Nature is the very essence of all the entities that make up the universe. Mother Nature is the mythical personification of nature that has created, managed, distributed and even regenerated all the ecosystems in the biosphere. From ancient times, images of women that represent "mother earth" or "mother nature" are timeless. In fact, long before people begun to record history, goddesses were worshipped, as they were associated with fertility and agriculture. Even today people use the name of nature as being equivalent to a divine power that is able to guide the adaptation of species when these are subjected to natural environmental change or when they suffer serious damage due to the changes human exploitation has produced.
Along history and during the human evolutionary process, the world has witnessed countless numbers of peoples, tribes, ethnic groups, cultures and empires. In fact, a variety of cultures the common denominator of "mother nature" is illustrated in the scripts of different civilizations like Incan, Assyrian, Babylonian, Slavonic, Roman, Greek, and Indo-European fertility religions. Some were governed by matriarchies, with groups of women in many communities assuming enormous responsibilities-taking charge of their people's survival-always aiming in finding ways of providing them with food and drink, helping them to grow and develop, and taking care of the elderly and the sick. Women, in short, have taken on the responsibility of guiding people's development, whatever the costs.
Since its early introduction and although the term "mother nature" is not a scientific one, it has been used in science-related papers in effort to explain the natural phenomena humans have witnessed. Storms, river floods, tornados, and winds are some of the extreme natural phenomena related to the term "mother nature." But apart from the plethora of extremely powerful incidents, the miracle of birth, tenderness and kindness are also illustrated with the use of the same term.
Social and anthropological studies discuss the interaction between the terms "man" and "nature" in an effort to portray the relationship between mortality and ever-going change. But the environment, as discussed by experts entails the force of natural progress and the role women have played in this evolution has generally been examined in a variety of scientific experiments. The use, management, exploitation, administration and, of course, the care, of natural resources has historically been attributed to the role of women in a society and just as nature itself is in charge of management, distribution and problem solving, so have women faced and continue to encounter the need to manage, distribute and solve whatever comes in their way so as to ensure the welfare of their families.
According to ancient Greek myth, Demeter, the earth mother, had the power to produce or deny from humankind the fruits of the harvest. This representation of women as nature is directly related to the fact that they are able to conceive life and that their daily actions profoundly affect the natural, social, economic and cultural environments they live in. In fact, until today, active women are the main promoters of the protection of natural resources-whether in the big cities of industrialized countries or the most marginalized communities. They experience today's dire environmental situation and directly suffer its consequences. This is the reason why women have often inspired a spirit of leadership, activism and action to find a solution to common problems. But nevertheless, taking care and protecting "mother nature" is a responsibility that must be shared and assumed equally by women and men alike.
Death Of Mother Nature
Over 400,000 die from food containing ‘toxic’ nutrients in just 12 month – more than 100 million Americans are still at risk and it cost the nation over $100 billion dollars a year.
And ‘toxic’ is probably not too strong a word!
And yet on a daily basis no one seems to butt an eyelid, despite it still being a serious major problem - an epidemic in fact. Obesity, and of the self inflicted causes of disease it is second only to smoking. Left to current trends it is soon to take the number one slot. And yet, if the same magnitude and loss of life was attributed to BSE (Mad Cows Disease) in our food chain – there would be a public out cry. And how can we have nearly 96 million web pages of information, diet plans, pills and potions displayed on an Internet search and yet be in the height of an obesity crisis?
There can be only one conclusion – diets don’t work. And yet people are still paying for it in one of 2 ways, with their money or with their health. Diet companies are quite happy to take a dieter’s money but are dependent on a dieter’s failure for their very own survival. Some even say diets are designed to fail. And now, there is insurmountable evidence that many appalling diseases are related to inappropriate nutrition and obesity, and yet 60% of Americans take little notice of it. Why? It is because the act of eating presents no emotion of fear or threat to life and we are in fact genetically programmed to simple eat! We are biological ‘eating machines’.
So who is responsible? The food manufacturers, the government or us - the individual. In simple terms we all have choices as to what we decide to put inside our own body in the form of food, and therefore the ultimate responsibly lies with the individual in respect to their chosen diet. Obesity is having a massive impact on the western world at large with all the causes well documented but little in terms of real, solid and lasting solutions. As a research specialist, we have severe concerns regarding the current obesity trends and have developed methodologies the help combat the problem for individuals based on ‘our’ nutritional inheritance.
We have existed on this planet for over 2 million years in humanoid form and for 99.5% of that time as the ‘hunter/gatherer’, consuming a diet of predominantly meat, fish, fruit and vegetables with plenty of water as the main source of liquid refreshment. Our nutritional inheritance was and is still is well defined, and perhaps has less tolerance to variation than originally thought. You cannot so drastically change the human diet as we have today and not expect a reaction from Mother Nature herself. Her dictatorship rules … it is and always will be the survival of the fittest i.e. those who can best adapt to their environment.
We have to also face up to the facts as to the impact of three key revolutions - the Agricultural, the Industrial and Technological, the latter of which has significantly contributed to our demise. We no longer work for our food and far from being scarce it is in abundance, so now we neither have to. Effectively we work less and therefore need less, but as a nation we are eating more. And here lies the nature of our solution. We must go back to basics and steer our nutrition towards a diet aligned to the nutritional expectation of our body derived over millions of years of evolution. Nutrition and a life style that our body was designed for.
This can be the only natural resolution until such time we are able to engineer nutritional genes to control appetite, or alternatively accept a lifetime of taking diet ‘miracle drugs’ of the future to achieve the same aim. These natural concepts have been detailed in a publication called Glycemic Superfoods allowing everyone to review their attitude and thought process about their own diet and nutrition to that of their inheritance.
Both Kadence Buchanan & Jeff Garcia are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
