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Your body's secret wisdom is as ancient as humankind and encoded in every cell. It knows the perfect food for you to eat at any point in time. Yet we have lost touch with that perfect knowledge in this industrial society. We have lost touch with our birthright of absolute health.

It doesn't matter how old or how young you are. Your body can heal and rejuvenate itself from the inside out, and does so throughout your lifetime. If that is true, why is there such an epidemic of obesity and chronic illness plaguing the wealthiest society in the world?

We wear our suffering and lost connection to that secret wisdom in the form of excess fat, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. We no longer appreciate the sacred quality of every food we eat, or the myriad life forms that compose our physical nature, our cells.

This Do in Remembrance of Me

One way to reconnect is to take a little time to reflect on the food you are about to eat. What does my heart want or need today for its health, and pleasure; my lungs, liver, pancreas, blood, skin, teeth and hair, etc? Meditate and ask these questions within before you put something in your mouth.

What does the food you eat say to you? Does it say, "I'm ready to become a beautiful part of you-- to sacrifice myself to nourish and energize this human being, because this human being has seen me as a sacred gift of energy?" Or does it say, "I will insist on being recognized," by causing this too-busy-to-care person indigestion, elevated cholesterol, or diabetes?

The sacred approach to food will change your perceptions and your tastes. In centuries past, every food that humans consumed carried with it a sacred symbolic meaning which modern civilization has forgotten. And in that forgetfulness, we find that we have also lost the ability to successfully utilize the gifts which the Deity has given us.

What was the Sacred Fruit of Eve?

Eating food is a sacred experience. Consider the spiritual and sacred qualities which ancient man attributed to his food.

Christian lore made the apple a symbol of original sin, even though the Bible never mentions an "apple." The tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil bore fruit, but not necessarily apples. The little apple was vilified by the patriarchal system because it displays a pentacle in its center, when cut sideways.

The pentacle is one of the most ancient and magical of symbols. It has been associated in Christianity with the star of Bethlehem, and three kings' star; in Paganism, as the Star of Lorges, the devil's sign, the witch's cross, and the goblin's foot. Even before these interpretations, the pentacle meant good health, or life.

Healthy to the Core

This earlier interpretation was attributed to the apple core pentacle of the earth mother goddess Demeter, and represented her unborn daughter, Kore. To this day, we still call the center of the apple the "core." The torso, or center of the human body, is also called the core. And lately, scientists have begun to discuss the health significance of the "apple-shaped" body, which holds more fat around the organs, or belly area.

In Romanian Myth, the goddess appeared as the fairy Magdalina, sitting in a cosmic apple tree, whose branches reached to heaven and whose roots reached into the ocean's abyss. It was believed that a holy name written on an apple, and eaten for three consecutive days, would cure a fever.

Today, science is proving the miraculous curative powers of certain phytochemicals in the humble apple. Perhaps the apple is the fruit of the other tree that grew in Paradise: the Tree of Immortal Life.

In Russian labs, apple polyphenols extended the life span of mice by 56%-- the human equivalent of 35 or 40 years. "It is quite possible," said one of the Russian biochemists, "to extend people's lifespan by 20-30 years without even having to invent anything." Nature, it seems, already has the answer.

Researchers in the U.S., Finland, and Sweden have shown positive results in 8 different types of cancer, when treated with apple phytochemicals. Like the scriptures, the old religions and myths hold secret truths which we are only beginning to decipher.

Sacred Cows

Cheese is another food with ancient spiritual connections. The Egyptians believed the body was created from mother's milk, which curdled into solid form as children put on weight and developed. This same idea is expressed in the Bible: "Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?" (Job 10:10)

Cheese also served as a surrogate mother in the British countryside. A newborn child would be passed through a hole in the center of a large ring of cheese, called the "groaning cheese," as part of an old christening rite. This passage through cheese was done to protect the child from unseen dangers, and to bestow good fortune through life. Rich in calcium and protein, it is no wonder that our ancestors revered cheese as a gift from the Goddess.

In ancient Rome, the horn of plenty or cornucopia was originally a cow's horn, overflowing with all the fruits of the earth. The cow was considered the caretaker of humanity. We still use the expressions "holy cow," or negatively, "sacred cow."

In some of the earliest creation stories, the great Goddess, mother of all the Gods, was the cow. The Great Lady of the South gave birth to the sun, and created the essence of Gods and men. We now know that the complete proteins and overall nutrient content of beef and dairy products make them some of the most nutritious substances on the planet.

Paradise Lost

It is sad that the modern industrialized society treats its food supply with so little reverence. Our apples are never fresh from the arms of a generous tree. They are gassed, irradiated, fumigated, refrigerated, and stored for weeks or months before arriving at your grocery store. The beautiful apples you see in the produce aisle are no longer the purveyors of healing that nature intended.

Your body knows you should eat more apples, and other fresh fruit. But buy certified organic produce, grown the way the Goddess intended. Non organically-grown apples have some of the highest pesticide levels of all fruits.

Our own government found 36 different pesticides on apples tested from 1992 to 2001. The apples were washed before testing. Many of these pesticides permeated the entire fruit or vegetable, and could not be removed by washing or peeling.

From Sacred Foods to Superfoods

In addition, many of the nutrients which our ancestors received from this most sacred fruit have faded before it gets to your table. Supplement your fruits and vegetables with the green tea polyphenols, apple polyphenols, and pharmaceutical grade phytonutrients, available in capsule form. These supplements can help your body to detoxify some of the harmful pesticides and ingredients added to our food.

Apple polyphenols are six times more potent than vitamin C in protecting against environmental toxins and disease. Green tea polyphenols have been shown more effective in the treatment of cancer than some forms of chemotherapy.

Our cheeses, unless labeled organic, are created with additional chemical processes which leave toxic residue in the final product. The milk, which our children also drink, may contain radioactive elements and bovine growth hormones. And we wonder why our precious youth, suffer from various learning disabilities, hyperactivity, chronic illness, and obesity.

Cannibals and Cows

Even our wonderful cows are pressured into maturity and sacrifice prematurely with growth hormones, and cannibalism. Mad Cow disease is caused by supplying cows with processed cows as feed. This generates a very dangerous protein called a prion. The prion acts like a virus, replicating itself slowly. This causes a disease in cows which is quite similar to Crutchfield-Jacobs Disease in humans. This same disease was originally seen in tribal peoples who had the custom of eating their dead relatives.

It can take years for the prion to cause the symptoms of Mad Cow disease. Perhaps this is why we slaughter our cows before they are 3 or 4 years old. We are assured by the USDA that our beef supply is safe. Yet non-organically fed cows eat the same thing as the cows in other countries, infected with Mad Cow disease.

Only nerve tissue is affected by these prions. Stay away from ground beef, which could be processed on the same equipment which processed brain or spinal tissue from cows, unless you know for certain how the ground beef was processed.

Re-experience the sacred mystery of beef. Find out how it was fed and treated before slaughter, and then how it is handled on the way to your table. Or raise your own.

Give Me Health and a Day

If you think the world has gone mad, reconsider this axiom: you are what you eat. And remember the creation myth of the cow whose milk curdled the Universe into existence. Mad Cow disease, obesity, and chronic illness in young children may be like the canary in the coal mine-- signs and omens within our own homes and families, which may all begin with the food we eat.

Insist on food which is grown organically, with care and love. Treat it as a divine blessing. Cultivate a renewed sacred connection to everything you eat. The secret wisdom of your body can guide you back to the blessing of your birthright- absolute, radiant health.

Katrina Kern is an author, women's health counselor and former practicing nurse.