Right way of living – in harmony with nature

Growing your own food is like printing money

Eating foods humans ate before the discovery of fire; raw leaves, fruits, nuts, and yams help the microbiome feed and protect the body, confirmed by “New Biology” which explains the role of the microbiomes in our bodies, in soil, in all of Nature. The phrase or term New Biology looks at the interconnected and integrated network of organisms and how it affects humans. It is called the New Biology because it is new to the modern science framework but in fact it is not new to humans but rather the opposite. This is the way the ancients lived and how forest dwelling yogis lived well into their 120s or 130s (years).  

In Sri Lanka, our original indigenous vegetables now called “Medicinal Herbs” are what we ate mostly before colonisation and the advent of modern science. 

By Ranjit Seneviratne

I am 89 years of age and am well, happy and do not feel ‘old.’ This is what I do – I surround myself with nature by growing a forest garden which acts as a laboratory with me the “guinea pig”. The forest in my Kollupitiya home is nurtured entirely by nature and the leaves that fall upon the soil. 

My diet is directly linked to this forest garden. I eat only one meal a day – a salad of herbs mainly from my garden, ground into a “smoothie” and adding probiotics Kefir, Kim chee, Natto, Miso to ferment and update the microbes in my digestive system. 

Microbes digest food and make the body’s needs – cholesterol, proteins and enzymes. Thereby the body’s defence cells are active and get rid of dangerous chemicals. I have been practically researching what I mention here in this article and have cured diseases of myself and my wife naturally. 

Cooked food destroys fibre. It causes imbalances. Diseases linked to blood sugar, fat deposits in the liver and stomach increase the levels of bad cholesterol which is caused by eating artificial food and overcooked food. This causes blocked arteries, diabetes, obesity, etc. All of these reduce disease fighting cells, weakening immunity.

What is the proof I have? Myself. All my diseases healed – frequent bronchial attacks due to “pocket” in my lung (caused by asbestos used to insulate pipes in engines of ships – I was an engineer working based upon ships and seas for years), and a leaky heart valve, worn ankle joint cartilage due to having “flat feet” causing pain – all were gone. The miracle was my practical research on soil, food and health – where the garden was my lab and I was the ‘human’ being experimented upon. 

In addition, at age 89 I have new hair growing whereas earlier I was bald; I am able to climb trees, sprint (not just jog), keep fit with leaps from a squatting position to keep the largest muscles (calves and thighs) fully functional and fit. Could these changes to my body indicate that the raw food eating strategy may even help cure childhood autism, foot abnormalities, stunting, and other such malfunctions? It has to be mentioned that raw food cannot be eaten if it is grown using pesticide and weedicide. It can only be eaten as a health inducing means if one grows one’s own food and lets nature enrich it. Nature is certainly more intelligent than us in protecting its own species and seeing to it that they grow to be healthy and happy.

How did I develop this “raw way of living”?

While working as Chief Engineer Walkers Sons’ Ship Repair Division, I was recruited by the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1974 as a Marine Engineer Consultant. Then in January 1979 I was appointed to the Fleet Management Unit, FAO Head Quarters, Rome, Italy. In January 1990 I was transferred to the Project Operations Unit before retiring in March 1998. 

(Note. Project Managers of two of my Projects won B.R. Sen Awards. The first Saouma Award won by Govt. of Bangladesh for excellence in follow-up to my FAO TCP [Technical Cooperation Project]. (Helping people make money from home ponds growing food through fish fed garden waste (chicken/goat dung). The project used locals having entrepreneurial skills to train others to ensue rapid people to people technology transfer. This is what helped the Bangladeshi Government win the award).

While in Rome, I began eating the Mediterranean Diet (raw salad) for lunch and found it had positive effects on my health. So on retirement I grew a natural “forest” of fruit trees and many indigenous herbs around my home in Kollupitiya. I departed from the path of chemical fertiliser and experimented eating herbs and other foods raw from entirely nature sustained produce. 

My experiments resulted in curing my wife about 20 years ago of diabetes and of a “borderline” heart condition. I cured myself of all the problems I had described earlier in this piece of writing. 

Today this healing by eating “Green Foods” methodology is explained by “New Biology” (useful source “greenmedinfo.com”) which has replaced the research done over 100 years ago using “Old Biology” (like Pasteur & Pasteurisation, Lister & Antibiotics, Jenner & Vaccines). This is akin to “Quantum Physics” replacing the old “Newtonian Physics.” 

