Nutrition E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 273

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Our instinctive knowledge of which foods are helpful and which are harmful appears increasingly to be fading. We are bombarded with advice, information and prescriptions as to what we should eat and drink, but the issues surrounding nutrition - questions of health, diet, taste, even ecology and sustainability - remain largely unresolved.Unlike most commentators on this subject, Rudolf Steiner tackles the theme of nutrition in a refreshingly open way. At no point does he try to tell us what we should or should not be putting into our bodies - whether with regard to an omnivorous or vegetarian diet, smoking, drinking alcohol, and so on. The job of the scientist, he says, is to explain how things act and what effect they have; what people do with that information is up to them. However, he emphasizes that our diet not only determines our physical wellbeing, but can also promote or hinder our inner spiritual development.In this carefully collated anthology, with an introduction, commentary and notes by Christian von Arnim, Rudolf Steiner considers nutrition in the light of his spiritual-scientific research. He explains the impact of raw food, vegetarian and meat diets, the effects of protein, fats, carbohydrates and salts, individual foodstuffs such as potatoes, beetroots and radishes, as well as the impact of alcohol and nicotine. His insights are vital to anybody with a serious interest in health, diet and spiritual development.

Leseprobe

RUDOLF STEINER (1861-1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

NUTRITION

Food, Health and Spiritual Development

RUDOLF STEINER

Compiled and edited by Christian von Arnim

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Rudolf Steiner PressHillside House, The SquareForest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

Earlier English publications: see Sources section

Originally published in German in various volumes of the GA (Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. For further information see Sources. This authorized translation is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach.

All material has been translated or checked against the original German byChristian von Arnim

Translation and selection © Rudolf Steiner Press 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978 1 85584 282 3

Cover by Andrew Morgan Design featuring a photograph by Will HeapTypeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

Contents

Introduction by Christian von Arnim

1. Nutrition in the Light of Spiritual Science

2. The Penetration of Substance with Spirit

3. Nutrition from a Cosmic Perspective

4. Nutrition and the Human Body

5. Healthy Nutrition and the Quality of Food

6. The Processes of Digestion

7. The Effect of Plant, Raw Food, Vegetarian and Meat Diets

8. Potatoes, Beetroots, Radishes and the Spiritual in Human Beings

9. The Effects of Protein, Fats, Carbohydrates and Salts

10. The Effects of Alcohol

11. The Effects of Nicotine

12. Nutrition and Health

Sources

Note on Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures

Introduction

Nutrition is a subject which has firmly entered our general awareness today. From the growth of obesity in wealthy western societies to the quality of our food and the way it is produced, what and how we eat has become a subject of debate at all levels from government policy-makers to the home. Healthy eating has become just as much part of the debate around ecological lifestyles, sustainable agriculture, intensive farming and animal rearing, the value of organic foods and how we treat the planet as the overarching questions associated with global warming and the future of human development.

Rudolf Steiner may not yet in his day have had to grapple with wider ecological issues such as whether it is more ecologically sound to fly beans thousands of miles from Africa to European markets than to grow them closer to home in the colder European climate using hot houses which may leave just as large a carbon footprint because of the energy needed to heat them, but nutrition as a subject was well established. The investigation of the composition of foods and the effect on health of proper amounts of substances like carbohydrates, minerals, fats and proteins had started in its modern form in the mid-eighteenth century.

In 1770, Antoine Lavoisier, the ‘Father of Nutrition and Chemistry’, discovered the actual process by which food is metabolized. In the early 1800s the discovery was made that foods are composed primarily of four elements—carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen—and methods were developed for determining the amounts of these elements. In the mid-nineteenth century the German chemist Justus Liebig undertook influential work on plant and animal physiology. It is worth noting that chemistry, along with the natural sciences and mathematics, was one of the subjects studied by Steiner during his student days in Vienna.

