E26160

     How frightening pharmaceuticals should be regarded is most likely clear from the detailed explanation in the preceding chapters, but at this point in the discussion what cannot be overlooked is the great fallacy concerning nutrition in general. In previous references to tuberculosis, I discussed how animal protein was improper for the diet of tuberculosis patients, but the fallacy does not stop here. In all respects has the contemporary science of nutrition fallen into egregious error.
     The most egregious of these mistakes is that the science of nutrition makes only food, that which is put into the mouth, the main object of research and neglects the functions in the human body. Vitamins, for example, are divided into different varieties labeled A, B, C, and so on, their synthesized forms being used to try to compensate for deficiencies in nutrition, but this is indeed ridiculous. The innate capacity that is possessed by the functions of the body, which I have referred to previously, are ignored which arises because the workings of these functions are not understood. The activity of these functions creates the necessary vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, glycogen, fats, and any other element that the body requires to maintain itself. Of course, even out of foods that do not contain any vitamins, with the magician that I call of the nutritive function, it is a fact that the body has the ability to manufacture what it needs.
     In accordance with the principles governing the human body which I have explained, the more the body ingests what modern medicine considers “nutritious” elements, the more the body weakens, causing a reverse effect. In the case of artificial vitamins, the more they are absorbed externally, the more the body lacks in vitamins. There is nothing mysterious at all about this. That is to say, this natural degeneration occurs because the nutrition-producing function within the body atrophies as “nutrition” is introduced from the outside. Atrophy occurs because, needless to say the external “nutrition” is already in a completed state. As the life energy of human beings results from the activities of the functions of the human body, the activities of these functions, particularly those of the digestive system, are the prime movers in the creation of human energy. Life energy equals human health. Thus, activating these functions is the exertion of the function which is to turn incomplete food into complete, necessary nutrition. The best illustration is that we become weak when our stomachs grow empty because the work of processing food has stopped. This example becomes comprehensible when we see that the body returns to its natural self immediately after the digestive activity again starts as it takes in food. Since all the functions in the human body are in a mutual relationship, if the digestive processes which are fundamental atrophy, it is only natural that the other bodily functions will also atrophy, and when the digestive functions are restored, all else will be restored as well.
     Moreover, it is hardly necessary to add that exercise is necessary for human health, but exercise is mainly an external way to increase metabolism. Of course, exercise has considerable internal influence, but it is not fundamental and only supplementary. The functioning of the digestive process itself must be promoted. For such promotion, food that is refined and easily digestible is useless, and the most common, general types of foods are better. Medical science, however, recommends that the more easily digestible foods are preferable, but actually the more easily digestible foods debilitate the stomach. In addition, medical science also advocates masticating thoroughly, but for the same reasons, thorough mastication undermines the functions of the stomach. An example of this weakening is gastroptosis, a condition where the stomach atrophies and becomes displaced downward in an abnormal manner. Gastroptosis is a condition created entirely by human beings. If you thoroughly masticate easily digestible food and continually use stomach medicine as well, it is a foregone conclusion that the stomach will increasingly weaken and atrophy. How foolish!
     My own experiences with thorough mastication thirty years ago are apropos. At that time, a way of eating called Fletcherism introduced from the United States was popular here in Japan. It was billed as a way to maintain health by thoroughly chewing one’s food. When I tried it, it seemed satisfactory at first, but after continuing with it for about a month, my overall energy declined, and I became weaker. I realized the method was more harmful than beneficial, returned to my normal way of eating, and regained my health.
     As can be seen from the preceding explanation, medical science is practically a backwards method. There is no way that this so-called science of nutrition could be good for human health. Here is another example to consider. Mothers who cannot produce enough of their own milk for their infants are encouraged to drink cow’s milk, but this is also nonsensical. God created human beings so that when the female is able to give birth to a baby, that same female should be able to produce enough milk for that baby. If the mother cannot produce enough milk for her child, it means that she has a health problem and when that problem is discovered, the condition can be corrected. However, this basic principle is not taken notice of by medical science, and even if some professionals do, they are powerless. I can only imagine that it must be thought that the cow’s milk is going directly from the mother’s mouth to her nipple. This is an absurd mistake. As the infant is given cow’s milk, milk will eventually cease to flow from the mother’s nipples. The milk-producing function atrophies as milk is taken externally. Then again, there are instances where human beings drink the warm blood of animals for its so-called nutritional value, but this practice is indeed nonsense. Again, it may show good results temporarily, but what actually occurs is that the blood-producing function within the body atrophies, and as a result, the body instead comes to a condition much like anemia.