According to “New Biology” – which our ancients well knew – the atmosphere is full of living creatures, like a gas – made up of microbes, viruses and fungi. 

This new research also reveals that our genes control only about 30-40% of our body functions and 60-70% are controlled by the microbiome. 

Changing to “Green Foods” makes carb-loving microbes to cause stomach aches, nausea, a longing for bread, rice and sweets by sending messages to the brain. So the food change has to be gradual to correct the mix of bacteria to enable a slow re-connection with the pristine earth. The shift to raw food will make the person want to grow their own food which will be safe to eat raw. 

New way of living

Steps to begin this disease healing and preventing, money saving “new way of living”.

1. To replace sugar, bread and rice loving microbes with raw food loving microbes 

1st Week – Give up bread. Where rice is concerned – replace quarter of the rice with raw mallums (Sinhala word for finely chopped greens) and curry.

2nd Week – Replace half the portion of rice with raw mallum, salad and some curry (to enable the infusion of spices which boost immunity).

3rd Week – Replace three quarters of the rice with mallums, salad and spicy curry. 

4th Week – Have only a table spoon of rice, the rest raw mallum, salad and curry.

Note: US research recommends eating at least 20 different raw leaves per week. This is easy for us in Sri Lanka as we have a huge variety of “Medicinal Herbs” (our original veggies)

After following the above mentioned routine, the next month, adhere to a very strict no sugar meal plan – not even bee honey. Eat only raw mallums, salads and spicy curry, to ensure sugar and grain loving bacteria are kept to a minimum.

If you keep to the above, your body can handle a small piece of birthday cake, a serving of ice cream, or sweet at a party, as long as you eat only raw greens and curry for your main meals. 

For sweetening one can use Uk Hakuru, raw cane sugar (this has chromium that diabetics lack) or kithul jaggery, coconut jaggery, palmyra palm sugar or bee honey or stevia (a herb).

Then as time ebbs by, you will notice no hunger at breakfast time which will gradually delay breakfast till you need only a “brunch” – breakfast, followed by lunch. 

You will also notice no hunger at dinner time and therefore dinner can be eliminated or if sharing a meal, have just a soup and a tablespoon of kurakkan, jak or buckwheat flour preparation. Some may think this is an extreme alternative to the way we mindlessly eat and drink but I can only propose it to others because it worked for me. 

Grow your own herbal greens

Source for these green foods? – Simple. Just grow your own herbal greens in gardens, balconies. The policy makers of this nation can help the cause of national health by growing edible foods on the roadsides, of course without feeding it poisons.

Remember that growing your own food is like printing money!

Green foods? Sri Lanka has hundreds of ‘miracle foods’ – like the world famous Murunga, the “Miracle Tree” because the leaves have all the essential vitamins and all the “amino acids” from which bacteria is created in our microbiome. This makes all the essential proteins the body needs. We also have Kathuru Murunga, Japan Batu, (full of nutrients) Holy Basil (Maduruthala/Tholasi) anti-viral (US research) and Heen Bing Kohomba (Andrographis Paniculata), which prove to be anti-virus agents acting for calamities like COVD (Thai research), Portulaca (Gendha) very rich in vitamin C, Mukunuenna, Koppa kola, Kuppamania. (Cats eat it, why don’t we? I followed the cats and ate it and am healthier for it.)

Diabetes healing herbs Kovakka, Thebu, Masbedda, Murutha (Banaba).

Improving brain function of children and memory loss preventing: Lunuwila (Bacopa Monnieri) with Kalanduru (Black Cumin Seed – Nigela Sativa – famous as “A cure for all diseases except death”) and Gotukola (Centella Asiatica) which is commonly known to be good to the brain. 

Cancer healing with cancer killing Vitamin B17 in manioc, in kernels of apricot and other fruit seeds (like jak), cancer preventing herbs lemon grass (sera), graviola (anoda/katu aattha), for kidney stones aerva lanata (polpala).

Note: The above plants and more, grow in my forest garden.

For carbohydrates – Kurakkan, jak seed and other local seed flours. Avoid potatoes (nutritionally weak as altered to increase productivity). We have Rathu Ala, Engili Ala – that have huge yams (alas) under the soil and smaller alas hanging from the vines like fruits, as well as Kiri Ala, Innala – just to name a few of the thousands of food plants in Sri Lanka.

