A Brief Look At Health & Nutrition

This is the last generation of this age. You’ve probably heard the quip that it’s the last degeneration! Unfortunately, it’s true.

In Britain, the health service – which is a misnomer; it is actually the sickness service – is in danger of collapse. The strain put upon it by the escalating number of sick people is unprecedented – not to mention the spiralling costs of ‘treatment’.

Most of this colossal expenditure and suffering could be averted if some simple guidelines to health were more widely known and practiced.

If you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully His commandments and His statutes... that these curses will come upon you and overtake you: (Deut 28:15).

Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the country (28:16).

The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you... The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever... (28:21-22).

The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumours, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed (28:27).

The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head (28:35). [God is not vindictive; but it is expressed in this manner to emphasise that God is ultimately in control of all things, and that breaking God’s laws brings upon us these curses.]

All these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments... (28:45).

Then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues – great and prolonged plagues – and serious and prolonged sicknesses (28:57).

Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed (28:61).

People in every nation are suffering these curses which are the result of broken law. Humanity is experiencing the cumulative effects of centuries of lawlessness! It’s not a simple matter to see how breaking a statute like the Land Sabbath may have led to consequences such as Alzheimer’s Disease or cancers. But, somewhere, in ways we don’t perceive, today’s illnesses have links to the breaking of God’s laws. Everything is a matter of cause and effect. And God warned Israel that neglect of His commands would lead to inevitable suffering and disease.

I didn’t think I’d ever have to write an article about nutrition. Firstly, my ‘brief’ from Above is restoring spiritual truth for God’s people. It’s not to get involved in matters that are basically physical. God places far greater import on spiritual matters than He does on the physical. And secondly, I would not have thought the matter of nutrition is important enough for God to want me to address it.

But as I was waking up one morning in August 2006, He impressed on my mind that I should write an article on basic matters to do with nutrition (and allied issues). Clearly there is widespread ignorance, not just throughout the world, but with many whom God has called to know Him. Otherwise He would not have spoken about it. He cares deeply for all His children.

Before we were married, Helena got seriously ill. She suffered from an overactive thyroid gland which caused her to lose weight dramatically. God prevented her from dying, but He allowed the serious malady to persist – until she was almost a skeleton!

With hindsight I believe His reason was so that she would be prompted to investigate all areas that might have caused the problem.

Then, during the first 15 years of our marriage she suffered another debilitating ‘disease’ that is abbreviated as M E (myalgic encephalomyelitis). Put simply, it is a malady that causes you to feel perpetually tired. That also prompted her to search widely for understanding on matters to do with health.

During those 15 years, she scoured many sources, and learned a great deal, particularly on nutrition and allied topics! And prior to that, she trained as a nurse. I have benefited much from her acquired expertise and knowledge. God led her all those years to gain information that she can now pass on with practical tips to help others. Many suffer equally debilitating conditions.

In this brief résumé, I do not intend to cover all aspects, merely those which we feel will be most helpful. Obviously, a whole lot more could be said. The subject is too vast to thoroughly survey in one short article. But we can hit significant high points.

We have all grown up in a system that is as far from God as our earth is from Mars. We tend to forget that in everyday matters it’s Satan’s world and that he has tried to ruin the most basic commodities on which life depends.

Life is sustained by water and air. In Satan’s bid to destroy life, he has managed to pollute both. The more ‘developed’ or industrialised the country is, the more he has achieved his aim.

You can’t do much about the air you breathe (except by avoiding pollution as much as possible), but you often can do something about the water. Knowing there is a problem is the first step.

Few realise that tap water is polluted. It may look clear, but that doesn’t mean it is pure. In many instances, it is harmful to health.

To cite our situation in the Thames basin, tap water here is harmful. It is recycled several times. So, water you may have flushed down your toilet could end up in your tap to drink – after, of course, having gone through a filtration process to remove particles, and after having had pathogens (bacteria and other disease-causing entities) killed by chlorine. But chlorine would kill you, if you drank enough of it!

And sewage is not the only muck that people flush away in their waste water. Drugs, hormones, powerful chemicals and pathogens all end up in it, leaving traces that chemical testing cannot detect.

Everything leaves behind a frequency residue that is scientifically undetectable.

Homeopaths will tell you about the frequencies that are emitted by all substances, living or non-living. Harmful substances leave behind a harmful frequency even after the substance has been removed. Tap water contains many such undetectable frequencies.

In contrast, well water that has trickled through layers of rock over several months or years, has been filtered and purified naturally through the ground rock. It contains natural, beneficial frequencies and minerals, besides being free of disinfectant like chlorine.

