Q:
In order to better take care of our bodies, should we eat natural health foods?
A:
Should we eat natural health foods in order to preserve our health? Now, this is a subject which I am not competent to speak about. I would be happy to give information but I’m not the competent one.
I am sure that if the foods are free of pesticides and free of additives, I’m sure they are more healthful because there’s no question that Hakodosh Boruch Hu can concoct better things than Mankind can. But more than that I cannot say.
If you have whole wheat bread, for instance, we understand that you have all the elements that Hakodosh Boruch Hu intended you to have; whereas if you mill out certain parts, so you’re losing out. Like everybody knows the story of rice; there was a time when white rice was considered the only way of eating rice; they used to mill off the brown covering of the rice kernel and eat only the kernel. The brown covering, the husk was considered garbage; they threw it into the backyard for the chickens. And that is when they started suffering from beriberi. And they didn’t understand the cause.
But they saw the chickens were thriving; the chickens who were fed the husks were thriving, but the human beings were declining. And then a Dutch physician discovered that they were giving the best part to the chickens!
And so we understand Hakodosh Boruch Hu put the husks on not merely to protect the kernel inside; the husks are there to be eaten because they add certain things.
So there is no question that human beings have made great errors in matters of foods. But I cannot tell you anything because I know nothing about the subject at all.
TAPE # 141 (September 1976)