Herbal exports? The world after COVID we know is looking for health foods to protect themselves. Therefore food “grown in home forest gardens” and medicinal herbs (like what our Vedha Mahattayas use as medicine, is what can save us from dubious viruses. 

Entire rural entrepreneurship can spring from these. This could be a sure path to solve the “dollar crisis” and create a super healthy nation.

Already happening? According to a recent Singapore news article, three Sri Lankan firms export medicinal herbs and one of them exports worldwide.

Exports – to ensure sustainability and drought prevention – how?

Before the colonial era, Sri Lanka was known as the “Hydraulic Civilisation” because of our wonderful “Tank” (Wewa) system. This was probably because the whole country was covered by forests. Forests grow on “living soil.” Soil with a rich microbiome – the “living soil” absorbs rain water like a huge sponge. 

Proof? My “Forest Garden” in Kollupitiya I use as a laboratory. Even with the heaviest of rain, no water collects anywhere – it just vanishes into the soil. Why? – Because the soil microbiome has made the soil super-absorbent.

Therefore in precolonial times, all rainfall must have been absorbed by the soil and the excess came out in “springs” (ulpath) and fed streams and rivers, as well as the famous “tanks” (wewas). The rivers must have been pristine with hardly any soil sediments. Our Kings made even more “tanks” by landscaping the terrain. (“Let not one drop of water flow to the sea without serving man” – King Parakramabahu).

Well, what are we waiting for? All we need to do to “heal the soil” and develop a rich soil microbiome or “living soil.” We merely need to plant trees so that all bare soil is covered with fallen leaves and twigs. Please do not sweep fallen leaves and burn them. I consider this to be a crime against humanity. We can also bury larger branches to serve as food stores for the microbiome. The termites will begin the job. In addition, recycle table and kitchen waste by blending them into a “worm soup”, and pouring it into a small hole in the earth (about 6-inches deep). In three days it will be top soil with only eggshells and bones remaining, which will also vanish in a few days. (This is what I do.)

Next, plant trees like Murunga, Kathuru Murunga, Japan batu and all sorts of fruit and berry trees (grafted for small gardens) and all types of herbs, available Friday, Saturday, Sunday at the “Diyatha Uyana” fair in Rajagiriya. 

If we all do this in our gardens, balconies, pots, roads, garden spaces in offices, government ministries, schools and universities then perhaps we would be covered by “agro-forests” in a year or two. Most of the rainfall would be absorbed by the “living soil” and channelled into the “aquifers” (natural underground water storage system) from where the excess would come out in ulpath and spouts and flow into streams and then to rivers much like what Sri Lanka was during pre-colonial times, when it was called “The Hydraulic Civilisation”. This will be an ‘awakening’ for us humans who are ignorant of the intelligence of our earth.

If we start “greening” the whole country, including mono-crop estates and village farms, we could see the beginning of a New Hydraulic Civilisation. In about 10 years in the wet zones and perhaps a little longer in the dry zones.

We could begin by converting mono-crop estates to multi-crop “Forest Gardens.” For example we could inter-crop tea with Murunga (for Moringa Tea) and a mix of food and medicinal trees and herbs. We could also concentrate on turmeric now called a “superfood.” Exporting these herbs could thus diversify the export business profile of the estates and could be encouraged for the plantation workers and their younger generations. In addition, this would provide free food for the estate workers and be an incentive for them to care for the crops. Similar strategies could be developed for coconut and rubber too. The village farms could be converted to “agro-forest” farms for local production of health foods and for exports of medicinal herbs.

So before I end, dear reader, you are welcome to visit “the Charles Drive Forest Garden” any day and see it for yourself. Just give me a call (Tel. 0112573181). If necessary, bring a medical professional to check my health claims. 

(The writer is a former team member of the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations where he was in charge of several global programs concerning food and nutrition. He was based in Rome for much of his FAO linked career and began his own research on the link between soil, food and health when he returned to Sri Lanka some two decades ago. He was instrumental in influencing and collaborating for the start of the organic movement in Sri Lanka in the 1980s. At age 89 years young, he enjoys a high quality based life which is sustained by his forest garden, in the heart of Colombo, nurtured entirely by nature.)