For this reason many people are buying spring water or bottled mineral water rather than drinking tap water. However, even here there is a problem. Bottled water in plastic bottles absorbs traces of harmful substances from the plastic. There’s nothing like the good old earthenware or glass bottles!

It seems like every step forward in this Godless society is actually a step back! (Galatians 1:4 – "this present evil age").

It’s not easy to see the harm that some everyday things, which we take for granted, can cause.

Bread was once called the staff of life. It used to be possible to survive on bread and water, if you had nothing else. Not so today!

Wheat (from which bread is made) contained the 18 basic elements the body needs – things like Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, and trace elements such as Boron, Selenium, Zinc, Manganese, Sulphur, Copper, etc. But scientists have bred new varieties of wheat that yield much higher than the ‘primitive’ strains our ancestors grew. Part of the impetus for this came from the demands of world population. The ‘Green Revolution’, as it was called, created new strains of cereals with increased yield (although often with increased dependency upon artificial fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides) that were able to push back the ravages of starvation.

The unforeseen kickback of this development has been the depletion of the wheat’s mineral content. It’s not that the minerals are not in the soil. Often they are. But the new breed doesn’t take them up, either in the quantity that the original breed did, or at all. The result, nutritionally, for consumers, is that we are all eating wheat bread (and some other cereals) that are nutritionally depleted.

Ryebread can be a better option, because rye has not been so highly bred as wheat.

There are other serious problems with bread. In the bread-making process, highly developed yeast is used to make the dough rise substantially. If you were able to compare a traditional loaf from about 100 years ago with one today you would immediately see the difference. Modern bread is light and fluffy. Besides being made to rise a lot with the active yeast, the flour is made lighter (and often whiter) by the removal of the outer layers of the wheat seed (which contain most of the nutrients). So what remains is mostly the inner starchy content, which is pumped full of air, yeast, preservative (and sometimes other additives like colourants, salt, and sugar, etc.).

In texture, the bread might seem nicer than a loaf from 100 years ago (if we could have one), but in nutritional content it is seriously lacking. One other little known fact is that the modern yeast tends to lock up some of the (already depleted) mineral content of the flour. It converts it to forms that the body cannot digest, whereas the ancient bread-making process (‘sour’ dough) didn’t lock up minerals.

(The yeast used in modern commercial bread- making was developed from alcohol fermentation.)

Helena makes her own bread, using a mixture of wheat-flour and rye, oats, barleyflour, mixed seeds like sunflower, caraway, sesame, etc. These all add valuable minerals and protein.

The ‘sour’ dough is started by mixing organic wholewheat flour with natural yoghurt and water to the right consistency. Leave it for a few days to rise naturally. Once it starts fermenting, use that as the starter. (Remember what Paul said about the little leaven that leavens the whole lump? 1 Cor 5:6.)

(Natural yoghurt forms when you leave milk to ‘go off’. It contains lactic acid and beneficial bacteria in a natural fermentation process that does not lock up iron and other minerals in the flour.)

Take ¾ of the starter to make your dough, add some olive oil, knead the dough and when mixed, put in baking tins. Leave for a few hours in a warm place to rise. You will see your bread taking shape.

Replace what you’ve used up from the starter by adding oats, and other flours, mix some water in it, cover it from the air, and leave until next time.

It’s quite an art making good bread, so you will probably have a few disappointments to begin with, but practice makes perfect.

A quicker alternative to sour dough bread is soda bread (made with baking powder).

One other thing needs to be said about the problem with the brewer’s yeast used in commercial bread-making, beer-making, alcohol fermentation etc. In your body it encourages the growth of fungus in the gut known as Candida. Candida infection lowers your immune system and interferes with the absorption of minerals and other nutrients such as vitamins. It can sap your strength, and lead to acute tiredness. It is a cause of many illnesses!

There is also a visible effect with many heavy drinkers. They put on weight or develop a ‘beer gut’ as a direct result of the growth inside.

The Mystery Of The Invisible (£6.00) explains about frequencies and some invisible influences upon our health.

The body needs a whole range of vitamins and minerals for its health. We obtain these from naturally grown food which includes cereals (grains), pulses, vegetables, herbs, fruits, milk, eggs, fish, meat, etc.

The value of Vitamin C was first discovered when sailors on long voyages had no vegetables or fruit in their diet. They developed scurvy.

A whole raft of illnesses can result from vitamin deficiency, ranging from mild conditions to serious maladies, and even dementia.

