DAY 34 ALKALINE YEAR Belief Systems

DAY 34 ALKALINE YEAR  Belief Systems

Something about dinner troubled me last night and now I know what it was. Sue, who cheerfully acknowledges that she’s overweight, urged me to keep part of the leftover apple pan dowdy.  I thanked her but said that since I don’t eat sugar and Jack is diabetic and shouldn’t, I’d better not take part of it.  She said she’s diabetic too but that the dessert is okay to eat because she used “half sugar and half Splenda” in making it. Furthermore, there were "lots of walnuts" in it, so the starch-and-buttery crust was the only no-no.  Never mind that walnuts are very acid-forming.   She felt generous in leaving two pieces,  one for Jack and one for our house guest.  As generosity is a joyous aspect of the human spirit, I assented, knowing I wouldn’t eat it.

Why, given the discomforts that reportedly go with  diabetes, would anybody continue eating in the old ways?  My belief is that ALL sugars, including the substitutes, contribute to the adverse cycle that the disease brings.  However, I know that’s my belief, and it may only be by showing people that I don’t get these diseases of aging, and that neither do most people who eat this way, that general change will  occur.

During the inevitable sugar debate at dinner last night, I remembered a recent New York Times article about a man who said he had eaten almost nothing but sugary foods since early childhood, when a psychiatrist reportedly told his parents to give him what he wanted to eat rather than to endure projectile vomiting when they forced him to eat vegetables.  In his mid-thirties when interviewed, he looked perfectly healthy.  He probably was.  It seems to me that the man was responding to his belief system, which became fixated early on, and that it was such a total belief that it carried him, at least into his thirties.  If his belief system isn't weakened by exposure, he could live until a ripe old age.

What if our beliefs are transmitted to each cell in our bodies, which respond appropriately? The Crusaders believed they had to kill and convert for Christ, and the Muslims vowed revenge down through the ages; neither displayed any godly sense at all.  While food wars aren’t likely to happen over the merits of sugar, sugar substitutes, walnuts and meat vs. eating alkaline,  the very fact that I felt troubled over conflicting beliefs means that food, like every other area of life, is an arena in which to practice compassion, toward ourselves as well as others.