Description

Incorporating the Green and White Diet
By Dorothy H. Forster

ISBN: 978-1-84747-493-3
Published: 2007
Pages: 254
Key Themes: nutrition, health, spirituality, diet, vegetarianism

Description

There has been much interest in the past few years in the use of diets that restrict the range of foods consumed. These diets are said to bring benefits by improving the ways the foods are digested, greater health and feeling of well-being. The Macrobiotic and Hay diets have for years had many supporters who find the restricted use of certain foods, or balanced combinations of foods, give an improved vitality and happiness. I have myself experimented with various diets and can vouch that they do bring changes in bodily functions as well as in emotional and sensory feelings, have a great interest in food and health matters, but because it is also my work, I find it very difficult to stick to one regime often switching from one to another as the mood, and the need to test recipes, takes me, so I find it difficult to give conclusions about the long term effectiveness of any of them.
There are many things we do not yet know about nutrition. I believe we are more than just our physical bodies, since in a way we are also the processes that use the body’s thoughts, feelings, dreams, emotions, actions, passions and aspirations. But our physical bodies are themselves far more subtle and intricate than we can imagine. Life is a process of the transformation of energy from one form to another, and nothing in this process is static or fixed; every breath we take and every thought we have changes our body, and the food we eat and its conversion into energy that our bodies can use is another vital link in the process.
At each moment we are the result of the genes we were born with, the food we have eaten, the ways we have treated our bodies, the thoughts we have had and the emotions we have experienced. All are important and if we mistreat ourselves in any way we will reap the results. But I do also realise that we are not all the same and that diets which work well for one person may not suit another.
I have known Dorothy Forster for many years and have much admired her pioneering work in bringing good wholesome food to the world. So when she asked me to read the manuscript of this book I was very intrigued and I knew it would be worthwhile. I did not realise just how revolutionary her ideas would turn out to be, but I commend them to you and recommend you to read with an open mind and to taste and see for yourself whether they work for you.
I hope this book will be a source of stimulation, inspiration, vitality and good health to many people.

Rose Elliot M.B.E
Patron: The Vegetarian Society, U.K.

About the Author

This is a book to make one think.

Dorothy Forster has worked for many years on the various types of nourishment we need, not only the food we eat, but also the air we breathe, the light that falls on our faces, the impact of the ideas that we consider and inspire us. In this book she sets out how these various nourishments interact and the importance of maintaining a balance in them and between them, with practical advice as to how this can be achieved. Please read it.

Baroness Edmee Di Pauli
Founder Director Centre-Link
World Centre of Service

Book Extract

What is nutrition? If we are to understand that, it seems appropriate for us to try to understand the body – what it consists of, how it functions and what are its needs, in order that it is cherished correctly so that it functions as efficiently as possible. The answers to these questions are manifold and I have endeavoured to give a comparatively brief description of the various aspects and to draw the various threads together in order that we may understand the whole and appreciate how all the parts, both seen and unseen, are inter-related and rely on the health of each part in order to function as a healthy ‘whole’. I say ‘comparatively brief description’, for many books have been written on each aspect. But this book is an attempt to show that each subject is not autonomous; that the whole cannot exist without the parts. Just as we would be severely handicapped without an arm or a leg, even more would we be handicapped without other vital parts of our being. In fact we would not exist.
We are composed of four bodies: physical, etheric, astral and egoic, not just one (see David Tansley’s Raiment of Light, Chapter 3). We can see and touch our physical body, but this would not be present if our ego, or personalised self, had not opted to take human form. Once this decision is made, a prototype of our physical body is prepared before we can manifest physically on earth. This is similar to the way a building is designed by an architect before it is built.
We need nourishment in order that our physical bodies can grow and flourish. Our other three bodies need nourishment also, drawn from the seen and unseen forces. Just as the plants and animals need light and sunlight to feed them, in order that they may grow and flourish, so do we. We also need to keep contact with the Source from where we come, in order that we can flower from within. But none of these functions is completely independent. Even food for our physical bodies cannot give us benefit if our other bodies are not flourishing; and our choice of the kind of food we eat can affect the health of these other, subtle bodies.
In other words, we take nourishment from a) solid food, b) air, c) sunlight, d) the arts, and of course by direct contact with the Higher Source. The means by which we do this are by eating, breathing, meditation and through the senses. These aspects will be enlarged upon in ensuing chapters and the various threads brought together so that we may more fully understand the How, the Why and the Wherefore.
We and our environment are inter-dependent. We need unpolluted air, food and physical bodies. It is also clear that we have a responsibility not only to ourselves but to our neighbours, to the earth and all that is on it: the mineral, the plant, the animal kingdoms and those other kingdoms that we cannot see with our naked eyes, but whose presence we can sense. If we ‘foul the nest’ of our neighbour then we are doing it to ourselves at the same time.
The plants are dependent on sunlight. In the winter their roots benefit from the sun’s rays that have penetrated into the earth. In the summer they grow and produce shoots, green leaves, flowers and seeds from direct sunlight. These plants provide food for both the animal and human kingdoms. Nothing would survive without this light – direct or indirect sunlight, and water. Seventy per cent of the human body is composed of water, just as 70% of the surface of the earth is water. The water content of our bodies is continually being replaced and replenished.
Thoughts are Beings – positive from the Light and negative from the Darkness. All wisdom and truth arises out of the Beings of Light. We need to keep in touch with our Higher Selves, with the Light, so that good thoughts are fed into us and they then radiate out from us – good, positive, creative thoughts. We need to nourish ourselves on that level as well as on the physical.
Out of the Will arise instincts, desires, wishes and impulses that also manifest from our being, part of which is the Ego itself, which can be for good or ill.