HEALTH | FOOD | LIFESTYLE | VENEZUELA | FITNESS
Warning! Are You Sabotaging Your Health by Wasting Your Bodily Fluids?
Your health depends on what you eat, your habits, and your diligence in searching for the truth
My journey to perfect health had some stops where I had to eat nothing but potatoes for a fortnight, meet a frugivore champion, and learn about body fluids.
Previously on COMPLETENESS, I shared how my mom won the battle against the allergy to oranges that I suffered from when I was a child: she just kept giving me oranges! I also told you how I grew up eating lots of fruit and salads and about my loving mother instilling in me an aversion to processed foods or chemical food additives. Finally, you met my grandmother and her passion for avocados.
Eating everything at home proved to be important on one occasion. We were vacationing in a remote village where my father, a civil engineer, worked building a school. That season’s heavy rains caused a “huayco” that left the place isolated and ruined our vacation. Huayco is the name given in the region to an avalanche of mud and stones. On that occasion, it covered a long section of the only road that connected the settlement with the outside world.
Due to the isolation and the fact that the village produced nothing but potatoes, we were eating them for fifteen days. That fortnight the house specialties were boiled, mashed, fried, and baked potatoes. There was also potato peel tea, scrambled eggs with coriander and potatoes, ash cooked potatoes, and buttered potatoes. Potatoes and more potatoes!
When I look back on that experience, it still amazes me how well we endured those difficult days: no one complained about the little or no variety of food. We gratefully enjoyed the potatoes, as at least we had that to eat.
The world bodybuilding champion who only ate fruits
When I turned seventeen, I legally emancipated myself from my parents and moved to Venezuela.
One day I was in downtown Caracas. While waiting for a friend, I looked at some newspaper covers on a newspaper stand. Suddenly, something caught my eye: a bodybuilding magazine featuring a champion’s image with this headline: Meet IFBB’s Professional Mr. International Champion, Andreas Cahling. He is a frugivore.
What? I immediately bought the magazine and began to read the interview with this 1980 world champion. The headline confirmed that Cahling was a frugivore, a person who eats only fruit (also called a fruitarian). I couldn’t believe it, so I kept on reading. The central part of it was something like:
Magazine: So how can you get such a sculpted body by eating fruits only? That is not possible! It is a well-known fact that you need protein to build muscles.
AC: Look, I only eat fruits (with their seeds), eggs, and dairy products. It is not true that you need to eat protein for building muscle, as your body cannot assimilate it directly. First, it needs to break down the proteins into their constituent amino acids. It’s only then that your body can develop the muscle mass it needs using those amino acids as building blocks. By eating fruit, I follow a shorter path to the desired result. That gives me health and provides everything my body demands.
Magazine: What about eggs and dairy products?
AC: They complement the fruits, but don’t forget their seeds. However, you need to eat the widest variety of fruits you can for this system to work. Also, quantity is a fundamental factor. Taking care of these two aspects of your diet is the only way to provide your body with the required amounts of all the nutrients it needs.
Magazine: How much fruit do you eat?
AC: Let’s say I start Monday with bananas, so my breakfast would consist of a dozen large bananas. My lunch could be half of a good-sized watermelon. At dinner, I would have eight apples or twelve large peaches. Apart from that, during the day, I would be eating cheese, eggs, and milk. Of course, on Tuesday I would have to eat different fruits, as well as other cheese.
Reading this article was like getting slapped. Somehow, I felt misled by the print media, the doctors, and the so-called “specialists.” I was twenty-three years old, and for the first time in my life, I felt confused.
“Maybe — I thought — no information should be taken as true just because it comes from a reputable source.” Perhaps the articles from The Reader’s Digest that I used to read aloud to my mom, the news and stories that I followed daily, and those medical axioms that I had always heard were all lies, or at least some of them, or at least in part. That day I lost faith in the dogmas that I took for granted for so long and decided to seek the truth for myself.
The video player we all have in our minds brought me images of my childhood back. Scenes of my mother preparing my sister’s and my foods and plenty of vegetables cooked in various ways. I saw her giving us fruits to eat: a couple of apples, or prickly pears, or sweet granadillas, or a quince or a couple of “olanges.”
I valued her caring wisdom once more. Suddenly, I felt sure that all these food and health events I had experienced since I was two years old concerning diet were not mere coincidences. I told myself that from that moment on, I would be alert and open-minded to new information in those matters. I also promised myself not to believe in anything an “authority” said without first doing my own research.
I did not become a vegetarian, however. Instead, I continued to apply the principles that I had learned thus far from my experiences:
- I tried to eat a good variety of foods, including those that I didn’t like: beef liver, cucumbers and lucuma (now I do like liver).