Helena learned much about the value of specific nutritional elements, from magazines such as Prevention and in-depth books on nutrition by expert authors like Adele Davis. There is a case to be made for taking vitamin supplements if you are run down, or suffer chronic maladies. But it is out of the scope of this short summary to say more than this: Eat a balanced diet, with plenty of fresh vegetables, and fruit, as well as the other foods mentioned above.

If you are sick, the body needs more vitamins and minerals to aid recovery. Vitamin C is a basic vitamin that will help with so many conditions.

Modern western societies have developed a lot of convenience foods, ready-packaged, and sometimes pre-cooked, to meet consumer demand. But the more food is processed, the less goodness it contains. Something is taken out nutritionally, and something is added to preserve it or to make it more attractive, tasty and appealing. The money motive has fuelled this industry.

Food additives are a massive nutritional nightmare! In my opinion, they have created a lot more ill-health than is recognised. The side-effects of these chemical additions to food (e-numbers) – the most common of which is probably monosodium glutamate (flavour enhancer) – could include a wide range of disorders and even some birth defects.

Our genetic makeup is fragile. It is not as unalterable as some scientists think. Genes can break down, degenerate or alter. Although I cannot prove it, I believe that severely bad nutrition is a factor that can alter genes, affecting the next generation.

Conversely, good nutrition can improve, not only health, but also inherited characteristics. The Russian geneticist Lamarck – although totally out of favour with western genetic thought – firmly held to the view that genes can be altered by environmental factors, and I do believe that there is a measure of truth in his assertion. Healthy people are the result of eating healthy food, in a healthy environment, and can pass on an increased vitality to their progeny.

The easy and appealing junk food of our consumer society is one major factor leading to its downfall.

God gave guidelines to Israel about what they should or should not eat (Lev 11, Deut 14). This is covered in the booklet What Should We Eat? Earlier than Israel, we find that this knowledge was around in Noah’s time (Gen 7:2). And in the New Testament such guidelines were not altered, for Peter was adamant that he would not eat detestable animals (Acts 11).

These laws were for our good. They highlight what meats are not fit for human food. God didn’t say why they are not safe to eat, but clearly there may be a physical penalty we incur if we defy these laws, or God would not have warned us to avoid them.

Ironically in our society, many of these detestable foods are regarded as delicacies! Things like caviar, snake (in the Orient), shellfish, octopus, squid, prawns, shrimps and other ‘unmentionables’.

Some people, for various reasons, avoid eating any meat. There is no such prohibition in Scripture.

Certainly it is not wise to eat a lot of red meat. It is a rich food and eating too much leads to weight gain and excess fat. Meat should always be cooked, and blood and fat should be avoided (Gen 9:4; Lev 3:17; 17:14).

Paul seemed to suggest that vegetarianism is the product of lack of understanding and faith (Rom 14:2). More on vegetarianism is written in In What Way Are You A Ritualist? in Articles of Faith, Vol 2.

White flour and white sugar (usually disaccharides) have been linked to degenerative diseases like Diverticulitis and Diverticulosis along with many other ailments.

Most naturally occurring sugars occur as monosaccharides – in fruits, flowers, etc. Disaccharides – from sugar cane – are extracted by man’s industrial processes. The latter are more alien to the body than the former. However, it is best to avoid having a lot of sugar or salt in one’s diet. They are only meant to be taken in small quantities.

Salt sprinkled on main course food gives it a flavour. It enhances some of the natural tastes. But it is not meant to be liberally applied. Sodium chloride (common salt) is a poison in quantity. It must be used sparingly.

Likewise, cooking vegetables in salt is to be avoided. Salt will draw out goodness from the food.

In cooking vegetables, it’s best to cook them in as little water as possible – steam them. If you drown them in water while boiling, much of the food value ends up in the water, and can even be destroyed by prolonged cooking or high temperatures.

Microwaving is also a very inferior way to cook food. It can radically alter its nutritional composition.

Any electrical apparatus emits electromagnetic waves (frequencies) that affect the body. They can be harmful. Prolonged exposure to radiation from electrical equipment can cause illness and injury.

I have spent many hours in front of a computer to write all the publications. Sometimes this entailed long days of up to ten or twelve hours, although I try to limit such work to much less, and also get out in the garden doing chores there, where there are natural frequencies from plants that are beneficial. (This subject and Bach flower remedies are discussed in The Mystery of the Invisible.)

