What Should We Eat?

For The Rome Observer, December 14, 2010

By Elizabeth Szlek, LMHC




For many months now, I have been studying nutrition and various claims made from all angles. I began somewhere around last October after attending a break-out session conducted by Gary Kohl, M.D., who is now retired, but who made it his life’s work to find out how to help people who were taking psychotropic medications. That is, he learned how to get them off these terribly, unnecessary drugs, and back to health.

Along the way, he ran into a cast of characters, including Russell Blalock, M.D., a neurosurgeon, who was very much interested in nutrition and its effects on the brain. He also bumped into many of the folks working with the Weston A. Price Foundation, including Mary Enig and Sally Fallon, were the founders of Weston A. Price in 1999. These two have attracted many other sterling scientists, all intent on figuring out just what humans need to thrive, and what people from all over the world have, in the past, consumed in order to preserve their health.

In studying the horrible effects of psychotropic medications, I had not originally realized that this problem was only the tip of the iceberg. Yes, these medications damage everyone who takes them, but the larger issue of the general health of all people came into view. At the same time, my mother underwent some scary procedures, and the doctors, being oriented only toward allopathic medicine, prescribed more medications for her. At this same time, I was being sent to various websites, and found that a whole world of non-allopathic medicine exists, and is thriving, and is saving lives.

Briefly, allopathic medicine relies on poisons, otherwise known as “medicine”, to effect changes in the human body. It looks as disease as something to “cure” this way. And, to a small extent, this works. I mean, if you have a raging bout of strep throat, a dose of strong antibiotics gets rid of it, quickly. This is the allopathic approach. It does not usually look at questions such as: Why can’t my body resist this germ? Is there something I am lacking, nutritionally, that renders my immune system helpless in the face of this organism? What kinds of foods should always be in my diet? Or even, what should I be eating to preserve my body in an optimum state? Now, this is not to say that some doctors are prescribing various nutrients in various forms, or telling people what they shouldn’t be eating. But, I have never felt that “regular” doctors see nutrition as the first line of defense in the prevention of disease. It just isn’t their normal orientation. Fixing problems is their normal way of seeing things.

Back in the Mists of Time!

While medicine has come a long way in understanding the microbiology of the human body, and in understanding germ theory and such, we should remember that for thousands of years, people were living on this earth without these theories to guide them.

They had to eat food to survive, and they had to find ways to do this in quite extraordinarily different climates.

Think of Polynesians, surrounded by coconut palms and the seas. Think of the Swiss, living in secluded mountain valleys, with a few cows and some rye. Think of the Eskimos, with no green plants or fruits or many vegetables, other than seaweed, but surrounded by whales and seals and fish. It is amazing that ALL these people came up with diets that promoted excellent health. And all without a single nutritionist or doctor on hand to guide them! We must look, then, to some different answer as to how they could do this. We have to understand that man is not evolving into a superior being, but that he is devolving and degrading into a lesser one.

If every primitive community on earth somehow understood and sensed what they needed to eat to thrive, we must understand that we humans have lost this precious gift of discernment. We no longer instinctively, or with the grace of God, know what we need to eat. On the moral plane, it is also obvious that man is devolving, not advancing in virtue.

When these primitive cultures were studied, at the last possible moment before they were thrust into the “modern”world, it was found that not only were they healthy physically, but that their moral character was exemplary, as well. And what is more, they suffered from few emotional problems. Depression and anxiety, the plagues of our current existence, simply didn’t make it onto their radar. In a word, they were happy. Happy to live on just oats and fish, or cheese and rye bread, or fish and coconuts, or seal meat, blubber and seaweed.

This state of contentment and moral, physical and emotional health ended in every case when the “western diet” was introduced to their culture by the supposedly “advanced” civilizations. Eager to advance themselves, and tantalized by the sweetness of sugar and the refined white flours with their soft, cushiony cakes and breads, all the primitive cultures soon took these western foods for their own – and all degenerated just as the western societies that provided these deadly foods

What Is Happening To Us?

If anyone wants to understand what is going on in our world, the best place to begin to understand would be in the Bible. There you will learn that the highest point of our civilization occurred hundreds of years ago, when Christianity became the dominant force in the world. Of course, I cannot outline the degeneration of Christian society for you here, but take it on faith that the decline began well before what are considered the Middle Ages. Before the Crusades, and before the split between East and West, when the Roman Empire under Christianity still existed.

Heights of moral and personal sanctity have never been reached since that time, save by a few saints who serve as example of what man can achieve when guided by God. We are the poor, struggling remnant of that time, and if one continues to look into the Bible, we cannot help but notice that things now happening point to decline, not some glorious evolution into supermen.

With this in mind, one can look at one’s place in the march of history and understand that at this terrible place, when assaults against God are daily occurrences, there are also assaults against all people, in various forms. Our liberties are being stripped away daily. Our children and elders are being drugged into submission. But, a very important piece of this is: Our food supply is being adulterated and turned into a source of our demise, and we have very little control over this process, since we still believe that those in charge are looking out for us. This is part of the great delusion.

Let me just say this: You are now in charge of your own life and your own safety, and even your own medical care. Luckily, we still have the internet and some freedom to pursue knowledge. There is little you can do that would be more important than begin to study the effects of the foods you are being offered in the marketplace, and to begin to choose those which will preserve your health and your life. In the coming weeks, I will outline the diet, created by the Weston A. Price Foundation, that I believe will be best for preserving your lives and your emotional health.



Elizabeth Szlek is the Director of The Door Counseling Center of Yorkville, NY. Questions and comments can be directed to her at (315) 768-8900 or at info@thedoorcounseling.com.