Yet while scientific and medical research into nutrition and healthy or harmful diets has, of course, moved on again in the 90 odd years since Steiner was lecturing on the subject, what is also clear is that one thing has not altered: the extent to which nutritional advice still keeps changing and sometimes contradicting itself as new research throws a different light on previously accepted axioms with regard to what is healthy or not so healthy for us to eat. That this was already an issue in Steiner’s day is illustrated in his example of the daily portions of protein which it is advisable to eat.

Just like the delicate balance of our external natural environment, where an action in one part may have unexpected, not to say unintended, consequences in another, the human being also represents a cohesive and integrated ‘sphere’, both as a physical and a spiritual being. In this sense any dietary recommendation may produce unexpected results, which may not always be immediately apparent. And this is where Steiner goes far beyond current nutritional research (which is largely restricted to the effect of substances at a material level) in that he investigates the effect of foods on the whole human being at a much more fundamental level, including the spiritual elements permeating the physical body. In this way he avoids the potentially unexpected consequences of a one-sided materialistic perspective.

This approach gives his results a significance that has not lost any of its relevance, and is much more subtle. It recognizes that protein, for example, may have different effects depending on its source and that not only is the physical health of the human being influenced by the kind of food we eat, but also our spiritual well-being. In this wider view, eating the right kinds of food can either promote or hinder our development as whole human beings.

In terms of its structure, the book moves from the more general view to the particular. In the early chapters, Steiner describes nutrition and substances in the wider context of the human being as a spiritual entity and, indeed, against a cosmic background. On this basis, the later chapters then describe the actions and effects of particular types of food in greater detail. These lectures were given to different types of audience; some were made up of the general public while others were mainly anthroposophists following a path of spiritual development, so the tone also varies from the more general to the more intimate.

One thing which emerges clearly in all that Rudolf Steiner says about nutrition is that he never wishes to be prescriptive. At no point does he try and tell his audience what they should or should not be eating, whether or not they should follow a vegetarian diet, whether they should or should not smoke or drink alcohol. He repeatedly states that it is not his task to tell people what to eat or how to behave. The job of the scientist is to explain how things act and their effect—what people then do with that knowledge is entirely up to them. One reason for this may lie in the fact that the effects of a particular diet can be influenced by the particular circumstances of the individual. It may be better for a person to eat a meat diet, for example, at a certain stage of his life, and blanket prescriptions are simply beside the point because they leave the individual out of consideration.

But more fundamentally Steiner here, as elsewhere, never wishes to impinge on the freedom of the individual. Each person must recognize what is the appropriate diet for him at any given time. Although, as Steiner also points out, people in our modern age have increasingly lost the instinct for what is good or bad for them to eat, that is no reason for him to be prescriptive. It is up to each of us individually to work out what is the right course of action in our particular situation. Our diet not only determines our physical well-being, but can also promote or hinder our inner spiritual development. What Steiner wishes to do is give us the tools that can help us to understand how we can best promote our physical health and spiritual progress.

Christian von Arnim

1. Nutrition in the Light of Spiritual Science

Rudolf Steiner here looks at nutritional processes in broad outline in the context of the human physical and spiritual organization. He discusses the different ways that vegetarian and meat diets affect the inner human being and the relationship between human beings and animals and plants.

In the past I have spoken here on a variety of subjects concerning spiritual life. It may be permissible today, therefore, for me to touch upon a more prosaic theme from the standpoint of spiritual science. Problems of nutrition undoubtedly offer a more mundane subject than many we have heard here. It will be seen, however, that particularly in our age spiritual science has something to say even with regard to questions that directly affect everyday life...

It was a German philosopher, Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, to whom the phrase ‘A man is what he eats’ is attributed. Many thinkers of consequence have agreed with Feuerbach that what the human being produces is basically the result of foods ingested by him, and his actions are influenced by the food absorbed in a purely materialistic way through his digestion. With so much discussion of eating going on, somebody might get it into his head to believe that the human being is indeed physically nothing more than what he eats. Now, we shall have several things to say on this point.

