system than the traditional ones: special containers, electricity, sophisticated laboratory techniques, and machines. While the traditional methods are not associated with any danger, except perhaps for smoking, technological methods clearly appear to cause health problems— witness the fairly frequent cases of botulism from home or factory canned foods and the carcinogenic effects of many chemical preservatives. The nutritive density of vegetables is generally lowered by dilution or blanching in hot water or air, the preparations necessary for freezing and canning. And irradiation increases the presence of free radicals, chemical elements associated with the development of cancer. FREEZING When foodstuffs are frozen, the water within them turns to ice. The blanching, drying, storage, and thawing involved cause a 20 to 25 percent nutrient loss in fruits and vegetables. This may not seem so bad( after all, 75 percent to 80 percent of the nutrients are retained), but there is an aspect of freezing that has generally been ignored: What happens to plant cells when the water in them freezes? We can only assume that, much like a water bottle forgotten in the freezer, the cells will burst. This is the reason why frozen untreated vegetables are mushy and limp when thawed. As instructions usually call for them to be cooked without thawing, we rarely get to see them in that stage; if we did, we might question closely whether they’ re fit to eat or not. In effect, frozen vegetables appear to have been destroyed at the cellular level. We cannot assume that such cellular destruction has no effect on the consumer. Throughout nature, form is just as important as content and is closely related to function. Male and female hormones provide a dramatic example of the importance of form. The only difference between them is the placement of one oxygen molecule; that is, they have identical content, but in a different spatial arrangement. 21 Change that arrangement, or form, and you change the function and the effect.
Just as cooling does, freezing lowers the energy level of foods. Try being a vegetarian— or just imagine being one— on steamed frozen vegetables, and you’ ll get the picture. Not surprisingly, children, who are very sensitive to energy fields, often balk at eating vegetables if these are frozen or canned— unless, of course, there’ s sugar in them. Most children prefer raw or cooked fresh vegetables to frozen ones. Frozen foods have a seriously diminished energy field. It is not uncommon for people to become very sleepy after eating a meal that includes foods that had been frozen. Recently, one of my students asked me why she would have fallen asleep right after lunch. I inquired,“ Did you eat at home or out?” At home, she said.“ Did you cook from scratch?” No, she said,“ I defrosted my mushroom and barley soup. That’ s all I ate.”“ Did you have any reaction when you made it originally?”“ No,” she said,“ no problem.” It seemed obvious to me that the freezing would cause her sleepiness, especially because it has happened to me enough times. At this time, the only foods that I find can be frozen without diminishing my energy are clear stock, tempeh, butter, and, once in a blue moon, bread. CANNING Food is canned by first heating it to at least 240 °, then sealing it hermetically. As the food cools, a vacuum forms within the container, and the consequent absence of oxygen keeps bacteria from multiplying and spoiling the food. Canning lowers nutrient values considerably. Canned frozen orange juice concentrate has four times less calcium( could that be why we drink both milk and juice for breakfast?) and almost ten times less iron( could it be a cause of anemia?) than fresh juice, while canned green peas lose about 70 percent of all their original B vitamins. Yet what I find even more significant is the lack of oxygen in canned foods. Oxygen is the carrier of life, and without it food, and everything else, is dead. Canned food, therefore, offers us little or no life energy. A few times I’ ve had the experience that, after eating something straight from a can— sardines or canned fruit— I had trouble thinking clearly and writing, sometimes for as long as two days. As thinking is an electrical activity, I can only assume that something in my electrical or energy field had gone awry. The feeling I had was one of blockage: Energy didn’ t move through me, as it usually does, but seemed to be blocked by insulating covers above and below me. Canned food, of course, is insulated as well, and on all sides at that; no energy moves through it at all. It seems to me quite possible that such a lack of energy would have a slowing or blocking effect on my own energy field, if only by not charging it. Thus, if I am engaged in a lot of physical activity, an occasional sardine or tunafish sandwich doesn’ t bother me. But if I’ m writing, I stay away from these to prevent writer’ s block. CHEMICAL PRESERVATIVES AND OTHER FOOD ADDITIVES Although during the past twenty-five years food additives have been the subject of countless books and articles