But at one time, when I was having to spend a long time each day at the computer, writing letters, replying to various people, and compiling publications, I began to get a nagging pain in my abdomen. God then gave me a dream that I was suffering from the initial stages of cancer. Here is the entry in my dream diary from that time:

I have been having pains in my abdomen recently. (Real life, not part of the dream. They are not serious pains, but just ‘grumbling’. I have suspected that they are due to too much radiation from being in front of a computer for too long.) Then I was given this dream last night. The affected part of my abdomen had a growth which had caused the skin to lift up by a few millimetres. I knew it was cancer, and I was a bit concerned, but I have put my trust in God to heal me of it.

The dream was a warning from God to take more care of my health. I reduced my hours in front of the PC and, whenever I sat there, I held a large rock crystal (quartzite or quartz, which a friend gave us) over the infected area. (This emits a beneficial natural frequency.) In time, the ‘grumbling’ pain subsided and went away.

Whether God healed me of it (God will heal you if you trust Him), or whether the common sense steps I took were what enabled my body to recover, I don’t know. God expects us to do what we can for ourselves. What we cannot do, He will do for us. I have no doubt, that if I needed His supernatural healing, He would have provided it.

It is not fully understood how electromagnetic fields (radiation) affect the body, but my view is that they interfere with the body’s own electrical system and hinder the utilisation of vital nutritional elements.

Likewise, the earth surface we live on has its own electromagnetic (EM) fields. Some areas are more radiated than others, depending upon the rock strata, subterranean water, minerals, etc.

Just as it is not wise to sleep, or spend long hours, close to electrical equipment, it is equally harmful to sleep over a spot where strong EM fields exist. These can be detected by a proficient dowser (or by magnetometers – not that you would have such a specialised piece of equipment). Common sense (intuition) and God’s revelation can tell you whether you may be sleeping in a bad area, subject to inimical forces. If you find it hard to get to sleep, or have restless sleep, or find it hard waking up in the morning, or wake up feeling worn out, the chances are you are being subjected to EM fields of some strength. You would be well advised to move your bed. Try different spots, to see whether it makes any difference to how you feel. If you sleep better, you have located a more friendly spot.

To the uninformed, this might sound cranky, but it is surprising just how much these invisible fields affect your metabolism. They can exert as much effect on you as if you were to eat only fried food without vegetables for several weeks or months. The damage soon becomes very noticeable!

Somehow these EM fields affect the body at a fundamental cellular level, interfering with the body’s natural processes and suppressing its immune system.[1]

A friend wrote to me about how he had been suffering from bad teeth. Toothache can be extremely painful and wearing! He had put his trust in God, and – because it is a promise of God’s love to heal – He healed him. However, not before He had suffered a while. I will share our correspondence here, as it contains some tips you may find helpful.

I'm sorry to hear that, but glad to know of the outcome. God is so good. He provides according to our needs. The more pressing the need, the more He comes through (though not always immediately – which is why people should never give up waiting on God, trusting in Him – see Luke 18).

Helena said if you haven't got iodine, you would benefit from getting some and applying it to the infected area on the skin (not in the mouth). (Of course it makes the skin a yellow colour, like nicotine, so I don't know how you get round that one. Perhaps put a dressing over the area, too?)

Another thing she suggested is hydrogen peroxide used as a mouthwash and to brush your gums with it. Rubbed onto gums it will release oxygen, which counteracts anaerobic bacteria. You will need to dilute the hydrogen peroxide from the chemist, with water.

When I was 11 I had an abscess, too, on a front tooth. They tried everything. Penicillin, the lot. Nothing worked. Had to have the tooth out in the end. Of course, I didn't have access to God at the time, so I was the loser. I wonder why I was attacked by Satan in that way when I was 11. I wonder if it was a portent of Satan's displeasure at the writings that were destined to come 30-40 years later? [11 symbolises inspired writings.] Strange how God allows certain things.

Further Reading: Faith and Healing (£3.00) – How you can receive God’s healing.

At that time, Kassahun Ayele (a prophet in Ethiopia) received a dream to encourage our friend. I replied to him:

So glad that Kassahun was given a dream to encourage you to stand firm. It's not easy but God gives the help.

Helena and I both have some pretty grotty teeth now. (We are not the last generation, but the last degeneration!) A few years ago when I suffered a crippling toothache, during the trial, God gave me a dream that I would have all my teeth renewed / replaced. You've read about that.

Helena suffers worse than I do. (It's not a constant thing, but it comes and goes as various factors affect our health.) And Helena is assured, too, that she will have her teeth all replaced as well. I think that was a dream, too, I can't remember.

It will be part of the outpouring of God’s Spirit. It will be a witness to others, so that others will benefit from what God does, and it will help to build their faith in Him...