We must understand each other precisely as to the purpose of today’s lecture and the intention behind it. We are not agitating in favour of particular tendencies, nor are we trying to be reformative. The spiritual scientist is obliged to state the truth of things. His attitude must never be agitatorial, and he must be confident that when a person has perceived the truth of what he says he will then proceed to do the right thing. What I have to say, therefore, does not recommend one course as opposed to another, and he who assumes that it does will misunderstand it completely. Merely the facts will be stated, and you will have understood me correctly if you realize that I am not speaking for or against anything.

Bearing this in mind, we can raise the question from the standpoint of spiritual science as to whether the statement ‘A man is what he eats’ does have a certain justification after all. We must continually bear in mind that the human body is the tool of the spirit. In discussing the various functions the body has to perform, we see that the human being utilizes it as a physical instrument. An instrument is useless if it is not adjusted correctly so that it functions in an orderly manner, however, and similarly our bodies are of no use to our higher organism if they do not function properly. Our freedom can be handicapped and intentions impeded.

When we as spiritual scientists consider our organism, we can ask ourselves whether we make our bodies unfit for the execution of the intentions, aspirations and impulses of our lives if we become bound by and dependent upon our bodies through an unsuitable diet. Is it not possible to mould the body in such fashion that it turns into a progressively more suitable instrument for the impulses of our spiritual life? Will we lose our freedom and become dependent upon our bodies if we ignore what is the right nourishment for us? What must we eat so that we are not merely the product of what we eat?

By asking such questions, we come to look at the problem of nutrition from another perspective. You all know, and I only need allude to this generally familiar fact, that speaking purely materialistically, people continuously use up the substances that their organisms store and they therefore must take care to replenish them with further nourishment. Human beings must concern themselves with replenishment. What, then, could be more obvious than to examine those substances that are necessary for the human organism, that is, to find out what substances build up the animalistic organism, and then simply see to it that the organism is given them. This approach, however, remains an extremely materialistic one. We must rather ask ourselves what the essential task of human food is and in what way it is actually utilized in the organism.

I must stress that what I say about the human being is applicable only to him, since spiritual science does not consider the human being to be so closely connected with the animals as does natural science. Otherwise, one could simply state that the human organism is composed of proteins, fats, carbohydrates and mineral substances, and consequently search for the best method to satisfy human nutritional needs from them. But spiritual science holds to the principle that every material occurrence, everything that takes place in the physical sense world, is only the external aspect of spiritual processes. Indeed, even the nutritional processes cannot be purely physical, but as material processes they are really the external aspects and expressions of spiritual processes. Similarly, the human being is a unity even though the composition of his physical body appears to be a conglomeration of chemical events ...

We need to be aware of the four elements which comprise the human being. To the researcher investigating spiritual matters, a person is not just his physical entity which can be seen and felt but the physical body is only one part of the human being. The physical body consists of the same chemical substances which can be found in nature. But the human being also has higher components of his being. Even the first one of these is supersensory in nature, has a higher reality than the physical body. It underlies the physical body and throughout a person’s life fights against its decay. From the time that a person passes through the portal of death, the physical body is left to its own laws and decays. Throughout life, the life or etheric body fights against such decay. It gives the substances and forces a different direction, a different setting than they otherwise would have if they were left to themselves. This body is just as visible to clairvoyant consciousness as the physical body is to the eyes. Human beings have their life or etheric body in common with plants.

We know from other lectures that human beings additionally have a third element, the astral body. How is that composed? It is the bearer of pleasure and pain, cravings, drives and passions, everything we call our inner soul life. All those things reside in the astral body. It is spiritually visible, like the physical body is to physical consciousness. Human beings have this astral body in common with the animals.

