BACK TO NATURE
Healing, detoxing, and feeling great at The Farm
We complicate our lives too much," says Eckard Rempe. "Nature works in enormously simple ways."
Founder of The Farm at San Benito, Rempe believes that much of the ills of the body, mind, and soul today spring from what people do to their own selves. Over the centuries, civilization has clearly favored lifestyles that, though convenient for its members, gradually erodes their ability--one gathers from Rempe--for self-healing that is said to be innate in all of them.
"We are all violating natural law on a daily basis," he says. "All of us cannot help it by living in a large city," he adds.
At The Farm, this philosophy informs their commitment to healing and to life.
The Farm at San Benito is the first and only health-care facility in the Philippines not based on the healing principles of conventional medicine but on what are known as alternative medical therapies-the kind Hippocrates taught and practiced over 2,000 years ago.
While modern medicine has increasingly moved toward segmenting and specializing its services, The Farm is doing the opposite by following holistic principles, applying the universal law of all things being one and interconnected. Explains Rempe: "Our approach to health care invariably includes the whole person--his physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional side. Integration of traditional medicine and alternative medicine is practiced only if advantageous to the patient."
It is best for people to step aside and let nature take its course, but they can improve external and internal conditions to become more conducive to healing, he adds. These are practiced at The Farm: helping people maximize their self-healing power, improving their immune system, aligning them to the healing forces of nature, freeing their bodies of toxicity. The Farm does not offer symptomatic therapy by way of surgery or prescription drugs but rely on the principles of cause and effect, and of course, detoxification.
Dis-ease, not disease
The Farm believes that there is no such thing as disease, at least not in the sense that people are conditioned to see this physical phenomenon. Rather, explains Rempe, it sees "dis-ease" as the body's reaction or warning signs to obstruction of a one's life force; or else it's called "mistakes in lifestyle."
Negative influences to a person's health come from external (pollution, noise, toxicity) and internal (negative emotions, fears, greed, hate, etc.) sources. Reestablishing a more harmonious balance in a person's life on these levels goes a long way to ensure living a disease-free life.
"Every human being is a creator; what one thinks, what one says, what one does are what ultimately one becomes--healthy or ill, happy or unhappy," Rempe asserts.
The Farm accepts anybody suffering from any chronic or acute diseases. However, it strongly believes in the old adage: an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
Detoxification
Today, people are faced with toxicity--poisonous chemicals, food additives, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, air and water pollution, and many forms of radiation, and not to forget toxicity coming from prescription drugs.
Diseases that can be directly related to toxicity include cancer, allergies, cardiovascular diseases, weak immune system, obesity, fatigue, arthritis, and others. All result from clogging of body tissues and tubes and suffocating our cells, starving our vital energies.
The human body turns into a toxic state when it takes in more than it needs and eliminates. It requires a state of balance--"homeostasis." When this balance is disturbed by the influx of toxins hidden in food or other substances like alcohol, drugs, pollution, and others, one's overall health is easily jeopardized.
The accumulation of toxins is sometimes beyond people's control. Although people may consciously try avoiding food laced with artificial substances and going fully organic, people cannot choose the air they breathe, the water they drink, or substances they come into physical contact with.
However, toxicity does not only come from external sources. People's bodies internally produce toxins through their regular functions, and these have to be eliminated because they may cause inflammation of cells and tissues and block normal organ functions.
These can be prevented or treated, mostly with overwhelming results, by undergoing cleansing and detoxification.
Better dietary choices have to be made; these include the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. Animal fats and proteins must be reduced or entirely eliminated; dangerous substances must no longer find their way into people's bodies. The intake of fresh water is also a very important factor.
Rempe says that the benefits of physical detoxification have been known throughout history, as many cleansing and fasting rituals of past cultures and eras proved. "They were true then as they are true today, even if modern medical science may sometimes belittle them now," he says.
Eating raw
Enzymes are crucial catalysts for every bodily function and are present in a perfect balance in all raw foods.
Cooking--specifically heating foods above 42 degrees Celsius--destroys enzymes. "Therefore the body's own enzyme bank must be depleted to digest food," says Rempe. "This is why after eating a cooked meal, many people feel heavy, tired, and lacking in energy. The constant depletion of the body's enzymes is the precursor to 'dis-ease' and the degenerative conditions most people consider a normal part of getting older."
Adding more raw foods to the diet helps restore vitality, energy, and "life force" to the entire system, Rempe argues. "People can actually start feeling younger by eating more foods in their natural, unadulterated state." Other benefits of eating raw include weight loss and relief from symptoms of degenerative diseases such as arthritis, allergies, diabetes, and even cancer.
Every uncooked food designed by nature contains the perfect combination of enzymes, trace minerals, and micronutrients the body needs to process the food efficiently through the digestive system. However, most food products from supermarket shelves are often highly processed, cooked, irradiated, bleached, polished, or sterilized. They also contain potentially toxic taste additives, artificial colorings, preservatives, remnants of pesticides, fungicides, animal or artificial hormones, antibiotics, and dozen of various petrochemical substances.
With these considered, The Farm upholds the benefits of a primarily raw diet to health. It has three basic goals in introducing people to delicious and nutritious food:
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To satisfy the eyes, palate, and emotions with beautifully prepared dishes.
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To educate them about the benefits of eating a plant-based, primarily raw-food diet.
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To prove that eating for health need never be boring.
The chefs at The Farm collaborate to make dining a unique, pleasurable, and satisfying experience on every level. People will find tastes, textures, colors, and fragrances to satisfy all of the senses. They stress: "It's not a 'diet,' it is a lifestyle."
From pâtés and crackers to main dishes, from fresh fruits to ice cream and cakes--these can be found on the menu of The Farm.
Using their own methods of soaking, blending, dehydration, culturing, and a bit of special magic, the culinary experts at The Farm transform vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fruits into amazing offerings.
Also, The Farm uses specially designed dehydrators that give raw foods the appearance of being cooked without overheating and destroying the enzymes. For instance, soup is served warm instead of hot to preserve these valuable nutritional rejuvenators.
The Farm also offers lectures and workshops on how to prepare these foods. Information may be obtained at thefarm.com.ph.
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