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Quotes about Western Culture from the world's top natural health / natural living authors

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"The usual assumption in western culture is that it is located in our brains. But if this is true, how could thoughts or intentions affect other people? Is it that the thought is 'out there', somewhere else? Or is there such a thing as an extended mind, a collective thought? Does what we think or dream influence anyone else? These were the kinds of questions that preoccupied William Braud." - Lynne Mctaggart, The Field - The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe (Get the book.)

"CBT is actually based on a very old idea in western culture, specifically the work of the Stoic philosophers, including Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Epictetus wrote in The Enchiridion, "Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them." In experiments, Beck found that after a successful or positive experience, "depressed patients had a positive shift in mood, increased optimism, and increased motivation."3 Creating such a positive feedback loop for patients disconfirmed their negative feelings about themselves." - Charles Barber, Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation (Get the book.)

"The deep roots of this narrative lie in long-standing Orientalist tendencies in western culture to conceive the East as a foil to our own Western values and lifestyles, generally to our (i.e., the West's) advantage." - Anne Harrington, The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine (Get the book.) "In contrast, "the group that was most acculturated to western culture had a three- to five-fold excess in CHD prevalence."17 What did traditional Japanese culture offer that might account for these health benefits? Marmot's answer was: a close-knit community, that is, a community that provided its members with a great deal of stress-reducing emotional and social support." - Anne Harrington, The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine (Get the book.) "Instead of talking politics, he engaged in discussions about Buddhism, western culture, different religious traditions, and ethics. He also signaled an interest in talking about Western science—a personal fascination of his that went back to his boyhood (he was fond of saying that if he had not become the Dalai Lama, he would have liked to be an engineer). "I'd like to listen to your experiences," he told a panel of scholars in Texas who had gathered to engage with him. " - Anne Harrington, The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine (Get the book.)

"Thomas Reardon, then-president of the American Medical Association illustrated, but also acknowledged, this perception clearly in 2000: 'Treatments that initially look 'alternative' to western culture may be part of the medical mainstream in the originating culture. Some estimates suggest that 80% of the world uses "alternative" treatment as their primary means of healthcare while struggling to afford Western medicine.'33 This was certainly my own experience living in rural Nigeria." - Roberta Bivins, Alternative Medicine?: A History (Get the book.)

"Unfortunately, in western culture daydreaming has become demonized. If you daydream you are considered lazy and, in our modern production-mode society, this behavior is considered one of the worst of all evils. Christina Frank of WebMD says, "But daydreaming can be beneficial in many ways and, ironically, can actually boost productivity. Plus, it's something almost everyone does naturally. Psychologists estimate that we daydream for one-third to one-half of our waking hours, although a single daydream lasts only a few minutes." - Pam Montgomery, Plant Spirit Healing: A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness (Get the book.)

"Alzheimer's has been the way western culture has described brain aging for the past one hundred years. By taking that myth apart from a biological, social, and historical perspective, I will show you that it doesn't need to be the dominant story in your life or the life of an aging family member. Once you have removed all the dead language, the secondhand dogma, the truths that are not your own hut other people's, the mottos, the slogans . . ." - Peter J. Whitehouse and Daniel George, The Myth of Alzheimer's: What You Aren't Being Told About Today's Most Dreaded Diagnosis (Get the book.) "With western culture placing such emphasis on the importance of cognition, many of us suffer from an almost neurotic fear of an inevitable decline in our ability to store and recall memories, particularly episodic and semantic memories that seem to be indispensable placeholders of our identity. In fact, in most surveys, nearly half of people over fifty report that their memory is abnormally impaired, with many worrying that this foreshadows a descent into Alzheimer's disease." - Peter J. Whitehouse and Daniel George, The Myth of Alzheimer's: What You Aren't Being Told About Today's Most Dreaded Diagnosis (Get the book.)

