How Over-eating causes Disease

Early graves are usually dug with teeth. Catarrh, the common cold, bronchitis, fibrositis, arthritis, cerebral haemorrhage (stroke), and many other diseases of present-day civilization have over-eating as a primary cause.

Few people will admit that they overeat: in fact, they are seldom aware that they do so, having been brought up from childhood to regard over-eating as normal.

The feeding habits of one generation are naturally passed on to the next, which explains the incidence of many disorders, which are labelled hereditary. It is not the disease, which is handed down, but the wrong eating habits, and these cause the disease.

Food might be called the ‘great obsession’. It dominates our lives; and in company with the weather and our ailments, it forms a favourite topic of conversation. When one returns from a holiday, one of the first questions asked by friends is, “What was the food like?” From the cradle to the grave, the accent is on food. The christening, each birthday, various anniversaries, the wedding and practically every social occasion see a large quantity of food prepared and consumed.

OUR FIRST LESSON IN OVEREATING

Let us consider how this obsession about food is implanted in our minds. It starts when we are young, when habits, which are to become lifelong, are being formed. Little Johnnie eats only half a meal (which was perhaps too large in the first place) and says that he has had enough and wishes to go out to play. What does mother say? “You’re not going to leave the table until you have finished all your dinner.” This is his first lesson in over-eating. After a few years of this, the child becomes conditioned to the belief that so much food must be consumed at certain times, and that to miss a meal is wrong. Should he then miss a meal for some reason, he has the feeling of having been robbed.

Children go off their food instinctively when they do not feel well. This is Nature’s way of giving the system a rest while devoting all its energies to the elimination of accumulated toxins. The same process will be observed with dogs and cats. But what does the human mother do? She runs to the doctor complaining that she is worried because Johnnie is not eating well. The obliging doctor prescribes a ‘tonic’ which is supposed to bring back his appetite.

Whilst the so-called tonic is presumed to be doing its magical work, the child is tempted with treats and promised presents if he will only eat this or that. Meanwhile, the dog, if he is also feeling unwell, has similarly lost his desire for food. But he has not been tempted, cajoled or threatened, and having had his short fast in peace, he is soon quite well again.

Now let us consider what happens in our bodies after years of over-eating. Each of the countless millions of cells comprising the human body depends upon two main processes to maintain life. The first is the ability to absorb nourishment; the second is the ability to excrete or throw off the toxins and waste matter which accumulate constantly during the chemical changes which take place within the cell whilst dealing with the nourishment supplied to it.

For the cell to function in an efficient manner (which we call health) these processes must be balanced perfectly. Once the balance is upset the cell ceases to function properly, and it will die if the balance is not restored soon. Therefore whilst lack of nourishment will cause death, so also will too much nourishment!

If the cell is clogged with surplus food, so much time and energy has to be spent in trying to process it that the body cannot deal effectively with the disposal of waste matter. This waste matter accumulates within the cell, and when it reaches a certain level the cell dies.

However, if, before the fatal level of toxicity is reached, the supply of food is stopped, the driving energy, or life force, inherent in every cell enables it to concentrate on the elimination of offending toxins.

CELLS CONTINUE TO LIVE AND FUNCTION

Once this ‘spring cleaning’ has been effected, the cell will be ready to resume nourishment once more, and will continue to live and function.

All that we have considered about the single cell applies also to the human body as a whole. If we clog the body with food beyond its natural requirements, we hamper the elimination of toxic matter, and we then begin to suffer from auto-toxaemia or ‘self-poisoning’.

The retained toxins are then ‘dumped’ in various tissues of the body – a process which enables medical science to attach high sounding names to the various diseases.

For example, if the toxins are dumped in muscles the condition is called fibrositis; if deposited in the joints, it is arthritis; if in kidney tissues, nephritis. All these ‘itises’ imply nothing more than the anatomical location of the dumping ground for excess toxins.
To expect the toxins to be removed by penicillin, streptomycin, and other ‘wonder drugs’ is to place oneself on a level with the primitive witch-doctors. Drugs merely suppress symptoms, and often cause distressing ‘side-effects.’

The regulation of nutrition and the promotion of elimination are the answer to disease as well as being the most important factor in the maintenance of health.

The hardest part of dieting is learning to break the habits and mental conditioning of a lifetime. Old habits die hard, and even when one is doing one’s best to reform along rational lines, there are often relatives and friends who insist on proffering advice which is quite contrary to Natural Health principles.

Two things are needed, therefore, if one is to make a success of attaining excellent health. The first is a complete change in the attitude towards food. The second is a firm determination to have the courage of one’s convictions in the face of opposition from one’s relatives and friends.

How can this change of attitude be acquired? It can be brought about only by the realization that overeating is seriously detrimental to good health, and that one’s later years can be actively enjoyed if all the old, harmful eating habits are broken in time.

Friends may argue that they eat what they like and as much as they like, and have “never had a day’s illness.” This, on the face of it, may appear to be true, but we have only to point out the all-too-frequent cases of apparently healthy persons dying of a stroke or heart attack in the early fifties. These people, having broken nature’s laws, have had to pay the penalty. There is no deceiving nature. One either pays by instalSments (a series of illnesses) or by one grand payment of death at a time when there should have been at least another 20,30 or 40 years of active, healthful and happy life still to be enjoyed.

FOOD IS ONLY FUEL

We must learn to think of food merely as fuel, and cease to regard it as one of the predominant pleasures of life. We must also learn that to miss a few meals can do immense good, not harm, to the body. Further, we must relinquish the idea that we have ‘been robbed’ just because the stomach feels empty.

An empty stomach does not indicate real hunger. To the person who has always been used to taking three large meals a day, often with snacks in between, the sensation experienced when the stomach is empty is usually mistaken for hunger.

One frequently hears people referring to going without food for a few days as ‘starvation.’ Very few people realize what the word starvation actually means. Starvation is a condition where the body begins to consume its own tissues following a long cessation of nutrition. It is usually only after at least three weeks or more without food that this process commences.

Let it be clearly understood, therefore, that going without food for two days or even two weeks (under supervision), provided vitality is adequate, is fasting, and not starving. Fasting means the temporary withholding of nourishment, during which time the body may devote all its energies to the elimination of toxic matter.

AN ALTERNATIVE TO FASTING

An alternative to fasting is what is termed an eliminative diet, of which the all-fruit diet is an example. All starch, sugar, fat and protein foods are omitted from the diet for from two to seven days or more. The only food consumed is fruit — preferably the fresh, juicy varieties. Bananas, which may contain starch, should be avoided during this period. It is well to remember that the fruit is not being taken as ‘medicine’, and therefore we should not try to consume large quantities of it. The only drinks which may be taken whilst on the fruit diet are water or diluted fruit juice.

FINALLY

The main object of this article is to point out the dangers of eating to excess. Even if one’s diet is faultless as regards to selection of the right kinds of food, it is still possible to suffer autotoxaemia through eating too much.
The secret is this: Eat only when you are hungry; and learn the difference between real and psychological hunger.