We can see, then, that the outer and inner environments of a living system, or organism, are linked by food. Food is the external internalized, and the qualities of the food consumed will invariably have an influence on the condition of the organism. But what is food if not other organisms— plants or animals— that were once alive? Insofar as plants and animals are themselves living systems, when they are used as food they still have some of their original qualities as systems. That is, they are an aggregate of physical elements plus an energy field. Live plants and cut plants of course don’ t have exactly the same type of energy field; the more time that elapses from the moment of cutting, the more the field of the cut plant changes, until eventually it disintegrates and the plant itself decays. It seems to me a reasonable possibility that we derive nourishment not only from the macro- and micro-nutrients in foods, but from their energy fields as well. Just as the physical nutrients nourish our physical body, the subtle energy of foodstuffs( bio-energy, force fields, chi, ki, prana, name it what you will) nourishes our own energy field. If we accept this hypothesis as part of our working model, then we must pay at least as much attention to the bio-energy( or force field) in foods as to their nutrient composition. I have applied this viewpoint for many years now and have found it to be a very helpful one. It explains why canned or frozen food, for example, even if it contains most of the nutrients present in fresh foods, still feels neither as healthful nor as satisfying. It’ s impossible to be a healthy vegetarian on frozen potatoes and canned peas. The systems view also supports the notion that it is healthier— or less stressful— to eat locally grown and seasonal foods whenever possible. As our link with the external environment, food harmonizes us with that larger system. Foods imported from faraway places or other climates will tend to connect us with the energy of their environment of origin. Thus a tropical fruit connects us with the tropics: eating pineapples in New York in the winter would prepare us for sun and heat by cooling us off, thereby creating the desire to take a trip to Hawaii. Many a conscientious fruitarian has found our Northern winters extremely hard to take. The most obvious variables that affect the energy fields of foodstuffs( and hence those of people who consume the foodstuffs) are fragmentation, temperature, methods of preservation, chemical additives, and irradiation. Let’ s take a look at each of these. Whole Food and Fragmented Food As mentioned earlier, in the systems approach we work with the concept of wholes and with the idea that parts of living systems are also in themselves smaller systems, or wholes, with their own energy fields. Living systems“ tend to form multileveled structures of systems within systems.” 11
In the ecosystem, the living creatures that comprise it are designed to subsist by consuming what the environment provides. We humans are integral parts of this system and are bound by its rules; we are built to breathe the air, drink the water, eat the plants and the animals. Through this energy exchange with our environment, we keep our own systems in a more or less steady state. If, however, instead of eating a vegetable in the shape in which it grows, we consume it in fragmented form, its separate components split apart, we are not following the natural scheme of things. When we consume wheat germ, white flour, and bran separately, it is not the same as eating them in their natural, integrated, and properly balanced state as whole wheat. In the first case we don’ t interact with the natural system; in the second case we do. This, then, is the major difference between whole foods and partial or fragmented foods. Whole foods are simply fresh, natural, edible things, as close to their natural state as possible: fruits, fresh vegetables, unrefined cereal grains, beans, nuts, seeds, sea vegetables. Animals can be eaten whole by one person at one sitting if they’ re small enough( smelts, oysters, sardines, soft-shell crabs, small fowl), or by a whole group or tribe over a few days’ time, as is done by hunting communities. Whole foods provide not only certain amounts of basic nutrients in the natural proportion to each other; the nutrients in them are also bound together by that subtle energy that animates all living systems. Whole foods, then, give us not only nutrition, but energy—“ wholesomeness,” that is. Partial, or fragmented foods are often called“ refined,” as if stripping foods of some of their coarser elements makes them more worthy of attention and respect. Partial foods include all those split up at the cellular level; the most commonly used are white flour, white rice, and sugar. These“ foods” have all been separated from other parts of their original plant— bran, germ, water, pulp. Current understanding is that they are not quite“ wholesome,” which is literally correct. Certain other foods that are generally considered“ wholesome,” or healthful, are in fact not whole: wheat germ, bran, molasses, juice, skim milk, butter, decaffeinated coffee, gluten-free wheat flour, and even the hallowed tofu( soybean curd). Meat is also not“ whole,” for it represents only the muscle of an animal; bones are left behind. Oils and fats, essential or nonessential, are partial foods; and vitamin supplements, regardless of their sources, are so, too. Nature— our nature— abhors an imbalance. If we consume small amounts of partial foods( white flour or sugar), we can counterbalance them with small amounts of other partial foods( wheat germ or meat). But the higher the amounts of these foods in our