The fourth component is the bearer of the I, of self-awareness. It makes human beings the pinnacle of creation, setting them apart from the things of earth which surround them. Thus we have the human being before us with three invisible and one visible element. They are in constant interaction. All of them together affect each single one and each single one affects all the others. That is why the physical body as we have it before us—I repeat that these things only apply to human beings—is an expression in all its parts also of the invisible components of human nature. This physical body could not contain in itself those elements which serve nutrition, reproduction, life as such, if it did not have the etheric body. All those organs which serve nutrition and reproduction, the glands and so on, are an outward expression of the etheric body. They are what the etheric body builds in the physical body. The nervous system in the physical body is, among other things, an expression of the astral body. Here the astral body is the actor, the creator. We might use the image of a clock or a machine built by a clockmaker or an engineer: the nerves are built similarly by the astral body. And the characteristics of the human blood circulation, the activity of the blood, are the outer physical expression of the bearer of the I, the bearer of self-awareness. In this sense the human physical body itself in a certain way also consists of four elements. It is an expression of the physical components of itself and its three higher elements. Purely physically, we have the sense organs; the glands are an expression of the etheric body; the nervous system of the astral body; and the blood of the I...

Now, you all know that human beings eat food derived from the vegetable, animal and mineral kingdoms, and with it they sustain their bodies. Let me emphasize again for the sake of those who are more narrowly inclined towards the care of the inner life that I am not speaking to mystics nor to anthroposophists who are striving to develop themselves spiritually in particular, but to everyone. Human beings take their sustenance from the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms. We must realize that plants represent the direct antithesis of human beings, and the animals represent the mean between the two. The external physical expression of this contrast is to be found in the breathing process. It is a familiar fact that human beings inhale oxygen, assimilate it and subsequently combine it with carbon which is finally exhaled as carbon dioxide, while in plants, which absorb carbon to sustain themselves, the reverse is true. In a sense, plants also breathe but their breathing process has a completely different significance for them. Hence, we can say that in a spiritual respect plants and human beings stand opposite each other.

We can become even more aware of this relationship by bearing in mind the influence of light on plants. The effect of deprivation of light on plant life is well known. The same light that maintains life in plants makes it possible for us to perceive the light-filled world of our surroundings. light is also the element that maintains life in plants. This is physical light but it is also something more. Just as there is a spiritual counterpart to everything physical, so there is spiritual light in the physical light that rays down on us. Each time a human being rejoices over the brilliance of physical light he can say to himself, ‘Just as when I see another person and it dawns on me that in this human being there lives a spiritual counterpart, so also I can imagine that in light there lives a spiritual counterpart.’ Indeed, the spiritual light that permeates the physical sunlight is of the same kind and being as the invisible light that dwells within the human astral body. A portion of the spiritual light that permeates the cosmic realm lives within the astral body. It is, however, physically invisible and in this it can be seen that it is the opposite or complement of physical light.

The invisible light lives within us and fulfils a definite task. We might say that since they are opposites it is to physical light what negative magnetism is to positive magnetism. We perceive it in its external expression when we realize the relationships existing between physical body, etheric body and astral body, which in turn is permeated by the ego. It has often been explained that throughout life the etheric body fights against the deterioration of the physical body. Human beings as well as animals also possess an astral body and hence the inner light. Now, the function of this inner light is the opposite of that of external light. When external light shines on a plant, the plant builds up its living organism by producing proteins, carbohydrates, etc. Conversely, the task of inner light is to break things down, and this process of disintegration is part of the activity of the astral body. There is indeed a continuous dissolution and destruction of the proteins and other substances that we consume so that these substances are utilized in a sense to direct counter-effects against what external light has built up. Without this activity of inner dissolution a person could not be an ego being, and it is only by virtue of his ego nature that he can have inner experiences. So, while the etheric body is concerned with the preservation of the physical body, the astral body takes care that the food human beings consume is constantly built up and again destroyed.

Without this process of disintegration within the physical body, the astral body, in which the ego is incorporated, could not live a full life within the material world. As we have seen, there is an alternating process taking place between human beings and plants, that is, exhalation of carbon dioxide in human beings and absorption of carbon dioxide by plants; exhalation of oxygen by plants and inhalation of oxygen by human beings. These processes reach such extremes only between human beings and plants ...

