We Eat Too Much! (standard:Editorials, 597 words)
Author: J. P. St. Julian	Added: Jul 02 2007	Views/Reads: 3158/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Our diets certainly affect our health and ultimately our lives as a whole. So, why don't we give more care to what we eat, and how much?

We Eat Too Much By James Caston aka J P St Julian 

In ancient times, let us say the time of Hippocrates for instance,
abstinence from food as a method of curing human ills was quite common. 
Note that Hippocrates lived more than three hundred years before the 
Christian era. 

Among the lower animals this method of curing disease is probably as old
as time itself. Animals, left to themselves, will instinctively choose 
fasting as a remedy for their ailments. This is just an observation of 
nature, as I did grow up on a farm. A study of the nature of animals in 
the wild will prove that wild creatures will seek some sheltered 
retreat, and remain there without food until sickness has passed. I 
daresay that even some humans who are unfamiliar with nature may notice 
the same characteristics in domestic animals. 

Yet, knowing these things, we humans invariably stuff our bodies with
mass quantities of badly chosen foods, making ourselves lethargic and 
apathetic, sluggish and disagreeable. We overtax our digestive organs 
simply to please our taste buds. We choose what we eat simply because 
we like the taste, even when we know it's not good for our bodies. Many 
of us eat a variety and class of food that would bring an ache to a 
sausage grinder! And then we so obstinately wonder, why we feel bad! 

I'd like to share this little anecdote from my time with the civil
rights movement in the South during my youth. I was fourteen years old 
when one night at a mass meeting, I heard Charles Evers call for black 
youth to participate in an effort to get Black Americans out to 
register for the vote. I volunteered my services. I remember this one 
lady in particular. We drove up to her house and got out of the car. We 
approached her, gave a greeting, and we were invited to have a seat on 
her large, cool porch. I introduced the White civil rights worker 
accompanying me and told her why we were there. We asked if she was 
registered to vote (she answered, "No,"). We urged her, as one of our 
senior citizens, to be an example for others and let us take her to 
register for the vote. She gave us the excuse that she couldn't go 
anywhere because she was always sick with High Blood Pressure and also 
a heart condition and several other ailments. At that moment, her grand 
daughter came out on the porch to bring her lunch, which consisted of a 
large plate of rice; well coated with the greasy drippings from the 
fried sausages that were resting all over the top of the rice. As we 
drove away, my partner exclaimed with a chuckle, “Well, I can see why 
she'd be sick a lot!” It was to me personally, an embarrassing moment. 

Perhaps we should all stand back and take a long hard look at this
situation. Maybe we should prepare for each day's meals by reciting a 
little verse which I found in one of Rudyard Kipling's poems he called, 
“Primitive Theology.”  One stanza goes like this: 

I ate my fill of a whale that died And stranded after a month at sea. .
. . There was a pain in my inside! Why have the gods afflicted me? 

Or better yet, try reading the Scripture from the Bible at Ecclesiastes
10:17 which says, “Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son 
of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for 
drunkenness!” 


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