3. What is our natural habitat?
Dean DeCrease on Jun 27th 2008
Okay, so we’re part of nature and we should be healthy if we just live in harmony with nature. But what does that mean? How can we do it? Let’s start by thinking about how animals are designed.
By nature, all creatures are perfectly adapted to their local environment. Polar bears receive complete nutrition from their diet of ringed seals and bearded seals. Koala bears are also perfectly nourished, by eating only eucalyptus leaves.
Two-toed sloths spend almost all of their time in the upper canopy of the forest at 24 to 30 meters (about 80 to 100 feet) above the ground. Sloths are notoriously sedentary. They are active only 25 percent of time, spending 45 percent of their time asleep and the remainder resting. When traveling in the trees, they move very slowly indeed.
By contrast, the chimpanzee, is an “opportunistic omnivore” (like us). It must hunt, forage, climb, and migrate to find its food. It has a high level of physical activity, moving much of the time to eat, play, and nest.
Although they behave very differently from each other, these animals remain perfectly healthy, doing what they instinctively do in their natural environment. The same should be true for us. But what is OUR natural environment?
Our bodies have not changed for ages, so our natural environment must be what it was like back then, when we were built (evolved). Clearly we are designed to thrive in a very “primitive” world, by today’s standards.
Only a few thousand years ago, our available food consisted of a variety of greens, roots, nuts, berries, fruits, wild fish and occasional animals (when we could catch them). We had to work hard all day and care for each other, in order to survive.
Not surprisingly, recommendations from the latest research on human health are highly consistent with the ancient lifestyle described above. But technology has changed a lot – industrial food, electronic entertainment, cars and daily stress have significantly altered our “habitat.” For optimum health, our lives should somehow be lived in harmony with the way we are built.
Our natural habitat is revealed in evolution, in nature, in our biology and in human traditions. It involves enjoyment of “real” foods, frequent physical activity, living in natural spaces and in caring communities, relaxing and having fun.
Also take a look at the sub pages.
No responses yet