There is a unique group of people who are a living demonstration of the information presented in this report. Once they lived in remote isolation from the effects of Western technology. They lived a heritage of oneness with nature and truth. And nature supported them with lush forests, pure air, fertile land, very special water, the most nutritious food on our planet and excellent health. In the region south of Lhasa, the Chang Tang [northern plateau, 5,000 m], the land is fed with water from the glaciers on the eastern slopes of the Himalaya. The rocks of the mountains contain all the elements essential for ideal nutrition; the glaciers grind the rock to a very fine dust, and the rivers melting from the glaciers carry this perfect dust to the land the people depended on for their food. Their crops received perfect nutrition, transformed this into superior food, and the result was the health that nature has designed for those who live naturally.
0.1 In 1959 the outside world invaded. Since then, the people, the environment and the land have been relentlessly raped, tortured and murdered. 100,000 Tibetans fled into exile in modern India, where they innocently watched as, once again, their people were ravaged -- this time by all manner of illness, infection and degenerative disease. They wondered what the reason was: the heat? Low altitude? Water? Unfamiliar diseases their heritage had failed to condition their bodies for? What was responsible for this radical change? India was a place of new experiences: a life of anti-foods, toxic chemicals, a polluted environment and deficient soil. For disease and deteriorating health, Western medicine prescribed chemicals that sometimes gave a measure of relief, never a cure, and usually side effects worse than the original problem. What happened to the health they knew in their homeland? The Tibetans have a long heritage of superior medical wisdom that provides excellent results in their traditional environment, but in their exile, their new environment contains a terrible new ingredient. Now they live in a modern world.
0.2 The Tibetans copy the foods of their past, but now they use ingredients from a new world. There is a difference that cannot be seen in the barley, salt, butter or meat, but the difference is seen in the health of the people. The elements, vitamins, oils and other nutrients that their mountains and land gave them in the food at home are missing. In place of these, the food ingredients of their new world have residues of the poisons put on crops to kill insects, and the processing the food ingredients have received has altered oils into the worst of toxins, removed elements and destroyed vitamins. The message of this report is that there is a way for the Tibetans and ourselves to grow food that is the way nature designed it to be and the way it was at home. The beginning is to understand that there is no way to restore health with unnatural substances, and the modern world is at war with the nature that we depend on for health. Tibet was a natural world. In the natural system, we have no need to think about the connection between nature and health, because the wisdom of nature provides the source of health. In the modern world, we are forced to make the choice to protect our natural birthright. To restore health, we must restore the source of health. In our study of the Bylakuppe area [the area of highest Tibetan population in India] we have made some simple observations of the relationship of local health to soil quality. The region is semi-arid with soil up to approximately 10ft thick, derived from underlying granitic rock. Three general groups inhabit the immediate area:
A few Indian farming villages dating from approximately 200 years ago
Tibetan settlements and monasteries established in 1962
A number of newer Indian farming villages established between 1970 - 1980
These groups can also be characterized according to degree of dependence on either industrial food sources or self-subsistence agriculture of two types:
Dry land farming [lowest economic group]. Staple food is ragi, a primitive, dark millet with high essential element content, protein content of 6.2g/100g, calcium content of 329mg/100g, and calcium/phosphorus ratio of 1.3/1.
Government sponsored irrigation. Staple food of the irrigation farmers is polished rice [low essential element content, protein content of 6.8g/100g, calcium content of 6mg/100g, Ca/P ratio of 1/23].
The Tibetan population consists of two subsets: commercial corn farmers, and religious monks. Staple foods of the Tibetans are industrial white flour, meat and polished rice. The younger monks greatly favor popular soft drinks.
These groups also demonstrate some specific health characteristics:
Children and young adults of the newer, poor, dry-land farmers are strong, straight, bright and healthy, with conspicuously good teeth. This health is better with greater distance from Kushalnagar.
More middle-aged and young of the oldest villages [dry-land farmers] have degenerative diseases, heart problems, poorer teeth, some birth defects. Grandparents are still healthy and hard-working. Some have ages well beyond 100.
Families of the irrigated land have the usual spectrum of modern health complaints.
Younger Tibetan monks have major degenerative health problems [high blood pressure, diabetes, gastritis, tuberculosis].
0.3 The Tibetan people are innocent victims, but they are also the living proof of the difference between the health benefits of superior natural nutrition and the destructive effects of refined sugar, refined starch, refined oil, toxic environment, deficient soil and Western medicine. It is our hope that this report will help provide them with some insight into their experience, and the means to regaining health. The Tibetan experience is also an invaluable gift to mankind.