9 - A Nutritious Diet for Rich & Poor Alike

"Too much education - not enough understanding!"

An adequate and nutritious diet is the big problem in life, not only where there are so many poor people but also in countries with plenty of food, like in America. An inadequate diet is not always due to not being able to afford the proper food but to improper selection of what is available. And, strange as it may seem, the best food is not always the most expensive food.

Merely eating plenty of rich food is not the answer to health nor to well-being, nor to a good physique. Food that is too rich clogs the cells and overburdens them in their function of digestion, assimilation, elimination and oxidation. Poor health is more often the result of excessive intake of food rather than a lack of it. Hungry people are usually more healthy and active and have more children than the wealthy, well-fed people. In the light of this understanding, the poor need not be envious of the rich, because their very poverty is a protection for them from the excessive intake of rich food and the resultant ill health which would be theirs if abundance was their lot.^[1]

The problem which most nations have with feeding the poor is not so impossible as it looks. We are always poorer in vision and understanding than in food and the necessities of life, because if we have the vision and the faith in the Creator, and work with understanding, the necessities would always be provided. In the Bible, Proverbs 29:18, we find that

*****
¹ With the rise in "junk food" and easy availability of inexpensive, highly processed foods, obesity is significantly higher among poor and low-income populations now than it was in Dr. Stone's time.