     Think about it. From observing that human beings eat white rice and bread, green vegetables, and beans, and create red blood in their bodies, does not the human body possesses magnificent production techniques! We consume material that contains not one drop of blood, yet our bodies produce blood. What would happen to our bodies if we drink blood? Needless to say, conversely, our bodies will eventually cease to produce blood. There are no words to describe the “science of nutrition” which does not perceive this ignorance. Even the beast we know as the cow eats straw and makes magnificent milk. All the more so for human beings! The cause for the generation of the mistakes in the “science of nutrition” is ignoring nature.
     The nutrition that human beings need is for the most part contained within plants. Vegetarians, without exception, live longer and are healthier. The fact that the number of people who live longer is greatest among Zen Buddhist priests who eat plain, coarse diets so testifies, as does the case of Bernard Shaw, a well-known vegetarian, who recently passed away at the age of ninety-four. I had the following experience with extreme vegetarianism. Once when I was traveling in a train on the Tohoku Line, next to me sat a country gentleman of around fifty years of age with a good, healthy complexion. Every once in a while he took some green pine needles out of his pocket and munched on them. I thought it strange and asked him about it. He rather proudly told me that pine needles had been the mainstay of his diet for about ten years and that he did not eat anything else. Previously, he had had a weak constitution, but he heard that pine needles were good for the health, and he started to eat them. At first they tasted awful but gradually they started to taste delicious and his health improved considerably, he told me. He unbuttoned his jacket, rolled up his sleeve, and showed me his muscular arm.
     Another instance is from an article that recently appeared in a newspaper about a quite healthy youth who eats nothing but tea grounds. This is a first-hand account, so there is no mistake. Once when I climbed the mountain Yarigatake in the Japan Alps, I was surprised to see the lunch box of our guide. It was only rice and contained no vegetables. I asked him about it and he said it was very delicious. I offered him some canned food, but he refused and would not take any at all. Astonishingly, this is a person who every day carries more than eighty pounds of baggage and goes up and down mountain trails for some twenty-five-odd miles.
Another story, this time from history. The famous Confucian scholar of the middle Bakumatsu period in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Ōgyu Sorai, lived on the second floor of the establishment of a tofu maker for a period of two years while he was a student and ate nothing but bean curd lees. Then again, as previously mentioned from my own experience, I took an absolute vegetable diet for three months, without even the use of dried bonito shavings for added taste or relaying on any medicine at all, and my tuberculosis was completely healed, so I am thinking of another measure to undertake to become younger after I reach the age of ninety. The plan is to eat a diet chiefly of vegetables that is as coarse and plain as possible. Plain food is good because it stimulates the digestive functions to work to create the necessary nutrition when the body lacks it. These digestive functions become more active, so the body rejuvenates. A long, healthy life is the natural result.
     The coolies of Manchuria are said to be the healthiest people in the world, and I hear that scholars in the West are studying the secrets of their good health. However, it is the diet of these coolies that is remarkable. They eat one large loaf of sorghum bread at each meal, and so eat three loaves a day. “Nutritionists” would probably be speechless, but what all the previous examples show is that what the science of nutrition asserts as good, the mixing of many different foods, is greatly mistaken; a simple diet is the best. The more the activity of the nutrition-producing function in the body continues to process the same food, the more is strengthened that function. The same principle is at work as illustrated by how a human being becomes more proficient at a job that is repeated over and over again.
