Belief and Truth

• 14 April 2016

  How do we know what we know?

  Many “facts” have a long history of discovery, with a sometimes bitter and acrimonious debate before a final acceptance.

  In Life, the Universe and Everything (part of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series), Douglas Adams explains our inability to take in new information as a result of the Someone Else's Problem field. Effrafax of Wug utilised the SEP field to create an invisibility device that would run for a hundred years on a single torch battery. It relied on people's inability to see anything that they do not want to, were not expecting or cannot explain.

  We obtain our information initially from parents and from interacting with the world around us. We learn that fire is something that should be avoided if we put our hand in it.

  As we grow older, we learn from other people, reading, school, television. Observation is not always a reliable guide. It is obvious that the sun and the moon revolve around the earth - we see the sun rise each morning in the east and set at night in the west.

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• 4 May 2014

  Why are there so many points of view regarding nutrition?

  There can be a tendency for researchers and commentators to become attached to one particular area and not be able to see the relationship and interconnectedness with the different aspects of the same disease.

  Also, much research is focused on individual components of nutrition, such as individual minerals, vitamins, or components such as fats or saturated fats.

  Once again, researchers can become attached to one particular element of nutrition. We search for the magic supplement or the one miraculous cure.

  Nutrition is the result of endless number of components in food. Health is the result of the relationship between all that we eat (and absorb during digestion), our relationships with others, the community that we live in and the world that we inhabit.

  Looking at individual components of food in isolation can never give a complete picture.

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• 6 October 2013

  But we are all individuals

  This is a frequent response to the suggestion that dietary and lifestyle changes will be beneficial to a person’s well being.

  “But we our all individuals.  Just because it may be good for some people, it does not mean it will be good for me.  I will continue to do whatever I feel is right.”

  Yes, we are all individuals with different beliefs, habits, preferences and experiences. However, when it comes to nutrition, we are pretty much the same - allergies being one significant difference. The real question is - "Why is there a need to be special and different?"

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