"Diabetes and degenerative diseases only became common when Eskimos began cooking their food and consuming depleted, refined carbohydrates and processed foods, both effected by encroachment of western culture. The cooking destroys enzymes in the raw fat and in the raw meat. According to Dr. Howell in Food Enzymes for Health and Longevity, through the introduction of cooking, the Eskimos have become one of the most unhealthy cultures. According to one study,125 as of the late eighties, these were the top ten foods eaten by Alaskan natives, ranked by frequency of consumption: 1." - Gabriel Cousens, There Is a Cure for Diabetes: The Tree of Life 21-Day+ Program (Get the book.) "In 1970 the Pimas' ability to fish was compromised by some river dams and they turned more to western culture junk foods. The rate skyrocketed when genetics and a diabetogenic Western diet collided. The rate of diabetes is dramatically affected by the genetics for diabetes in a particular culture, and many scientists believe genetics may explain the obesity problem among Native Americans. The first U.S. researcher to learn about the Mexican Pimas was Leslie O." - Gabriel Cousens, There Is a Cure for Diabetes: The Tree of Life 21-Day+ Program (Get the book.) "And the exciting thing about this in our advanced western culture is that we are able to acquire foods and food concentrates that are allowing us to access more powerful forms of nutrition than our ancestors ever dreamed possible. This means that we can do even better than just achieve a nondiabetic physiology, but a post-diabetic physiology in which one's health is better than it was before the diabetes, and better than most people in the world who have never developed diabetes." - Gabriel Cousens, There Is a Cure for Diabetes: The Tree of Life 21-Day+ Program (Get the book.) "This assumption also is supported by the major long-lived human cultures averaging about 1,500 calories/day as compared to our Western culture's intake of 3,000-3,500 calories/day. My clinical observations have also been that blood sugars increase when diabetics overeat, even if it is the overeating of healthy foods. This book is recommending a range of 70 to 85 as the optimal FBS. Borderline impaired fasting glucose tolerance is 86 to 99 (a precursor for pre-diabetes); and an FBS at 100 and over is considered pre-diabetes by the Tree of Life 21-Day+ standards." - Gabriel Cousens, There Is a Cure for Diabetes: The Tree of Life 21-Day+ Program (Get the book.)

"Cosmetics mask the appearance of disease and poor health What people are doing in western culture, instead of addressing these diseases and changing their lifestyles to have healthy circulation and healthy coloration, is slapping on these colored cosmetics containing dangerous ingredients in order to enhance the appearance of their lips, cheeks or eyes, to create more contrast on their face or to cover up blemishes on their skin. It's a perfect metaphor for western culture, which is all about appearances. It's all about covering up the truth hidden beneath the skin." - Mike Adams, Spam Filters for Your Brain (Get the book.)

"Singer and Grismaijer found that the Maoris, the indigenous people of New Zealand who integrated into western culture, had the same rates of breast cancer as their western peers. The marginalized aboriginals of Australia, interestingly, had practically no breast cancer. The same was true for westernized Japanese, Fijians, and women from other cultures who converted to the practice of bra wearing; when they did so, their rates of breast cancer soared. In the early 1990s Singer and Grismaijer studied the bra-wearing habits of 4,500 women in 5 cities across the U.S.." - Andreas Moritz, Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Survival Mechanism (Get the book.)

"Interestingly, although perhaps coincidentally, these are the very experiences that were edited from Christian biblical texts and have been discouraged in western culture. Today, however, all of that is changing. Men are being encouraged to honor their emotions, and women are exploring new ways to express the power that's such a natural part of their existence." - Gregg Braden, The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief (Get the book.)

"To do this, we have to look at a brief history of nutrition in the United States and western culture. Historically, in the early part of the 20th century, disease was primarily caused by true malnutrition — or not having enough food. And it was a K7 straightforward message for the USDA and government regulatory agencies to tell everybody to eat more. The food producers loved this message as well. Using this strategy, people were told to eat more meat, eat more eggs, drink more milk, eat more butter, and basically get more food into their bodies." - Mike Adams, The Seven Laws of Nutrition (Get the book.)

"In the former case, although these are used in religious, superstitious, social, and medical contexts in many, if not all, societies, there is, as yet, little place for hallucinogens in the treatment of patients in either orthodox or herbal medicine in western culture. The other category not considered, drugs of abuse, is now practically synonymous with the term drug in present western culture and is taken by large numbers of people not as preventatives or cures for disease but as "recreational" drugs to relieve the pressures or boredom of ordinary existence." - Amarjit S. Basra, Handbook of Medicinal Plants (Get the book.)

"The beauty stuff is symbolic of how we've been brainwashed about western culture. It's the best thing to look Caucasian and blonde, with pretty light skin. And it's not just about beauty products, it's about clothes, iPods, books, TV shows, everything," Anne said. "What needs to happen is that we have to reconnect with who we really are." Mirror, Mirror on the Wall Ken Harris admits to feeling a bit guilty about what he does for a living. As a "digital photo retoucher," he airbrushes fashion photos of the glamorous models who broadcast idealized images of beauty around the world." - Stacy Malkan, Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry (Get the book.)

"Before they came into contact with western culture, they conferred place-names that told stories, names that could teach. "For them, a place-name would not be something that is," explains author and professor Kim Stafford, "but something that happens. They called one patch of ocean 'Where Salmon Gather.' They called one bend in the river 'Insufficient Canoe.' They called a certain meadow 'Blind Women Steaming Clover Roots Become Ducks.'" - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.)

