In search for good health? Check the basics!

Contents

1. The 5 pillars of health
2. Health care: a diabolical pact
3. The quality of food
4. Biological poison
5. Certificates don't say everything
6. Start with who soil
7. Down with the team!
8. The power of habit

The 5 pillars of health

The progressive insight into health in recent years has shown us that health is based on 5 pillars (in order of importance):

1. air (after all, you can only live without it for a few minutes)
2. water (you can go a few days without it)
3. food (you can go a few weeks without it)
4. movement
5. positive mental attitude

The point I want to make here is that there is a hierarchy. Like everything else in life. Some things are simply more important than others and if you want to achieve the greatest effect, start with the most important.

Alabastine

If you have a crack in the wall in the attic, you can do several things. You can quickly seal the crack with a tube of Alabastine, but you can also go to the basement and repair the foundation of your house if that is the cause of your crack in the attic. It is more complicated and takes more time, but the result is that your crack in the attic is finally solved. If you don't do that and you reach for the Alabastine, you'll keep smearing because you haven't addressed the underlying problem.

This makes sense and it is. Nevertheless, we humans in our lives do the equivalent of smearing with Alabastine. In other words: we treat symptoms. We'd rather take paracetamol instead of seeing why we have a headache (due to stress at work maybe?).

Imagine if that's how we treated our cars. When the oil warning light comes on, we stick a sticker on it instead of refilling oil. Idiot, right? No one does that, right? No, not with your car but with your health (and many other things in life).

As an Apple expert, I've spent years helping companies with maintenance and support. The first thing you do in case of problems is: Check the Basics. Is the plug in? Is the printer on? Does the internet work? Are all updates installed, etc. It may sound banal but that's how you start.

Health care: a diabolical pact

And that's how you should also look at your health. Check out your basics! However, we do not do that and we are flocking to the quick fixes, where the medicine is not infrequently worse than the ailment. Not that I think health care is nonsense, but if doctors don't pay any attention to the real causes and only look at the external symptoms, I really wonder how it's possible that these — I assume, intelligent and highly educated people — keep doing that. What inspires these guys?

My father — whom I like to discuss with — then says that there is an evil pact between the patient, the doctor, the industry, the insurers and the government. Patients — here we go again, they want to get rid of their disease today and don't want to know about a change in lifestyle. Doctors took the Hippocratic Oath and promised to help the patient even if the patient refuses to take responsibility. The industry delivers what the market asks for and makes gold money on it (only the arms industry is more profitable), and insurers and the government are running after that in an attempt to keep this madness afloat.

A dead end. That much is certain.

But what do we do about it? Changing behavior is perhaps the hardest thing there is. Armies of coaches and consultants can have a say in this. That patient isn't changing that fast. And coercion from above is not easy either. No, change always starts small and from the bottom up with people who look ahead, can think independently and are willing to take risks. So pioneers. And so are we.

The quality of food

Here at SMPL, we primarily focus on nutrition as the basis of health.
Not because we don't find other pillars interesting or important, but because we simply can't do everything at the same time. Especially in the start-up phase in which we are now. You can certainly expect more from us in the future. But for now, food. And if you look closely at that, you can conclude that the quality of our food is also determined by a number of things that also have a certain hierarchy:

1. Soil quality. The better the soil, the better the crops that grow on it in terms of nutritional values and taste, the more resistant they are to insects, diseases and funghi, and the less need to be sprayed.
2. The quality of the seeds or seeds.
3. Fertilization. Fertilizer or organic fertilizer.
4. The extent of pesticide, insecticide, herbicide, and fungicide spraying.
5. Freshness. The longer the time between harvest and consumption, the lower the quality.
6. The processing. The more actions, the further away you get from the original shape and the lower the quality.
7. Additions. For reasons of shelf life, low price and taste, the industry adds a whole range of additives to our processed and packaged foods. Often, these additives are synthetic and/or genetically modified.

Biological poison

So it's true that if you eat organic — food that's less sprayed and grown without fertilizers — you're doing a good job. However, the difference with food from conventional agriculture is not nearly as big as you might think, even though the costs are relatively much higher. If we were to promote organic en masse, people would consume fewer nutrients than with non-organic food, simply because most people cannot afford the higher price and would therefore eat far fewer vegetables.

