If you’re a homeowner, it’s very unsettling to be hanging Christmas lights or cleaning windows and stumble across holes in the fascia boards or a pile of what looks like sand on the window sill. You realize the holes in the wood aren’t rust (yes, wood doesn’t rust – I know, I’m pretty smart), and it isn’t sand you’re seeing on the sill – it’s … termite poop. By the time you see that pile, you know it’s too late – the termites have done their damage. They’ve been insidiously and silently chewing up the inside of the wood for a long time until it eventually is showing as holes in the wood and piles of … termite poop. At this point you have two problems to solve – not only do you have to attack the termite problem, you also have to assess the structural damage to determine if reconstructive repair work needs to be done.
It got me thinking about the termites in our bodies. No, I’m not talking about E. coli, parasites, H. pylori, tapeworms or some other creepy critter that can take up residence in your body. But what are the figurative termites that are eating away at our innards – the things we know that “eat” our bodies from the inside out? Because nearly all disease processes take years, if not decades, of slowing, silently and dangerously destroying the cells of our bodies to the point where the disease becomes detectable or manifests with outward symptoms, the termite analogy is spot on.
However, the similarities stop there.
First, our food supply has changed so drastically in the past 50 years that we now find ourselves consuming ‘termites’ – we actually choose to ingest termites in the form of lifestyle choices by eating things that are known to cause disease. Whether it’s in the form of soda pop (and dozens of other processed foods) that contain high fructose corn syrup*, a direct pipeline to diabetes and obesity, or snack foods made with heart disease and cancer-causing hydrogenated oils and which are laced with neuroexcitotoxins such as MSG that are known to kill off brain cells leading to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, we’re dumping termites into our bodies. These foods that we are choosing to eat are eroding our health just like termites erode the integrity of the wood they live in.
Second, when we make the decision to stop ingesting ‘termite foods’, we solve the two problems at the same time. One, by not eating any more termites, we no longer have a termite problem – we don’t have to engage in a ‘pest control’ project (you don’t have to “tent” your body, other than choosing to avoid bad food choices); by virtue of eating whole, fresh, natural, health-promoting foods, we by default, eliminate the processed, toxic, disease-promoting termite foods. Two, because of our body’s inborn or innate intelligence that’s built into our genetic code, when provided with purity and sufficiency combined with the avoidance of toxicity and deficiency, the body will heal and rebuild itself – so there’s no need for reconstruction. That’s right – when we provide the body with optimal nutrition and avoid destructive food choices, our bodies are programmed to return to health. We just need to not interfere with this perfect innate intelligence.
So the next time you’re about to eat some deep fried food or drink a diet soda, just visualize that you’re eating termites (or better yet, termite poop).
*If you haven’ watched this video about high fructose corn syrup and its direct causation to obesity and diabetes, do so now – it’s powerful:
This blog was inspired by a sermon I heard on KWAVE radio this morning by Pastor Barry Stagner of Calvary Chapel Tustin called Termites and Toadstools. It never fails that when I listen to a spiritual message I immediately process it into a natural healthy living perspective message – thanks Pastor Barry!