     Another benefit of a vegetable diet is one that most would find surprising. Eating vegetable matter makes one warmer. Of course, eating meat warms the body temporarily, but as time passes, the body chills even more than before. From this phenomenon it should be obvious that the reason the heating stove was developed in the West was because Westerners could not withstand the cold due to a meat diet. Japanese of older days, rather, did not eat meat, so winters were more bearable for them, and they did not have to take excessive measures to protect against the cold. This principle extends to clothing, and foot soldiers and menial servants did not mind exposing their legs in cold weather, when even women wore garments of only one or two layers. As we think of the many layers of woolen garments that women today wear and still say they are cold, we can understand how our present diet has increased our vulnerability to the elements.
     An important point that must be considered in this regard is the recent news which reports that farmers have not been getting enough nutrition and that it is being urged that they eat various kinds of fish, fowl, and other kinds of meats, but this recommendation is also a mistake. As I have previously stated, since a vegetable diet is the fundamental of nutrition and is very powerful, human beings have endurance and do not fatigue easily when they work.. That is why since ancient times, Japanese farmers, both male and female, labor from early morning till dark. If farmers had consumed large amounts of animal matter, their working capacity would have decreased. The reason why agriculture has become mechanized in the United States is probably because the farmers do not have the endurance for continuous work, so they supplement their manual work with their brains. If Japanese farmers start to eat animal matter, mechanization will have to follow, so the whole issue requires serious consideration.
        As can be understood from the preceding explanation, if only maintaining the body was the purpose for eating, consuming vegetables would be best, but there are other considerations as well. For farmers, maintaining physical endurance is enough to live and work, but because the work of the brain is greater than brawn for urban dwellers, they require nutrition that is appropriate for brain work rather than nutrition suitable for physical work. For Japanese, this means fish and fowl are primary, and other varieties of meat, secondary. This is only natural as Japan is surrounded by ocean. The meat from fish and fowl improves the nutrition for the brain and has the effect of generating vitality and intelligence. Caucasian cultures aptly attest to this: the consumption of various kinds of meats, such as from game and beasts, increases the consciousness of competition, and ultimately leads to the consciousness of strife. Strife consciousness has led nations of the Caucasian peoples to develop the civilization we have today, but due to that strife consciousness, conflict never ceases, and although nations today are considered civilized, it is clear by observing that much more than in the East, conflict has predominated.
     I have discussed nutrition at length, but to summarize, the natural way to think about food is best, not worrying about “nutrition” to a great extent and eating what one wants. For urban dwellers this means a diet of about half meat and half vegetable; for farmers and invalids, a diet of seventy or eighty percent vegetable and twenty or thirty percent meat is most appropriate. If such diets are followed and medicines are not ingested, human beings should not contract illnesses or diseases. Thus, as the human-made rules of hygiene and health differ greatly from reality, they consume time, effort, and energy and have given rise to bad results, so the way of living for the truly civilized individual therefore is to obey and live a simple life in accord with nature as it is.
     Finally, I will write about another point which the science of nutrition egregiously mistakes, and that is injectable nutrients and vitamins. Human beings were created to ingest food through the mouth, swallow it, and make nutrition for themselves through the respective digestive functions. By some sort of misinterpretation of the digestive process, they have erred, and “nutrition” and vitamins have started to be introduced in injections through the skin. There is nothing as ridiculous as this. If such a procedure is continued over a long period, predictably the activity of the digestive system will become unnecessary and atrophy. This change will occur because the injections displace the nutritive-absorbing function. After just one or two times, such injections will hardly have an effect, but if continued, adverse reactions will be suffered which is only natural, and, as can be seen here from my other illustrations, it can be said that this procedure is a conspicuous example of being taken in by academic theories and completely ignoring nature.

Revolutionary Treatment for Tuberculosis, page 29, August 15, 1951
translated by cynndd

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“Eiyō” is the eighth chapter of the book Kekkaku no Kakumeiteki Ryōhō (Revolutionary Treatment for Tuberculosis), August 15, 1951, page 29. Meishu-sama made extensive revisions to include this essay as the tenth chapter of the second part of Bunmei no Sōzō (Creation of Civilization), the manuscript of a book that remained unpublished while he was alive. A partial translation of the Revolutionary Treatment for Tuberculosis version of this essay and a translation of the revised manuscript have appeared previously. Citations are given below for reference.

“Nutrition,” True Health, 1987, page 138. English translation is based on a Japanese version that has been abridged by about one half of the original essay.

Creation of Civilization version: “Nutrition,” Creation of Civilization, 1978, page 55.