Organic farmers also use toxins and because they are often less efficient compared to synthetic toxins, they have to use a lot of them. For example, organic farmers are allowed to use large amounts of copper — a heavy metal that is highly toxic and an attack on soil life. So don't forget to wash your organic vegetables very thoroughly.

Certificates don't say everything

In organic farming, there are roughly two types of farmers:

1. Farmers who, based on a deep sense of social responsibility, try to produce in a different, healthier way.
2. Farmers who only grow organic crops for purely economic reasons. After all, organic crops yield much more.

Is this distinction important? The latter group is not really interested in organic farming and will be more likely to push the limit of what is legally permissible. Although SKAL, an independent organization for supervising organic production in the Netherlands - does its best to control companies, it remains human work and not everything can be controlled.
So, as a matter of principle and the rules, you can see organic farming as a reflection of the pursuit of healthy food, or you can farm organically for profit and see the rules purely as rules. You're not interested in the ideas behind it. For example, one farmer can take measures that, according to the SKAL, are not necessary but are good for the end result, and the other farmer can do the minimum mandatory and/or maximum allowable. Apparently, organic is always organic, but unfortunately, it doesn't work that way, regardless of the certificate. There is also a big difference in quality when it comes to organic food. The SKAL does nothing about that.

So nothing is what it seems. Especially not when it comes to food. If there's one conclusion I've made over the past few years, it's this one. To unravel the truth about healthy food, we need to dig deeper. Literally.

Start with that bottom

Do you remember him? That pizza ad from years ago? “Start at that bottom”. In retrospect, there was a lot of wisdom in that. The core of the problem lies in the soil. It is not without reason that he is at the top of the list. That's where we can get the most profit. And that's where we do the dumbest things.

The WHO (World Health Organization) has published reports showing that farmland worldwide is completely depleted and is on the verge of complete sterilization. This has enormous consequences for general health, environment and climate. Literally, the soil is the foundation of our existence. And we deal with it like it's nothing. And organic farmers are also blamed.

Now, I don't want to smear organic farmers because I can only applaud their commitment to better quality. However, it is far from enough. And frankly, it's also symptom management here. SuperFICIAL solutions to problems that go much deeper. Literally. It is short-term rather than long-term thinking.

So we have to look deeper and further. So down to the bottom.
Because how does it actually work? Plants grow because they are able to extract carbon dioxide from the air and water and minerals from the soil with the help of light and convert it into various carbon compounds (sugars, for example). Part of it is pumped back into the ground via the roots as food for the (micro) organisms that live there. When the plant dies, these organisms will digest the plant remains and excrete acids. These acids are able to dissolve the minerals in the soil in such a way that the plants can absorb them with water via the roots. And so the circle is complete. If you let nature take its course, the soil will become increasingly rich in nutrients and soil life. And that actually also means that more CO2 ends up in the soil that would otherwise be in the air. This also includes the relationship with our climate.

Down with the team!

Every year, farmers massively destroy the fragile balance that has formed in the soil. By plowing. For centuries. Stupid! Especially since mechanization entered agriculture, the soil has declined sharply. The acidity of the various layers is completely disrupted, the network of spores (mushrooms) and root canals is destroyed, the soil is exposed to wind and weather (plowing loosens the soil), etc. The soil tries to restore the balance, which costs a lot of energy and at the expense of resilience. The soil is getting sick, so farmers must use poison to prevent it. The plants receive far fewer nutrients and also become vulnerable to diseases and insects, and farmers also have to fight this.

In addition, farmers use artificial fertilizers en masse because the soil has insufficient nutrients and they practice monoculture, which further depletes the soil and makes it more vulnerable.

The power of habit

But why do farmers do this? The reason is as simple as it is disconcerting: because they've always done it. They don't know better than they should be. And so we live in a world where people have chronic nutrient deficiencies, which in turn leads to an epidemic increase in chronic diseases. All very logical actually. And it's not hard to understand that this can't go on like this indefinitely. For now, the negative consequences seem to be too bad, because after all, we are getting older. But that is an illusion. Look at the studies and find that we are all getting older but also getting sick younger. The age to which we live in health has been declining for years.

Maybe you care less about it and that's okay, of course, but we can't help but ring the bells, often and loudly! And when it comes to us product goes — fulvic acid, then we see that as an emergency bandage. In an ideal world, that would of course not have been necessary at all, but unfortunately, it will be a while before we restore the soil to its former glory.

Also take a look at Kiss The Ground and certainly also to the next TEDx video of a farmer doing things completely differently.

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