Degrees from Nature

Eat Only Things 5 Degrees of Separation from Breathing
In keeping with yesterday's idea of only eating things that breathe, I began to wonder how far from breathing some of our food goes. Many of the things on grocery store shelves did breathe at some point. Cereal is made from grain; grain used to breathe. Soy milk is made from soybeans and soybeans breathe. So is this really a good rule to live by?

The rule works for kids because they understand simple things are the best. Somehow in the process of becoming adults, the rest of us feel the need to complicate things. So, the simple rule amended for adults: "Eat Only Things 5 Degrees of Separation from Breathing." A few simple examples:
Green Bean: Harvest - Wash - Cut - Cook - Eat (5 degrees)
Fish: Catch - Clean - Cook - Eat (4 degrees)

Get the idea?

Let us contrast this with the creation of soy milk from soybeans. Hang on... this is scary!
Soybean - Harvest - Trucked to Plant - Cleaned - Blended with Other Beans - Steamed - Split in Half - Hulls Vacuumed Off - Cooked in an Enzyme Invalidator - Rough Grinding - Water Added - Finer Grinding - Extracted in Centrifuge - Blended - Aseptic Sterilizing by Pressure and Heat - Homogenizing - Cooling - Storing - Packaging - Transport - Grocery Store - You

There are 21 steps in this process! And what in the world is an "Enzyme Invalidator?" We use something called that on "food" we consume?!?!

I contend there isn't anything in this world we should put in our bodies that are 21 processes away from nature. Perhaps part of our worldwide epidemic of obesity is what we are doing to food before we actually eat it.

Stay tuned... tomorrow we're going to explore what happens to wheat in order to it to get into a cereal box. In the meantime, have some real food for dinner no more than 5 degrees of separation from nature.