Great Construction

Nutrition

     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 more important 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. Indeed, these functions are not even recognized. What I mean is that the activity of these functions is sufficient to create the vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, glycogen, fats, and any other element that the body needs to maintain itself. Of course, even out of foods that do not contain any vitamins, through the activity of the magician that I call of the nutritive function, 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, conversely, the more the body weakens, causing a reverse effect. In the case of artificial vitamins, the more they are absorbed externally, the more deficient the body becomes in vitamins. There is nothing mysterious at all about this. This natural degeneration occurs because the nutrition-producing function within the body atrophies naturally as more “nutrition” is introduced from the outside. Atrophy occurs needless to say because a large portion of the external “nutrition” is already in a completed state. The life energy of human beings is born from the very process that results from the activities of the functions of the human body. It would be fair to say particularly that the very activities of the functions of the digestive system are the prime movers in the creation of human energy. Life energy equals the activities of the functions of the human body. In accordance with this principle, the process of the activity of the function of turning raw, unadulterated food into necessary nutrition is the exertion of this function, the very fountain of human energy. The best illustration is that we become weak when our stomachs grow empty because the work of processing food has stopped. This example becomes all so clear when we see that the body returns to its natural stability immediately after it takes in food. Since all the functions in the human body are in a mutual relationship, if the digestive processes that are fundamental atrophy, it is only natural that the other bodily functions will atrophy as well.
     Also, it is hardly necessary to add that exercise is necessary for human health, but exercise is mainly an external way to increase metabolism. Exercise has considerable internal influence but it is supplementary. Strengthening the functions of the digestive process itself is the fundamental condition for increasing health. Therefore, consuming food that is refined and easily digestible will only debilitate the digestive process, so the most common, general types of foods are the best. Medical science, however, recommends foods that are easily digestible, but how mistaken this is should be readily comprehensible. Furthermore, medical science advocates masticating thoroughly, but for the same reasons, to do so is not good because it 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, and when I returned to my normal way of eating, regained my health.
     As can be seen from the preceding explanation, what is called the science of nutrition is practically backwards. There is no way that the science of nutrition could enhance human health. Here is also 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 a nonsensical solution. 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, medical science does not take notice of this basic principle, and even if some professionals do, they are powerless. Instead, drinking cow’s milk is recommended. I can only imagine that it must be thought that the cow’s milk goes directly from the mother’s mouth to her nipple. There should be a limit to the nonsense people come up with. Consequently, as the infant is given cow’s milk, milk will eventually cease to flow from the mother’s nipples. This is because the milk-producing function atrophies as milk is taken externally. The stupidity does not stop here. There are instances where human beings drink the warm blood of animals for its so-called nutritional value, but this practice is also nonsense. Again, it may show good results temporarily, but what actually occurs is that the blood-producing function within the body atrophies and instead, the body becomes anemic.
     Think about it. Human beings eat white rice and bread, green vegetables, and beans, and create red blood in their bodies, so the human body truly possesses magnificent production techniques! We consume material that contains not one drop of blood, yet our bodies produce blood. What will happen to our bodies if we drink blood? Needless to say, conversely, most likely our bodies will eventually cease to produce blood. There are probably 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 causes for the generation of the mistakes in the “science of nutrition” are ignoring nature and depending on academic theories.
     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 as they started to taste delicious, 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 carrying more than eighty pounds of baggage, goes up and down some twenty-five-odd miles of mountain trails.
Another story, this time from history. I read in a book someplace that the famous Confucian scholar of the middle Edo 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, after three months of an absolute vegetable diet, without even the use of dried bonito shavings for added taste, with no reliance on any medicine at all, 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, so these digestive functions become more active, and the body rejuvenates. A long, healthy life would be 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 be speechless, but as can be understood from all previous examples, 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 after the passage of a certain amount of time, 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. Moreover, this principle extends to clothing, and foot soldiers and menial servants did not mind exposing their legs in cold weather, where even women wore garments of only one or two layers. Nor did people then seem to wear socks that often. 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 increases human endurance, human beings have stamina 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 surpasses 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 the fact that 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 superfluous time, effort, and energy and have given rise to bad results, so I want to say: “Pitiful ones, thy name is ‘Civilized.’”
     Another area in which the science of nutrition egregiously mistakes is injectable nutrients and vitamins. Even though 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 digestive system will become an unnecessary component 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, will lead to adverse reactions as the facts clearly show.  

Creation of Civilization, unpublished, 1952
 translated by cynndd

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“Eiyō,” the tenth chapter of the second part of Bunmei no Sōzō (Creation of Civilization), the manuscript of a book that remained unpublished while Meishu-sama was alive, has appeared previously in translation. Citation is given below for reference.

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