• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 342 0

here is whether or not it is necessary for human beings to eat eggplants and cucumbers during the winter. But, this point aside, the only reason they are grown during the winter is that they can be sold then at a good price. Somebody develops a means to grow them, and after some time passes, it is found that these vegetables have no nutritional value. Next, the technician thinks that if the nutrients are being lost, a way must be found to prevent that loss. Because the trouble is thought to be with the lighting system, he begins to research light rays. He thinks everything will be all right if he can produce a hothouse eggplant with vitamins in it. I was told that there are some technicians who devote their entire lives to this kind of research.

Naturally, since such great efforts and resources have gone into producing this eggplant, and the vegetable is said to be high in nutritional value, it is tagged at an even higher price and sells well. "If it is profitable, and if you can sell it, there can't be anything wrong with it."

No matter how hard people try, they cannot improve upon naturally grown fruits and vegetables. Produce grown in an unnatural way satisfies people's fleeting desires but weakens the human body and alters the body chemistry so that it is dependent upon such foods. When this happens, vitamin supplements and medicines become necessary. This situation only creates hardships for the farmer and suffering for the consumer.

What is Human Food?

The other day someone from NHK television came by and asked me to say something about the flavor of natural food. We talked, and then I asked him to compare the eggs laid by the hens in the coop down below with those of the chickens running free up in the orchard. He found that the yolks of the eggs laid by the chickens cooped up on the typical chicken ranch were soft and watery and their color was pale yellow. He observed that the yolks of the eggs laid by the chickens living wild on the mountain were firm and resilient and bright orange in color. When the old man who runs the sushi restaurant in town tasted one of these natural eggs, he said that this was a "real egg," just like in the old days, and rejoiced as if it were some precious treasure.

Again, up in the tangerine orchard, there are many different vegetables growing among the weeds and clover. Turnips, burdock, cucumbers and squash, peanuts, carrots, edible chrysanthemums, potatoes, onions, leaf mustard, cabbage, several varieties of beans, and many other herbs and vegetables are all growing together. The conversation turned to whether or not these vegetables, which had been grown in a semi-wild manner, had a better flavor than those grown in the home garden or with the aid of chemical fertilizer in the fields. When we compared them, the taste was completely different, and we determined that the "wild" vegetables possessed a richer flavor.

I told the reporter that when vegetables are grown in a prepared field using chemical fertilizer, nitrogen, phosphorus and potash are supplied. But when vegetables are grown with natural ground cover in soil naturally rich in organic matter, they get a more balanced diet of nutrients. A great variety of weeds and grasses means that a variety of essential nutrients and micronutrients are available to the vegetables. Plants which grow in such balanced soil have a more subtle flavor.

Edible herbs and wild vegetables, plants growing on the mountain and in the meadow, are very high in nutritional value and are also useful as medicine. Food and medicine are not two different things: they are the front and back of one body. Chemically grown vegetables may be eaten for food, but they cannot be used as medicine.

When you gather and eat the seven herbs of spring,* your spirit becomes gentle. And when you eat bracken shoots, osmund and shepherd's purse, you become calm. To calm restless, impatient feelings, shepherd's purse is the best of all. They say that if children eat shepherd's purse, willow buds or insects living in trees, this will cure violent crying tantrums,