember, this is 1918. And how many women hunted for gold in the Yukon with their husbands?
"Why, Margaret," he said, "they're dolls."
And you should have seen Kernel Cob's face as he turned to Sweetclover and said:
"I don't see any woman, do you?"
But Sweetclover only smiled.
"Do you see the one that isn't John?" she said.
"Of course," said Kernel Cob, "I'm not blind."
"Well," said Sweetclover, "she's a woman."
"But she's got a man's suit on," said Kernel Cob.
"Well, that doesn't make her a man." said Sweetclover.
"What'll women be doing next," said Kernel Cob.
“Kernel Cob and Little Miss Sweetclover” by George Mitchell, who had a delightful sense of humor unusual for the time. Illustrated by Tony Sarg. Published by P.F. Volland in 1918. Can be found at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14110
Please do not download, copy, edit, reproduce or publish any of my images. They are my own intellectual property and are not for use without my express written permission. Thank you.
Native corn from the garden -- it was chewier and not as sweet as yellow corn, but still quite delicious
This ear was still on the stalk, in a cornfield I walk past regularly. The kernels make me think the crop is being grown for animal consumption, not for humans.
And they went in search of the things they would make the dolls of. And pretty soon, Peggs made the most wonderful doll of flowers that ever a child could see.
The head was of Sweetclover, the dress was a purple morning-glory turned upside-down so it looked like a bodice and a skirt, and it was tied to the head so that they wouldn't come apart. And perched on the top of the head was a little bonnet, only it wasn't really a bonnet, you know, but a little four o'clock.
And she called it Little Miss Sweetclover and it was the dearest little doll and as fresh as the morning dew.
In the meantime, Jackie had been busy, you may be sure; but he couldn't find anything to make a soldier of except sticks of wood, but he had no jack-knife, much as he had always wanted one.
"Whatever shall I do?" thought Jackie, as he looked about the garden, and just then he saw an ear of corn and he picked it up.
"Maybe this will do," and he picked all the kernels off except two for the eyes, one for the nose, two more for the ears and a row for the teeth.
And he ran to Peggs to have her sew some clothes for his soldier.
“Kernel Cob and Little Miss Sweetclover” by George Mitchell, who had a delightful sense of humor unusual for the time. Illustrated by Tony Sarg. Published by P.F. Volland in 1918. Can be found at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14110
15.5.09
We're driving towards the orphanage. The highway is lonely, save for a few languid trucks ambling along. It is damp too, and a thick fog covers the countryside: a single light here or there provides the only hint of civilization amidst the interminable verdure. Inside the van, the smoke of cigarettes past wafts in the air, lingering like a lost soul. I inhale, and quickly cough. I subsequently open the window to the enveloping darkness outside, so slightly as to not disturb my companions in the back. The roar of the road echoes in my ears.
An unexpected wrench was thrown into our travel plans today. The trip began expediently enough as the bus on which Candy and I rode reached the Shenzhen airport with hours to spare; however, the unscheduled hiccups soon followed. We received an announcement over the public address system notifying us of a flight delay, due to a mysterious military maneuver, we deduced, high in the Shenzhen skies. Several more sonorous reminders came in punctual succession over the next six hours. It seemed as though we would be stuck, stranded really, at the airport forever, or for the day at least. Thankfully, after the police arrested some of the more aggrieved passengers, we finally boarded the plane and took off for central China. We were blessed to be on our way at last, none of us having blown a gasket during the afternoon tedium.
One more pitch black road awaited, down a single lonely lane lined with swarthy trees, standing as though sentries, and at length we arrived at the orphanage. The car stopped in a clearing, and we stepped out, onto a cement lot with soft puddles spread silently beneath our feet. We squinted into the twilight, our eyes trying to make sense of the surroundings. Our bags were unloaded, we made our way to the rooms, and soon enough fell asleep. I think we all enjoyed the repose, rendered especially comfortable by the new guest rooms in which we were staying.
16.5.09
We have only been here for barely 24 hours, yet it feels as though we have been here for much longer, as if time at some point in our journey decided to slow itself to a crawl. Maybe it was because of the litany of activities that we packed into the span of several hours, or perhaps it was the lack of worldly distractions, allowing us to focus solely on our mission, that caused us to suspend the hands of that imaginary clock in our mind. Whatever the case, we've enjoyed every minute at the orphanage; it is time definitely well spent in service!
Morning call was at 6:20; and after a prayer meeting we went down to finally visit the kids. They were playing on the vast driveway of the orphanage, savoring their moment of freedom before breakfast. To see so many friendly faces, in spite of their precarious physical and filial circumstance was definitely encouraging. I made a multitude of new friends; and did my best throughout the day to impact those kids with joy, honesty and patience. It is a powerful cocktail which brings love immediately to many.
The food at the orphanage is without processing, as natural as victuals can be in these days of impersonal industrial production. Large chunks of mantou, steaming bowls of soupy congee, and salty vegetables with slivers of meat have characterized our meals. It is the kind of humble stuff that lengthens life spans, and disciplines the palate.