Let us consider how the ego can gradually take a central position within the bodily functions. Let us examine what the astral body does when it dissolves the substances assimilated by human beings. With regard to nourishment, an entirely different viewpoint must be stressed. The body, permeated by the ego, performs an action in disintegrating substances, and through this action something is created inwardly. The inner activity of consciousness particularly comes about through the astral body’s processes of dissolution. Actions, activities are called forth by the process of destruction. First, inner warmth is produced and second, something that is less noticeable than inner body heat, the physical expression of inner light. Just as the internal warmth that permeates the blood is the result of the breakdown of proteins, so the activity of the nervous system is the expression of this inner light. With regard to its inner activity, the nervous system is also a result of a disintegration process—not the nerves themselves but the activity of the nerves, the actions within the nerves, that which makes possible imagination and calls forth thinking. It is this activity that can be called the physical expression of the invisible light and that is brought about through the degeneration and breakdown of substances.

Basically, as has been said, inner body heat is generated by the breakdown of protein. Inner light is produced within the organism as a result of protein. Inner light is produced within the organism as a result of processes involving fats, carbohydrates, starches and glucose, which are also utilized in the production of warmth and inner movement. All this represents the expression of the activity originating from the astral body. Human beings do not nourish themselves properly simply by ingesting the correct quantity of food, but rather when these inner processes can be carried out in the right way. The inner life is founded on them. Human beings are beings continually occupied inwardly with movement and animation and their inner life consists of these. If this inner life is not produced in the right way, it cannot react properly and a person then becomes ill.

The right kind of inner flexibility offers the foundation for the right solution of the nutritional problem. This statement points to the fact that all internal processes that human beings must execute must be carried on in the opposite direction from the processes of plants. A person must begin his processes where the plant processes leave off. A specific example will clarify what this means. When a person eats vegetarian food, it demands a great deal of his organism. Plant food does not contain much fat. The human organism, which is able to produce fats, is thus required to produce fat from something that in itself contains no fat. In other words, when a person eats vegetarian food, he must generate an activity within himself and make an inner effort to bring about the production of fats. He is spared this task when he eats ready-made animal fats. The materialists would probably say that it is advantageous for a person to store up as much fat as possible without having to make too much of an effort. Yet, speaking from the spiritual viewpoint, the unfolding of this inner activity signifies the unfolding of the actual inner life. When a person is forced to generate the forces that make it possible for him to produce fat on his own, then, through his inner flexibility, the ego and the astral body become master of the physical and etheric bodies. When a person eats fat, the result is that he is spared the task of producing fat himself. Yet, if he takes the opportunity to unfold his own inner activity through producing his own fat, he is made free and thus becomes lord over his body. Otherwise, as a spiritual being he remains a mere spectator. Everything that takes place in him in such a way that he remains a passive spectator becomes a heavy weight in him and hinders his drive to let the astral body come to full life. Thus, the astral body’s inner flexibility comes up against an internal obstacle if it is denied the opportunity to produce its own fat.

The essential question now to be asked is what internal activities are aroused by what substances. Here we shall try to throw light on the relationships of vegetable and meat substances in human diets, and thereby to gain some idea of the manner in which animal and vegetable foods react in the human organism.

For a person to eat animal protein is not the same as for him to eat plant protein. Up to a certain point the inner processes of the animal are quite similar to those of the human organism, since the animal also possesses an astral body. Even though the animal astral body causes the breakdown of the synthesized substances of its physical body the human organism carries the processes a bit beyond the limits reached by that of the animals.

In reflecting upon the animals around us and by looking spiritually into their ways and characteristics, we shall, by comparing human beings with the many different animals, find distributed among the animals the various and manifold characteristics of human beings. In spite of the fact that one can point to great differences between various peoples, we must nevertheless conclude that it is each individual person who represents a species. Human beings appear to be the spiritual consolidation of all that can be observed distributed in the various animals forms. If one were to picture all the individual characteristics of the various animal species as being mutually complementary, one would arrive at the essence of what is contained in appropriate moderation in each individual person. Each individual animal one-sidedly contains within itself something of the forces that are harmonized within human beings, and its whole organism is constructed accordingly. Everything down to the most minute structure of substances is so organized in the animal kingdom that it is like a tableau of human characteristics spread out before one.

