Page 49 - Genius Kidz Integrity Journeys-7

The life expectancy of people all over the world has gone up in the recent years. This

has taken place mostly because of a better supply of food and more advanced means

of preventing and curing illnesses. But in the more technologically advanced
countries there is great alarm now because a great percentage of the population is

over-weight. People are too fat. They die of tension, heart problems, etc.

Animals do not eat more than what they need. If we like the taste of something, we

continue to eat even after our hunger is satisfied. Today we eat less of fresh fruits

and vegetables. We are too busy to prepare our natural food. Instead, we eat a lot of
things that have been cooked and put into packets, cans and bottles. We forget that

the producers have put lots of chemicals into these foods to prevent them from

spoiling soon. They also add artificial chemicals to the food to improve its taste,
colour and smell. Those who produce bottle drinks add something to it to make it

get cool faster. Almost any food we buy in the market today has some chemical in

them. Eating a lot of such food year after year harms our health.

In order to grow more food, farmers today use a lot of chemical fertilizers and

pesticides. A little of these chemical enters the food and are absorbed by us when
we digest our meal. Some of these, like DDT and BHC are so poisonous that their

use has been banned in many countries.

Today we are producing also genetically modified food. Many doctors oppose this

method because we do not yet all the consequences of consuming this type of food

over several years.

In many societies there is already a reaction to all this artificial food. People are

willing to pay a higher price for food that has been produced naturally, through
'organic' agriculture. In Vedic times even ploughing of the land was discouraged.

Masanobu Fukuoka of Japan has rediscovered this natural method of agriculture
and comes to India to teach it to the farmers of Dahanu near Mumbai.

Over-exposure to the sun can harm us. But spending all our day in closed rooms,
under artificial light is also harmful. We do not get the beneficial effects of the good

radiations from the sun. Even if there is air conditioning, the air in closed rooms

cannot be as good as the naturat air in the open-expect, perhaps, in some areas of
our most polluted cities.

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