The Problem of Nutrition, The Praise of Raw Food

Ehrenfried Pfeiffer’s asked Rudolf Steiner why people today appear unable to develop and act according to all they learn and seem to know. Steiner replied: “This is a problem of nutrition.”

In Waldorf schools worldwide, there is a conscious effort to keep school snacks and meals as natural as possible. Most schools have a garden and encourage the growing of vegetable and the grinding of grain. Salads, fruits, nuts and simple soups are the staple of most schools. Rudolf Steiner gave many indications regarding the plant and animal kingdoms and proper nutrition for adults and children.

“One thing must be thoroughly and fully recognized for this age in a child’s life: the physical body creates its own scale of measurement for what is beneficial to it. It does this by properly developing craving and desire. Generally speaking, we may say that the healthy physical body desires what is good for it. In the growing human being, so long that it is the physical body that is important, we should pay the closest attention to what healthy, craving desire and delight require. Pleasure and delight are the forces that most properly enliven and call forth the organs’ physical forms.

In this manner it is all too easy to do harm by failing to bring children into the proper physical relationship with their environment. This may happen especially in regard to their instincts for food. Children may be overfed with things that make them lose completely their healthy instinct for food, whereas by giving them the proper nourishment, the instinct can be preserved so that they always want what is wholesome for them under the circumstances.” ~Rudolf Steiner

Consider This

“A wise man, who still knew the secrets of the origin of the world, related; “From a giant arose Heaven and Earth – from his bones the rocks and stones; from his blood the rivers, seas and brooks; from his flesh the crumbly soil; from his hair the grass; the clouds from his thoughts; the wind from his breath. But from the heart of the giant arose the sun. Even today the giant body of Earth is sustained by the Sun as by a warmth-giving and loving heart. After man came upon the earth, the plants were transformed. God willed that men should see as in a mirror a picture of themselves – the perfect as well as the imperfect – in he plants, which serve them also for nourishment and healing. For this reason the plants have become so many and so different. ~ The Living World of Plants by Dr. Gerbert Grohmann

Steiner Said

Raw foods contain the sunlight energies that are stored in their tissues through the process of photosynthesis. He believed that the spiritual progress of humanity as a whole would be enhanced by a progressive increase in a vegetarian eating pattern. Conversely, he felt that a meat/flesh eating diet would exert a negative influence regarding an interest in spiritual life. According to Steiner, plants supply us with their store of the outer light of the sun, which stimulates our INNER light during the process of assimilation. The light released by the plant world helps to stimulate, form and maintain our nervous system. In this way, the taking in of plant food makes a cyclic connection of our inner light with the outer light of the solar system and plant world.

This is a common belief in the practice of Anthroposophical medicine. Steiner said “Nothing clouds the nervous system when nourishment comes from the plant realm. Humanity can more easily delve into the cosmic interrelationships which take place beyond the constricted limitation of the mundane personality.”

According to Dr. Gabriel Cousens, “A strong solar resonance field promotes the evolution of humanity to reach our full potential as human ‘sun beings’. Light supports evolution, and a lack of photons in our bodies hinders it. Light and consciousness are interconnected. Rudolf Steiner taught that the release of the outer light into our systems stimulates the release of an equal amount of inner light within ourselves. The more we increase our ability to absorb and assimilate light, the more conscious we become. The more we transform ourselves by enhancing our absorption of light, the more we become that light.” ~ Source: Conscious Eating

SOURCE: http://www.waldorfhomeschoolers.com/the-problem-of-nutrition-the-praise-of-raw-food