We presented a wide range of activities - structured and unstructured; whole class and small group - to the kids, in the hope that we would manage them as much as amuse. In the morning, as though breaking the ice once were not enough, we ran through a series of dizzying, if not at times totally incoherent, activities designed to familiarize our dispositions to each other. Later, we established a makeshift fun fair, at which we ushered the children to rooms filled with (board) games, and puzzles, and other, more colorful activities such as face painting and balloon making. The kids couldn't at length contain their enthusiasm, busting into and out of rooms with impunity, soaking in the rapturous atmosphere. In the afternoon, our team attempted to tire them out: running topped the agenda, and by leaps and bounds, the activities, whether straightforward relays or schoolyard classics like duck duck goose and red light, green light, indeed began to tucker our charges out. We, too, were pretty beat by the time night began to creep over the horizon!
17.5.09
Yesterday evening, we surprised the students with a musical performance, followed by forty minutes of bubble-blowing madness; to be sure, the students could not appreciate our somewhat accurate rendition of Amazing Grace so much as the innocent madness of dipping one's hands in a solution of dish detergent and corn syrup and then whispering a bubble to life; and indeed, the moment the Disney branded bubble-making machines churned the first batch of bubbles into the air, with much rapidity weaving their frenetic pattern of fun, chaos erupted in the room. The students stormed the soap basin, and almost overwhelmed my teammates who valiantly held the Snitch and Pooh high above the heads of the clamoring kids.
During the evening's festivities, I grew progressively ill, until at last I dashed out of the room to sneeze. Outside, in the cool of the night, under a cloud of stars beaming so far away in the deep of space, I exploded in a rancor of sneezing. The fit lasted for five minutes, an inexorable depression in my system which sent both my body and my esteem tumbling down. I felt bad, not only for my exceedingly rickety health, but for my teammates and the children who may have been exposed to my sickness as it incubated within me; furthermore, everyone in the classroom was saying goodbye and all I could do was rid myself of a sniffle here and there, in between rounds of bursting from nostrils and sinuses. I was impotent, as though one of my insignificant droplets on the floor!
18.5.09
We are in a car heading towards a famous historical site in Henan. The driver's drawl slips slowly from his mouth, and what he says resonates intelligibly in our ears. Candy, Tanya and the driver are discussing Chinese mythology, and history, which, for better or for worse seem to be inextricably intertwined. We narrowly just now missed hitting an idle biker in the middle of the road; in dodging our human obstacle, the car swerved into the oncoming traffic, sending us flying inside the cabin. Reciting a verse from a worship song calmed our frazzled nerves.
How to describe the children? Many of them smiled freely, and were so polite when greeted that undoubtedly they had been trained well at some point in the tumult of their life education. Precociousness was also a common characteristic shared by the kids, whose stunted bodies belied the mature, perspicacious thoughts hiding just underneath the skin. Of course, in our time together we were more merry than serious, that quality being best left for the adults working silently in their rooms; and to that effect, the kids brought out their funny bones and jangled them in the air to stir up the excitement and to destroy by a jocular clamor any hint of a dull moment – we really laughed a lot. At last, although not all of them seemed interested in our staged activities – rather than feign enthusiasm and eagerness, some skipped our events altogether – those who did participate, most of them in fact, enjoyed themselves with abandon, helping to create that delightful atmosphere where the many sounds of elation reign.
Of the students whom I had the opportunity to know personally, several still stick out in my mind, not the least for my having christened a few of them with English names! David was bold, and courageous, willing to soothe crying babes as much as reprimand them when their capricious actions led them astray; he had a caring heart not unlike a shepherd who tends to his young charges. Edward, who at 13 was the same age as David, definitely grew emotionally, not to mention physically attached to me. He was by my side for much of the weekend, grabbing onto my hand and not letting go, to the point where I in my arrogance would detach my fingers within his, ever so slightly, as if to suggest that a second more would lead to a clean break - I know now that with the cruel hands of time motoring away during the mission, I shouldn't have lapsed into such an independent, selfish state; he should have been my son. Another child who became so attached to the team as to intimate annoyance was the boy we deemed John's son, because the boy, it seemed, had handcuffed himself to our teammate, and would only free himself to cause insidious mischief, which would invariably result in an explosion of hysterics, his eyes bursting with tears and his mouth, as wide as canyon, unleashing a sonorous wail when something went wrong. On the other hand, Alice remained in the distance, content to smile and shyly wave her hand at our team while hiding behind her sisters. And last but not least, of our precious goonies, Sunny undoubtedly was the photographer extraordinaire, always in charge of the school's camera, snapping away liberally, never allowing any passing moment to escape his shot.
That I learned on this trip so much about my teammates verily surprised me, as I thought the relationships that we had established were already mature, not hiding any new bump, any sharp edge to surprise us from our friendly stupor. So, consider myself delightfully amazed at how a few slight changes in the personality mix can bring out the best, the most creative and the strangest in the group dynamic: admittedly, Candy and Tanya were the ideal foils for John, they eliciting the most humorous observations and reactions from my house church leader, they expertly constructing a depth of character that even last week, in the wake of the Guangdong biking trip, I never knew existed! Most of all, I'm glad to have been a part of such a harmonious fellowship, for the fact that we could prayer together as one, and encourage each other too, and all the more as we saw the day approaching.