green tea and technology >> by juli strader >> *spark-online issue fifteen

As our lives become increasingly focused on computer technology, our health is crying out for a return to nature, and a return to the earth's natural energy and food. We spend more time sitting at a computer and less time exercising, more time watching the hundreds of channels on television and less time reading enriching literature, we dedicate more hours to the office than we do to our families.

We are convinced that with all the technological advances in conventional medicine that we will live longer than our grandparents did, but the truth is that our lives will be shorter if we continue to live at such a fast pace. Without the proper nutrition and improvements to our quality of living we will die without having ever truly lived.

When I get a headache I turn to magnetic energy for relief, when I get cold symptoms I take natural nutritional supplements and when I need a diversion from stress I do yoga. A year ago I would have taken conventional medication for all three, but today I am a student of natural alternatives. And yet at the same time I spend my days typing away at a computer, surfing the Internet and doing most of my correspondence via email. I trust my communication to technology but not my health.

Walk down the aisles of any drugstore and it is quite evident that alternative therapies are a booming industry. Shelves of natural vitamins, minerals and herbs have taken over where aspirins, cold relief pills and muscle relaxers once were. Herbal teas can be found at your local Starbucks. Health food stores are now popular. The North American lifestyle of cheeseburgers, potato chips and coffee is gradually being infiltrated by Asian influences, including green tea, tofu and sea vegetables. Eating a vegetarian diet is considered cool in some areas of the country and more people are familiar with macrobiotics. Chiropractors, naturopaths and reflexologists are no longer considered practitioners of voodoo.

“Let food be your medicine, and let medicine be your food.”—Hippocrates, 400BC

More and more we are turning to preventive measures to ensure a healthy body. We understand the necessity of eating the proper foods. It is widely documented that the fruits and vegetables in the grocery store are genetically enhanced to look more appealing. Consequently these foods have been stripped of their nutrients to less than half of what they were twenty-five years ago. No matter how well you eat it is impossible to get the adequate levels of vitamins recognized by science. We have sacrificed healthy eating for aesthetically pleasing food. Technology gives and it takes away, as the saying goes.

Times are changing. In Canada the number of deaths resulting from properly prescribed medication rank as the fourth highest, next to heart attacks, strokes and cancer. By no means am I implying that we stop visiting our family doctor. I am suggesting that we put too much blind trust in conventional medicine. What if there is an alternative to radiation and chemotherapy cancer treatment, would you want to know about it? What if it was a natural product that exists in nature not designed in a lab, has little side effects and is proven to be effective, would you be interested? Patients are frustrated with the results of conventional treatment. Turning to the nature around us for solutions and cures to fight diseases is now an accepted alternative.

Our lives appear like two polarities, one clings to nature and its beneficial life giving breaths of fresh air and the other needs technology for functioning in everyday society. Perhaps we are trying to cling to our existence, our humanness. Our daily lives, traveling in cyberspace, are in need of a wholesome, real anchor to hold onto. This emerging use of natural, alternative foods and therapies is the bridge connecting our health to our lives.

Will this re-establishment of the Earth's natural products conflict with our lives in cyberspace? Absolutely not. In fact technology and natural alternatives compliment each other. We need technology to produce our vitamin pills, and create natural water-filtering systems to improve our quality of water. Research is needed to inform us as to what vitamin is beneficial for specific areas of the body.

Within ten years it is predicted that, in North America alone, $800 billion will be spent on preventive, alternative, natural health care. That is an increase of thirty percent more than we presently spend. We have a long way to go, and an enormous amount to learn to be a healthy society.

You can begin by drinking the 36 glasses of water required to flush your body of the next Coca-Cola you drink.

Juli Strader is a student of healthy living. She takes nutritional supplements, sleeps on a magnetic mattress and practices yoga. If you are curious about an alternative cancer treatment please contact her: jstrader@magma.ca