Dogen Zenji on Nutritionism

Dogen Zenji was the man who brought the Soto lineage of Zen Buddhism to Japan. He was a prolific writer and many of his lyrics are respected both within and outside the Soto Zen community. Last week my Zen group was Genjo KOAN, one of his works discussion often used as a chant. Here is an excerpt. It may seem cryptic but bear with me:
..... When you sail out in a boat in the middle of an ocean where no land in sight, and show the four directions of the ocean looks circular and sees no other way. But the ocean is round or square; its features are endless variety...It look only circular as far as you see at this time can. all things are as follows.

Although there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, see and understand just what can achieve your eye of practice.To learn the nature of many things you need to know that although you round or square can look the other features of the oceans and mountains are infinite variety, there are whole worlds. It is not just around you, but also directly under your feet, or in a drop of water.

Doges, among others, meant is that the world is much more complex than what our conscious mind can perceive or understand. It was true century and it is still true today despite our greatly expanded understanding of the natural world.

We can apply this principle to diet. What is, for example, red palm oil? Perhaps two hundred years ago, we knew only a few basic facts about it.It is a fat, it is red, it comes from an African Palm fruit and it has learned one in particular melting point and Geschmack.Wir then about vitamins, so we did it contain vitamin E, carotene (provitamin A) and vitamin k. Then fatty acid composition, so that it is we usually Palmitic acid and oleic acids found. Now we know red palm oil contains an array of polyphenols, sterols, Coenzyme Q10 and many other non-essential elements. We don't know much about the biological effects of most of these substances, especially in combination with one another.

Add to that the fact that each batch of red palm oil is terroir, processing, storage, et cetera, due to the load. We know what means the concept "red palm oil" rude, but the details are infinitely complex. Now it is a person, not only incredibly complex itself, but genetically and epigenetically unique feed.How can we get the result of this encounter that may guess based on the chemical composition of red palm oil?This is essentially what Nutritionism is trying to do.

To be fair, sometimes works Nutritionism.For example, can we pretty well think that a handful of wild almonds, contains a lot of cyanide not in due at least in part the cyanide food, be healthy.But outside extreme examples like this, we're in a grey area that needs through empirical observation several informed what happens if the person concerned actually eat the red palm oil in other words,? what if a large group of people in West Africa Aß red palm oil for thousands of years? these questions are the reason why I am so interested to understand the life of healthy non-industrial cultures.

I am not reductionist science or controlled (which I me experiments); I think you need to kept within werden.Ich think should be interpreted within the basic empirical observations

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