If a person is to find the physical expression of the characteristics of his astral body, he must strive to utilize all its forces. He must become master of his own inner processes and activate his astral body in such way that the plant processes are continued inwardly. In the food we consume from the animal kingdom, we not only take into ourselves the physical meat and fat of the animal but also the product of its astral body contained in these substances. When, through a vegetarian diet, we draw on the pure forces of our astral body, we call forth our whole inner activity. In a meat diet part of this inner activity is forestalled.

We can now proceed to consider the relationships of these two types of diet from a purely spiritual perspective.

If a person wants to gain increasing mastery over the inner processes of his body, it is important that he become correspondingly active in the external world. It is important for him to unfold certain external qualities such as stamina, courage and even aggressiveness. To be able to do so, however, it is possible that a person may not yet find himself strong enough to entrust everything to his astral body and may have to fall back upon the support of a meat diet.

It can be said that human beings owe everything that liberates them internally to the substances derived from plants. Faculties, however, that enable them to be actively engaged in earthly life need not necessarily grow out of the pure nature of their astral body. These qualities can also be derived from a meat diet. This fact that human beings are to become progressively freer while at the same time needing qualities that they can acquire with the help of impulses found spread out in the animal kingdom has induced them to resort to nourishment in animal food. If the eating habits of the people of those militant nations that have striven to develop qualities enabling them to unfold their physical forces are investigated, it will generally be found that they eat meat. Naturally, there are exceptions. On the other hand, a preference for an exclusively vegetarian diet will be found to prevail among people who have developed an introverted and contemplative existence. These two aspects of the problem should be kept in mind. A person, of course, can adopt either diet as a panacea if he wishes to propagandize rather than to act out of knowledge. Nevertheless, it is not without reason that a mixed diet has become acceptable to many people. To some extent it had to happen. We must admit, however, that even though a vegetarian diet might indeed be the correct one for some people purely for reasons of health, the health of others might be ruined by it.

I am speaking here of human nature in general, of course, but human beings must be considered as individuals if they are to find the right path to satisfy their needs with a vegetable or meat diet. Today, an extreme diet of meat naturally brings its corresponding results. If by eating meat a person is relieved of too large a portion of his inner activities, then activities will develop inwardly that would otherwise be expressed externally. His soul will become more externally oriented, more susceptible to, and bound up with, the external world. When a person takes his nourishment from the realm of plants, however, he becomes more independent and more inclined to develop inwardly. He will become master over his whole being. The more he is inclined to vegetarianism, the more he accepts a vegetarian diet, the more he will be able also to let his inner forces predominate. Thus, the more apt he will be to develop a sense for wider horizons and he will no longer restrict himself to a narrow life. The person who is fundamentally a meat-eater, however, limits himself to more narrow vistas and directs himself more rigidly towards one-sidedness.

Naturally, it is the task of human beings today to concern themselves with both aspects so as not to become impractical. A person can also be so completely unprejudiced as to have no judgement at all. Still, it is a fact that everything that limits human beings and leads them to specialization is derived from a diet of meat. A person owes to a vegetarian diet the impulses that lift him above the narrow circles of existence. An extreme diet of meat is definitely connected with a person’s increasing dogmatism and his inability to see beyond the confines into which he was born. By contrast, if human beings would show more interest in the food coming from the realm of plants they would discover that they are able more easily to lift themselves out of their narrow circles. The person who abandons the task of fat formation by eating meat will notice that the activity thus forestalled erects a sort of wall around his astral body. Even if one is not clairvoyant but judges these matters only with common sense, one can tell from the look in a person’s eyes whether or not he produces his own fat. It can be seen in the eyes of a person whether or not his astral body is obliged to call forth the forces necessary to produce his own fat.