When I was younger my sister was big into astrology. She would read all the info to each of us telling us who we were. Then she got into Chinese astrology and started to tell us again who we were. I was the year of the Pig (or the year of the Boar). I read what it said about those born in the year of the pig. I don’t remember much else other than it said we were like the Pig in that we were wide of face and narrow beyond that.
Wait what? I loosely figured that it meant we may appear to know many things, or be an expert with vast knowledge on a subject, but when pressed, when truly challenged on the depth of something, we were narrow in knowledge. Sort of like those mini books that teach you how to quickly be impressive at a wine tasting or at the opera or cricket match. Of course nowadays, if you have a smart phone plugged into your ear you can always be the most intelligent guy in the room. There’s that intelligent thing rearing its head again. Which is greater – the need to be intelligent or the fear of being a dumbass?
Anyhoo, I tried to look up the sign of the pig recently to clarify what it actually said what most recent horoscopes, western or eastern, largely list – good, positive, attributes to give one hope and to inspire etc. I couldn’t find where it mentioned the wide of face thing.
That Pig thing always stuck with me however, and over the decades it grew in truth and merit. Creatively, I can compose nice music on the piano or guitar, but when asked to explain it or write it down in theory form, I can’t (although now we have computers that can transcribe for me). As far as this blog is concerned, I’m just doing what I can to convey to you what I know and how I feel. But when pressed by a chemist, I couldn’t truly go toe to toe with them on the elaborate and vast world of chemistry or biology or any of the sciences. When pressed on how the body works, its immune system, its digestive process, how the organs work, how the body assimilates nutrients, fats and proteins etc. I couldn’t really tell you in detail with absolute accuracy, all of the processes (actually, no one can). I couldn’t even point out the big dipper in the sky (maybe – I was a boy scout). While everyone has a beautiful mind for something I don’t know what mine is for but it ain’t for anything worthy of a recognizable curriculum vitae. And it doesn’t need to be.
In addition, and more to the point, I never felt I needed to know so much of that high falutin stuff to do what I had to do in this life, especially as regards to my health and the maintenance of a sound body. Recently, I have come to put two and two together and now I fully understand that cooked and processed food has stripped good food of many if not all of their nutrients. You don’t need to be real smart to figure that out. There is some science to it but it isn’t rocket science. I couldn’t match wits with a dietician or a nutritionist either.
I do know that if most of them practice what they preach and eat cooked meats, of course recommending white over red and lean over fatty etc., then they are fooling themselves and not getting real proteins into their bodies. If anyone is recommending steamed vegetables over boiled, baked fried, or roasted, then still I, am getting the real stuff by way of raw vegetables. Many of the vitamins, C for instance, are so fragile that steaming will do away with them instantly as in broccoli or spinach say, and minerals will be leached out in the steaming process as well. Maybe doctors, dieticians, nutritionists et al don’t know these fundamentally critical things about nutrients but know a great deal about other ancillary things that I have zero need or desire to know about.
You don’t really need to be that edumicated at all to be, or eat, healthy, if you simply seek nutrients from raw products. I am constantly reminded of this when I pay attention to the other species. When I look over my shoulder and see a rhino doing what he does without any books, laptops, or smartphones, it reconfirms this reality that this is not the stuff of books but more a matter of understanding the nature of things and reconfiguring our “common” sense. And no, there isn’t any rhino around me, I’m just sayin.
Knowledge and beliefs are two different things. Knowledge and instincts are two different things as well. Knowing right from wrong has little to do with formal, structural education as well. Knowing how we are supposed to live on this planet has absolutely zero to do with anything they teach in the great halls of academia. The way I see it, knowing about food and nutrients should always be instinctual. This pig couldn’t be more knowing of that.