I take a substantial dose of Vitamin C every day (something like 500 mg). And foods containing Calcium and Magnesium help a lot (vegetables, some fruits, milk, cheese, etc.), along with pure water (not tap water contaminated with chlorine).

Things to avoid are sugar, sweet things, artificial agents, preservatives, too much tea and coffee, salt, and processed foods.

So, a good diet is very worthwhile to keep the old body ticking over. [He already knew about the value of garlic, which is a natural antibiotic. It fights pathogens. So does honey if applied to open wounds. And iodine painted on a small area of skin is absorbed, and acts as a good natural antibiotic, too.]

Our friend later explained to Kassahun how much his encouraging dream meant to him:

And the healing came as he stood firm, waiting patiently on God to heal him according to God’s time, not his own.

God is always faithful. He is teaching us to be faithful, like Him, and to trust Him. Part of being faithful is in looking after ourselves physically, taking care of our health, living a balanced moderate lifestyle, working physically as well as mentally, and exercising (1 Tim 4:8), not being lazy, and not being foolish in what we eat, or self-indulgent. It takes discipline and wisdom to choose a balanced diet, to prepare the food, and to maintain such a regimen consistently.

Your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit in you, which ye have from God... Ye are not your own (1 Cor 6:19, Young’s Literal Translation).

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are (1 Cor 3:16,17).

I hope these few guidelines and tips will help you in this area of physical health.

I'm puzzled why starting a starter presents a problem to many people. It really is an extremely simple procedure. I often forget to hold back some starter from a dough, so I wind up baking the whole lot and I'm left with no starter to continue, and I have to regenerate from scratch again. This is an inconvenience, not a disaster! Perhaps I'm a little careless here, partly because it's so easy to do. In the hope that it might be helpful to others, here are my thoughts on the matter:

Firstly, forget everything you ever heard about catching yeasts "from the air." Yes, there are yeasts - and lactobacilli - in the air, but from a practical point of view it is important to note that there are far more of them already present in flour! In a cup of flour we're talking millions of them. So the good news is that you already have the yeasts and bacteria you need, right off the supermarket shelf, the bad news is that you also have mould spores and other bacteria which aren't so desirable. Fortunately, given the right conditions the yeasts and lactobacilli quickly dominate and the starter becomes too acidic for the other organisms to survive. The micro-organisms are not destroyed (though they are probably diminished) by bleaching so can happily get a starter going from normal store flour. However, since they are more plentiful on the surface of the grain, a wholemeal flour is the easiest (quickest) to get going.

Remember that the sourdough microflora require food, moisture and the correct temperature. You provide food from flour. Rye flour, because it contains more sugars than wheat, provides more quickly available food, so for this reason it is easier (i.e. quicker) to get a sour going. Also, whole grain flour contains more proteolytic enzyme and amylase (which exist in higher quantities just under the surface of the grain), so again the food source is richer and the sour is quicker to get going. The most important point to remember is to feed regularly. For a beginning starter you need to feed every 24 hours. At the first feed, you probably will not notice much or any activity, except perhaps a slightly winey aroma (especially if you use rye). Never mind: feed anyhow. I suspect this is where most people go wrong - figuring that leaving it a few more days will get it going! In reality, the yeasts are running out of readily available food so they are less active, while the moulds and other 'off' bacteria continue to multiply, so you wind up with a slimy goo. By the second or third feed the starter will be bubbling nicely. By the fourth or fifth feed it will be adequate to bake with, but it will continue to develop for a few more days.

Temperature should be 70-80F (20-25C). You could go warmer than this, but you would then need to feed more often; also, the nature of your sour would be different, less desirable for a good loaf.

Moisture comes from water which you add with the flour. I use 50/50 by weight, which by volume is approximately 1/2 cup water per cup flour. You don't need to be too precise, so volumetric measurement is fine, and simple. You can use a more liquid starter, but you will have to feed more often. [I've seen various discussions about tap vs bottled water, and tap water works just fine. I suppose if you live somewhere that has outrageously high chlorination it might be different, but in general if you choose bottled water you do so for your own health, not the health of the starter!]

To put it all together: Take 1/2 cup flour (preferably whole meal rye), mix to paste with 1/4 cup water in a 1 cup size container. Cover and leave for 24 hours at 70 - 80F. Throw away half of the mixture, and refresh with another 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup water, cover and leave for 24 hours as before. Repeat. By now, the starter should show bubbles. If using rye, start using regular white flour after the third or fourth feed. Now you have a starter which you keep alive indefinitely by regular feeding.

Happy baking,


Jonathan