Monday, December 08, 2008

Ancient Secrets

I was just flicking through a Reader’s Digest and saw yet another article on a ‘miracle diet’. This one proudly proclaimed that it was based on five thousand year old teachings from India.

Can someone explain to me how five thousand year old nutritional information is a selling point?

I mean, science wasn’t exactly at its peak in 3000BC.

If you think about it, five hundred years ago we thought leeches were a general cure all, that many health problems could be fixed by drilling holes in our heads and that conditions such as epilepsy were actually caused by demonic possession.

So, today, I don’t think there’d be many people who’d stick a leech to their head to cure a migraine…but five thousand year old views on diet and nutrition are just fine.

I don’t know how it happened but it appears that the Western world has been conditioned into thinking that true wisdom always comes from a very long time and from some place very far away. People traveling all the way to places like Tibet to find themselves or ‘achieve enlightenment’.

I’m sorry, but I just find it hilarious that people will flat out ignore a diet created in a nutritional research lab two towns over, but will flat out lose their shit over a diet based on ‘ancient knowledge’ from the other side of the planet.

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