I could not resist this article from Spa-Life
Have we become slaves to progress? Isn’t it about time we got back to basics and enjoy simplicity?
Is it just me or has technology made our lives a little too complicated? I don’t just mean the personal computers and mobile phones that are so jam-packed full of stuff that you need a degree in nerdism to use them. I mean finding the time for the simple things, like walking, face-to-face communication and finding a healthy balance between food, work, exercise and health.
We have become so disconnected from our health - whether you’re a professional fat person or a professional skinny person - that it’s become acceptable to practice to the extreme the very things that cut our lives short. Smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, gluttony of highly processed foods, high stress levels, excessive dieting and exercise, little or no exercise, consumption of pharmaceutical products for the mildest of pain, technology-based products that emit dangerous radio frequencies…. the list goes on.
Just Keep it Simple When was the last time you simply walked, instead of using the car or dialling up for services to come to you?
Just Keep it Fun When was the last time you got together with some friends to have some fun without the obligatory alcoholic beverage? (disguised by the paper-thin veil of ‘drinking to be sociable’)
Just Keep it Healthy When was the last time you looked closely into your everyday food to see what it’s made of? If you knew what was in a lot of what you eat, you wouldn’t put it anywhere near your mouth.
Well consider this: “You are What You eat” is now “You have Become What You’ve eaten”! research suggests that the myriad of diseases from which we suffer - from diabetes to cancer to alzheimers - can be directly attributed to our highly processed diet.
Indigenous people around the globe enjoyed good health, free from the cardiovascular nightmare that is the 20th century, for more than 60,000 years. Their diets were based on food that they hunted and gathered from the land, and they used natural remedies refined over the centuries. These natural remedies, plant extracts and phytonutrients are only now beginning to reveal to scientists the true nature of their effectiveness and how inextricably we, as biological beings, are still linked to the land.
60,000 years ago, processed food did not exist and Western products, such as alcohol and petrochemical-based consumer products, were yet to be conceived. Indigenous people moved around the land to find food, competing with more powerful, aggressive animals. They were very lean, tough, fit and free of ‘lifestyle-related’ disease. Hunger was commonplace because food could be scarce. research shows that our ability to store fat, and slow down our fatIs it just me or has technology made our lives a little too complicated? I don’t just mean the personal computers and mobile phones that are so jam-packed full of stuff that you need a degree in nerdism to use them. I mean finding the time for the simple things, like walking, face-to-face communication and finding a healthy balance between food,
work, exercise and health.
We have become so disconnected from our health - whether you’re a professional fat person or a professional skinny person - that it’s become acceptable to practice to the extreme the very things that cut our lives short. Smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, gluttony of highly processed foods, high stress levels, excessive dieting and exercise, little or no exercise, consumption of pharmaceutical products for the mildest of pain, technology-based products that emit dangerous radio frequencies….the list goes on. Just Keep it Simple When was the last time you simply walked, instead of using the
car or dialling up for services to come to you?
Just Keep it Fun When was the last time you got together with some friends to have some fun without the obligatory alcoholic beverage? (disguised by the paper-thin veil of ‘drinking to be sociable’)
Just Keep it Healthy When was the last time you looked closely into your everyday food to see what it’s made of? If you knew what was in a lot of what you eat, you wouldn’t put it anywhere near your mouth.
Well consider this: “You are What You eat” is now “You have Become What You’ve eaten”! research suggests that the myriad of diseases from which we suffer - from diabetes to cancer to alzheimers - can be directly attributed to our highly processed diet.
Indigenous people around the globe enjoyed good health, free from the cardiovascular nightmare that is the 20th century, for more than 60,000 years. Their diets were based on food that they hunted and gathered from the land, and they used natural remedies refined over the centuries. These natural remedies, plant extracts and phytonutrients are only now beginning to reveal to scientists the true nature of their effectiveness and how inextricably we, as biological beings, are still linked to the land.
60,000 years ago, processed food did not exist and Western products, such as alcohol and petrochemical-based consumer products, were yet to be conceived. Indigenous people moved around the land to find food, competing with more powerful, aggressive animals. They were very lean, tough, fit and free of ‘lifestyle-related’ disease. Hunger was commonplace because food could be scarce. research shows that our ability to store fat, and slow down our fat-burning processes during periods of hunger or famine, may well have developed genetically over tens of thousands of years.
Let’s think that through. Imagine, if you will, 60,000 years ago: You’ve just got home to your cave after a hard day’s running around trying not to get eaten by something bigger than you and with far more teeth. Your feet are killing you because shoes – and portable foot spas – have not yet been invented. You’re exhausted and absolutely starving.
What to do? The supermarket won’t be open for another 60,000 years or so. Your best bet is to get back out there, perhaps with a few brutish looking mates, brandishing your sharpest stick and rustle up some local game.
Now herein lies the next problem. Do you risk being torn to shreds or mashed into a pulp by another carnivore? Or do you simply eat grass? Yes, grass! The botanist who cross-pollinated a few unlikely looking plants to end up with the juicy fruit and veg we see today is yet to be born. Hmmm, that gurgling noise from your stomach is really getting to you now! But it’s getting dark and you’re not sure what that thing that comes out at night is…OK! Let’s call it a day and head for that succulent grass we’re all looking forward to eating! are you tired yet? or hungry? and that was just day one!