This book is the sequel to Dynamics of Nutrition by Gerhard Schmidt, M.D., and builds upon the same purpose: to help us develop a new conception of nutrition through a new view of humanity and the world. Guided by the spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner, Schmidt strives to open up a more realistic view of the nutrition field, building upon the insights of his prior book to discuss nutrition in actual practice. This topic remains critically important, with more and more people recognizing the need to look beyond the modern nutritional dogma.

Topics covered include:

• Milk: a universal foodstuff
• Protein: the indispensable formative force of life
• Fat substances: stimulators of the warmth processes and the ensoulment of the organisms
• Carbohydrates (sugar) as mediators of form and consciousness: the form and nature of carbohydrates
• The mineral world in nutrition: spirit activity in earthly matter
• The so-called vitamins: the necessity of correcting our current viewpoint
• Nutrition in the East and West: the hygienic task of the Middle

Excerpts:
“...Rudolf Steiner himself was able to progress from spiritual knowledge to practical life — to nutritional practice — and thus to give many concrete explanations, indications and suggestions.... In the Essentials of Nutrition, we hope to take a further step along the path from insight into food to actual nutritional practice. It will become quite clear that one can progress to realistic conclusions about daily nutrition only by means of this type of genuine knowledge, to the extent that it is successful. Cheap recipes and instructions smother one’s real inner activity, and they cannot bring about the intended change which is necessary in this field. I am not denying the value of cookbooks and the like, but am convinced that whoever earnestly works through what is here presented will be able to find his own valid nutritional form and develop his daily practice.”

“Present-day nutritional behavior is a symptom of the current soul-spiritual situation of humanity in general. Man has left the protection of a realm of instincts previously in harmony with higher beings. He has thus fallen into a lack of direction, as he seeks increasingly to follow the animal side of his nature. One may speak of a ‘lack of purpose’ in eating, but we need to go even beyond that concept to arrive at the essence of the situation. As we have shown, there is a well-founded pleasure in eating. In earlier times people enjoyed their generally nutritious food and thus experienced the unity of their subjective and objective nutritional needs.”

Author: Gerhard Schmidt
Paperback: 313 pages
Publisher: Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association (1987)
Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 inches

Price: $7.96
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