Since the well being of the body is even more accurately taught by Mother Nature herself, no one who wishes to enjoy life dares overlook her counsel. Plants never do well in soil that is deficient or depleted of its life-giving properties. Some plants do better in one soil or climate than do others. Some thrive in higher altitudes and others in lower. The same law seems to operate in mankind: The darker races fare better in the torrid regions and the lighter in the frigid regions.
While plant life subsists on inorganic matter, animal life subsists on organic. Moreover, as plant life was created before animal life, the truth is that the plant kingdom can get along without the animal, but the animal kingdom cannot get along without the plant. Thus it is that vegetation needs only Mother Earth, but man needs both the earth and the plant. In other words, plant life is dependent on the soil for existence, while animal life is dependent on vegetation. A flesh diet is therefore artificial and thus deficient -- incapable of maintaining life.
So, just as plants cannot thrive in poor soil, men cannot thrive on a poor diet. And if one is aware of the fact that almost immediately after the soil is enriched, the plant awakens with health and vigor, then he will have no difficulty realizing that as soon as he corrects his own diet, his health will likewise spring up. Is it not true, then, that one’s health depends on the food he uses, as does the plant’s on the soil in which it feeds?
If the sufferer’s faulty diet is the cause of his ailment, and in most cases in our day it is, then no kind or amount of drug can cure him. Yet when something goes wrong with one’s organism, he generally runs to a doctor, not to find and to remove the cause, but to be cured while the cause remains and brings him closer and closer to the grave! Why not check up on your daily diet and habits of living? Why take drugs when you need to take water, fresh air, sunshine, the right kinds of food, and exercise, or perhaps to clean up your home, your body, and your surroundings?
Let it now be understood that anyone living on a poor diet, or in unpleasant surroundings and unsanitary conditions, is subject to disease in one form or another, just as is a plant that is planted in poor soil and unconducive surroundings. Then, too, one must remember that unbalanced food, regardless of quality or quantity, is poor food; and as too much fertilizer kills the plant, so too much food kills the man. Too much of anything is as bad as is too little. Illness, therefore, is only a warning of one’s improper habits of living. But alas, who can understand! and who is taking heed!
What else can the cause of diseases that are not hereditary or communicative be but wrong living -- malnutrition, “unclean” flesh foods (Lev. 11), overeating, poor elimination, insufficient exercise, lack of sunshine and fresh air, living in filth, neglecting to drink enough water between meals, or perhaps smoking or chewing tobacco, habitually using coffee, tea, or some other stimulant that whips up the body to the last ounce of energy? To be sure, such diseases as cancer are the result of wrong living…
Nature teaches that if a tree becomes sickly from within rather than from without, then to spray it with any kind of drug will only hasten its death, waste the drug, time, and one’s energy. The human body is no exception. If the disease is from internal causes, then what good will it do to try to remove it by the use of drugs? In such cases drugs will not remove the cause, but rather do greater harm and hasten the end.
If it is not possible to keep a water-cooled engine from overheating when the radiator is empty, an if nothing but filling the radiator with water will cure the trouble, then why should it be possible to cure a diseased body without curing the cause? Stop and think! True, many do suffer from hereditary and contagious diseases, but most persons suffer from diseases caused by erroneous habits of living. Alcoholic beverages and other stimulants, rich pastries, commercial sweets, overeating, wrong combinations, and too many grain products -- any one or all of these collectively have more or less afflicted every human being of this age with one ailment or another.
Constipation is one of the commonest diseases that one brings upon himself by erroneous eating. And constipation in itself is a cause of a number of diseases, as is malassimilation. Man is not naturally subject to constipation - no, not any more than is a water main subject to plugging up if nothing but water, the only thing the manufacturer ever intended should be put through it, is put through it.” (Houteff 12,13)
It would be good if physicians knew how to diagnose true constipation and could advise their patients in the proper way to cure it but most of them don’t. About seven (7) years ago I had this terrific pain in my side for about two (2) days. I took hot baths, used hot water bottles on that area, used cold packs too, but nothing helped. I walked a couple of miles around a local track and tried to do stretches. None of this seemed to help and it started to effect my sleeping at night. Finally, in the event something was really wrong, I decided to go to my doctor who arranged for me to have an x-ray. According to the x-ray I had some inflammation so they prescribed an anti-inflammatory pill/drug to me. They had some free samples on hand so I accepted them but I would use them. I called some Naturopathic physicians in Alabama and told them the entire situation and what I had done thus far. They immediately told me that it sounded like I may have been constipated. I was sure that could not have been it because I went at least once a day, but I purchased the herb they suggested anyway. Because they said there was no side effect and I was still in great pain, I took the 3 capsules before I went to bed that evening. Early the next morning I ran to the bathroom and after relieving myself, in a big way, I realized the naturopaths were right. They also told me of the side effects of the anti-inflammatory pill I could have taken. Imagine that! The pill would not have taken care of the problem and would have added a side effect. I haven’t had a pain like that since because I made it my business to study what to and what not to put in my body. Realizing that we should have a bowel movement for every meal we eat was a shocker to me also. How many doctors have told you that?
“That commercially prepared foods, too, are among the many causes of constipation, a faculty member of a certain health institute endorses: “Because of our civilized foods and the way they fill the bowel with toxic materials and gas, it is absolutely necessary to give oneself a series of colonic irrigations at least twice a year in order to stay well. Headaches, colds, flu, intestinal pains, mucous, gas, and many disturbing disorders disappear after one or two colon treatments.” (Houteff 11-13)
“ …Rather than resort to artificial means for cleansing now and then, why not eat the right kind of food -- the kind that keeps the bowels clean every day of the year? Moreover, a balanced diet will not only keep the bowels free from “toxic materials and gas” but will supply the entire system with the necessary minerals and vitamins, without which no one can keep well any considerable length of time. Then why spend your money on manufactured vitamins and devitalized foods at sky high prices when you can have Nature’s own, full of vitality, and at prices as low as gravity? Ever remember that artificial nutritives are no better than artificial arms or legs.
Since, at the present time, when the soil is so devitalized, when foods are grown with chemical fertilizers and sprays, and when the processed foods have so many additives and preservatives, unless one can eat only organically grown and wholesomely prepared foods, it is becoming necessary to use some extra food supplements (vitamins, minerals, herbs) to augment the food loss we have today.” (Houteff 13)