- I avoided eating processed foods or foods with chemical additives
- I tried to eat fruits and salads every day
- Whenever possible, I ate raw or stir-fried vegetables
- I exercised my body moderately
Portuguese olive oil drinkers
On those days, I used to have lunch at a downtown Caracas beanery in Plaza Candelaria. On one occasion that I went there, I found the place full, so I decided to look for another one in the surroundings (there were plenty of them around the square). I found one with a unique arrangement: a long wooden table occupied the center of the large dining room, and two equally long and continuous benches ran the length of it. I looked for an empty place to sit down.
But what struck me the most was the Taoist advice on not wasting these three bodily fluids: saliva, sweat, and semen. According to this Chinese tradition, the essence of a man’s life resides in them.
I soon discovered that maybe I was in the wrong place: everybody was talking in Portuguese. There were no waiters, and as soon as I sat down, one of the owners opened a bottle of beer and gave it to me. He greeted me in his language, and I returned the greeting with a gesture.
I drank the beer slowly as I watched the newcomers for understanding how they served the food there. In front of each seat there was a soup plate, and in the center of the table were two huge pots of steaming Portuguese soup (God, I still miss it). Each diner would help themselves from them. After finishing the soup, the owner would bring his clients the main dish of the day.
All along the table were six or seven bottles of “Gallo,” a brand of extra virgin olive oil that diners used at their discretion to add the finishing touch to their dishes. But literally, these people were drinking it! I saw them liberally pouring squirts of olive oil on their soups and main dishes. Although not in the same amount, I also tossed some on my soup and the main course. Wow! Since then, there is always a bottle of good EVOO on my table. Always.
The food there was excellent so from that day on I started visiting the place daily. I managed to be served, even without speaking a word in Portuguese. Of course, I developed a taste for intense-flavored extra virgin olive oil.
Avoiding the waste of our bodily fluids
My lifestyle was changing, and it was around these days that I felt the inclination to investigate the Chinese tradition concerning health. And thank God for that, because when I had my first health crisis, I was already willing to listen to an “Oriental” solution to my problem.
A couple of specialized bookstores in Caracas were helpful when trying to get some books. It impressed me to read that 3,000 years ago, the Chinese were aware of an energy “fluid” (Qi) that runs through the human body. Additionally, they developed a method for unlocking that energy when its precise circulation gets disturbed for some reason.
Then I read about the five food flavors according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): salty, pungent, sour, sweet, and bitter. Indeed, it struck me that these people wrote about them in medical treatises! The Chinese studied the effects that each of them produces on our health and well-being. For them, the culinary aspect of these flavors gets complemented by the medical one. As we all know, their wise combination became a distinctive feature of Chinese cuisine.
But what struck me the most was the Taoist advice on not wasting these three bodily fluids: saliva, sweat, and semen. According to this Chinese tradition, in them resides the essence of a man’s life. Taoism affirms that when these fluids diminish and become exhausted, health declines and death comes.
These readings confronted me again with a dogma that I had always heard or read: that sweating is good for our health because it allows us to eliminate toxins. After research and long consideration, I decided to adopt the Taoist advice in my lifestyle. And I couldn’t help but recall Professor Heini Wenzel’s instruction: “Exercise until you feel slightly tired.”
After this experience, I realized that I was discovering the path to perfect health without consciously searching for it. I decided to be alert and continue searching its precious truths. I took the resolution of making fitness and healthiness a lifestyle for me.
However, it would not take me long to make a great mistake, a direct attack on my health. In my next story, I’ll talk about it. I will also share a somewhat unusual experience: the day I discovered that Nina’s two didn’t smell bad. Finally, I will tell you about the cleanest newborn that Dr. Vera, a highly-regarded Venezuelan obstetrician, saw in his life: my second son.
Here’s to your future!
— Víctor Tapia —
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Víctor Tapia is a writer who specializes in bitcoin, internationalization, and wellness issues. For his website’s web presence, he writes and edits both English and Spanish articles, guides, and courses. Similarly, he focuses on producing material for other parties and produces Medium stories on various themes related to his field.
Víctor worked for many years in the field of food and beverages, both for the hospitality and food industries. Before founding My CBS in 2002, he was the General Manager at Parmalat S.p.A., the multinational food corporation, at its subsidiary in Curaçao. One of his activities is service coaching in any area of commerce and industry, including food and beverages.
You can get in touch with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, follow his posts on Medium, Mixturas (Spanish) and Completeness (English), or by visiting his website, My CBS.
