On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 9:22 PM, artofthefire
<bbarndogz@aol.com> wrote:
Hi Heather,
I agree with all of your last post here. I too lost years of myself with depression - that and pain. Took me 25-30 yrs but, I am very thankful I finally found the answer to all of it.
As far as the missionaries bringing wheat to 3rd world countries, I DO agree with you there as well. The problem is the same problem that's rampant here in America - most people, most medical and government agencies do not recognize the problem with wheat. This paradigm shift you speak of is happening, but it sure has been a long, slow one. SO nice that its FINALLY getting recognized in the medical communities now. But, like all cash crops, wheat is a big money maker and its not gonna go out without a pretty big resistance from many.
Oddly enough, wheat isn't the biggest cash crop: corn and soy are, and most people don't give much thought to the daily corn in their diet. Wheat is a really problematic plant. It was highly prized in Roman times, and cost twice as much as barley, which is a lot easier to raise. In my grandpa's day, the saying was that wheat and cows were for rich people Oats and goats were for the poor. My thinking is that wheat is a mild drug, along with coffee and chocolate and tea and nicotine, which is why it has such a hold on the psyche. I liked the part in the book "Heidi", where Heidi sneaks out the rolls from the rich people's table to send them to her grandma in the Alps. The Alpen folks didn't get nice soft wheat bread, but they craved it. My grandfather was about the same way. When the social constraints allowed for it, he and his brother started a bakery, with real wheat bread. It was a huge deal, to get wheat! At that point the government didn't say anything about it, but they got lots of customers.
Although you and I know the damage wheat does to the human body, there's still such a large amount of people out there clueless. So, I guess we can't really place a huge blame on the missionaries for "trying" to help the poor...(Although, the pizza thing did really puzzle me;) Ignorance is definitely not bliss, but if you are still thinking your grandparents life of bread and & etc is the way to go and don't know about or understand the problems there are with wheat, you just continue to believe in your heart that you ARE helping.
I don't really blame them, or anyone. Just before I did a 180 turn, I was churning out homemade bread like mad. Nice healthy homemade bread, just like my grandparents made. Most of this stuff, you just have to experiment. Fast-5 is an experiment, and it works. But if you hear from OTHER people experimenting, you learn faster and maybe the experimenting doesn't take so long. That's the basis of science. The kind of science shared among any group of human beings is similar: "Here is what works. Now: you try it and see if it works for you".
And I do understand the pizza thing. I mean, I teach people how to make sushi. Or teriyaki, or anything I think is exciting and tasty. Pizza IS tasty. And exotic in some places.
On behalf of many, there is so much more going on with missionary work than just donating bad food like wheat and sending out the wrong message about snacking on junk. Our church is involved in a lot of missions work. Its not in the way of "donating food", its more like donating supplies, muscle & hard work to help them grow their own food and help build homes/shelters. When our mission teams have gone into other countries to help they don't give "treats" or anything outside the norm of that culture. You live as they live while you are there.
That is awesome! I know the "helpers" of various stripes have gotten a lot more socially sensitive than they were in the past, which I think is great. There have been some really great "paradigm shifts" created by the "more technical" (or whatever the right word is today) and shipped around the world, including solar-powered lights, smokeless stoves, keyhole gardens, subirrigation, animal husbandry advances, wells. What is really cool is that these inventions also help everyone. I have a smokeless "pyrolitic" burner at our house, which turns excess wood or cardboard into carbon for me growing my own dinner with a subirrigation system. All created for the "developing" world, but really useful in my little tech hub of Seattle.
Our church has helped to dig several wells in areas of Africa where there were none. We have an orphanage in Romania where we donate, not only supplies & funds for supplies, but also LOTS of time, hard work and loads of love and care for the kids to give the regular workers that live there (some from our church) a much needed break. We also used to go to an orphanage in Haiti but it was destroyed. We now go there to help them rebuild their homes and care for the sick and wounded. We are also in Japan after the tsunami.
We work with an organization that helps in the fight against the sex slave trade all over the world and right here in our own country.
We had large groups go out to help the states that had the horrible devastation from all the tornados and other bad weather this past year.
We work with homeless shelters in a nearby city and have also set up a food pantry and baby closet in our own town. When we can find one, we'd like to try and move these to a larger facility, hopefully, with a kitchen where we will have free cooking classes on how to cook easy, inexpensive, healthy meals. We are planning a community garden where people can come and learn to grow their own produce, even if its just a pot of tomatoes on their back porch or a little window garden. With washers and dryers where people in need can come and clean their clothes for free.
So, yes, there are some missionaries that donate junk food like wheat and I guess there are some out there that are proud to donate "pizzas" (big sigh) but, there is SO much than that happening out there:)
You sound busy! And I'm really not trying to target missionaries. It's an error by all the "helper" organizations, and I think they are getting better about it, and quickly.
One thing I'd love to see more of, by the missionaries and others "in the field" ... is a log of what, in the local diet and traditions, is *working*. In terms of Fast-5, I'm relatively sure that in most of the world, eating habits are not 5 meals a day. It just doesn't work, when you don't have a fridge or processed food. But few people have documented what actually goes on. I know from my grandparents day, the day started with porridge (oats) and then maybe they got some dinner (big maybe: often one potato and some cabbage). When they moved to the States, my Grandpa's big deal was that he got a stick of Jaegerwurst in his pocket, for lunch. But, they never "snacked" all day in the way I grew up. It would not have occurred to them. Grandma lived to 96, in rather reasonable health. Grandpa died earlier, at 72, but not from being decrepit.
