We have evolved together with plants. Our bodies, our nervous system, our brains need the chemicals in plants as these chemicals are what we are literally made of, they are needed for our body to function properly, our microbiome also feed on them and they constitute the majority of our physical body. Plants contain thousands of chemicals, which work synergistically together and are the reason that each plant might have so many seemingly different effects on us. Science looks at plants and isolates certain chemicals, for example, curcumin in turmeric. The researchers examine these chemicals on their own without all the other thousand chemicals they usually work alongside. They decide that they are effective or not outside of their normal state. These individual plant chemicals are then used as supplements or added into our food, for example, in cereals. Out of context, the chemicals may work differently. The body isn’t used to seeing these chemicals in this way, and so may respond in a different way than expected, perhaps with side effects. Many of these chemicals are also studied on mice, which aren’t humans. Plants are more than their individual parts.
This is, however, also the way that we have studied the human body. An example is the fascia. For decades, scientists simply scraped off the fascia from around all the organs and disguarded it as something not important. However, once antaomists began to look at the fascia as a part of the body that might do something, they obviously found that it was a vital part of the whole body. Nothing in the body of humans or plants is there for no reason. It all works synergistically.
This is one of the many reasons why processed foods – foods that have been taken apart, stipped, reformed, and had individual synthetic nutrients added are not recognised in the body in the same way as real whole foods.
There is no way to double blind study to measure how these thousands of plant chemicals interact with the body. This is why empirical evidence gained from centuries of people having used the plant and our own lived experience are the only ways to really know if a plant works for any person.
Plants have evolved with us and are conscious of the relationship that we have with them. We could think of them as our ancestors or as at extension of our bodies beause our bodies cannot live for long functioning well without them.
The flavour, taste, and smell of the food you take are part of the medicine. It is a way for the body to prepare itself to assimilate it. It connects us to the earth.
So we need whole medicine, whole plants, whole foods.
Rox Madeira 