"The diversity of wine and its complexity is a feature of western culture. Wine is important in cooking (sauces, coq au vin, etc.). Grape leaves stuffed with rice and mince are the dolmades of Greek cooking. a by-product is grapeseed oil. Nutritional value Grapes contain sugar (15-25%), tartaric and malic acids, minerals and modest amounts of vitamin C. Wasabia japonica wasabi Wasabi stem Wasabi products Description a perennial herb with thick stems, large, round leaves (like a pumpkin) and white flowers similar to those of horseradish. Origin & history Indigenous to Japan." - Ben-Erik van Wyk, Food Plants of the World: An illustrated guide (Get the book.)

"When overwhelmed, we transform our distress into narratives that are culturally defined and constrained. Our western culture predisposes us to frame any loss of a sense of well-being or other forms of psychosocial distress into idioms of physical, rather than psychosocial, distress. As we have seen, the possibility that psychosocial confounders exacerbate any aspect of our infirmity is anathema, tantamount to the condemnation "It's in your head!" So we leap to the conclusion that the reason we can't cope relates to the intensity of the physical distress." - Nortin M. Hadler, The Last Well Person: How to Stay Well Despite the Health-Care System (Get the book.)

"By pursuing a strategy of optimum nutrition and avoiding all foods and food ingredients that promote disease, you can live a life that is free of the chronic diseases currently plaguing western culture. These include but are not limited to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis, mental depression, irritable bowel syndrome, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, and many other diseases. You may wonder "How can diet actually prevent and even help reverse these diseases?" It's very simple." - Mike Adams, The Seven Laws of Nutrition (Get the book.)

"It's a perfect metaphor for western culture, which is all about appearances. It's all about covering up the truth hidden beneath the skin. We see this in our economic policies, federal spending and even household spending and the rising level of consumer debt. We see it in the way we vote for politicians who are short-term thinkers and have only the short-term entitlement interests of voters in mind, rather than the long-term interests of the country." - Mike Adams, Spam Filters for Your Brain (Get the book.)

"In contrast, those who embraced western culture, with its emphasis on competition and material acquisition, were afforded no such protection. Italian-Americans, Stress and CHD In 1962, researchers began paying close attention to the people of Roseto, a picturesque town located in the northeastern corner of Northampton County, Pennsylvania. Roseto was founded by Italian stoneworkers who had begun migrating to the area in the 1880's." - Anthony Colpo, The Great Cholesterol Con: Why Everything You've been Told About Cholesterol, Diet and Heart Disease is Wrong (Get the book.) "The group that adopted western culture most extensively, however, was two-and-a-half to five times more likely to suffer from CHD. In order to disentangle the relationship between culture and diet, Marmot and his colleagues proceeded to further divide the traditional and non-traditional groups on the basis of their dietary habits. They discovered that those who adhered to Japanese cultural traditions but ate higher fat American foods, were far better protected than those who adopted the American lifestyle but ate lower fat Japanese fare(17)." - Anthony Colpo, The Great Cholesterol Con: Why Everything You've been Told About Cholesterol, Diet and Heart Disease is Wrong (Get the book.)

"In modern western culture, time is linear. We see it going forward, in a kind of eternal march of progress toward the future. But in pagan cultures, it is circular. For instance, the Hindi word for tomorrow, kal, is the same as the word for yesterday, because yesterday is in the future, too: kal (yesterday)—aaj (today)—kal (tomorrow). Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and yesterday, again. Rise and decline. It makes one wonder. Over time, everything breaks down and dies. Even granite eventually is worn down to a fine sand. No tree ever grows to the sky, they say on Wall Street." - William Bonner, Lila Rajiva, Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics (Agora Series) (Get the book.)

"This may invite men to seek medical solutions to restore or retain the body's abilities, especially in western culture wherein "all of us are encouraged to believe that our problem, aging, is natural, inevitable, awful, but controllable" (Gullette, 1997: 231). This male anxiety about aging and masculinity, while not ubiquitous, is sufficiently common in American society to create a strong market for medical solutions." - Peter Conrad, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders (Get the book.)

"In modern western culture, people dissect, analyze, manipulate, and consume everything without limits. If you allow extremist consumerism and industrialization to rob you of anything sacred, you rob yourself of powerful sources for healing. Western medicine does not mock sacred spaces, but it doesn't truly appreciate them. It doesn't acknowledge how important it is to create an event and space outside of the ordinary. The Hebrew word for holiness is kedusha, and it means both "to sanctify" and "to set apart." - Bruce E. Levine, Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Get the book.)

"Pagels finds one in the myth of a diabolical conspiracy that recurs in western culture, "especially," she says, "when we are thinking politically and socially." The myth appears first during the second century, when it is directed against the early Christians. It shows up again in the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. And then, with a leap and a bound, it comes calling in the Satanic child abuse cases in America in the 1980s and 1990s. There is a difference, though. The child abuse panic had two elements, not just one: fear of child abuse and fear of Satanism." - William Bonner, Lila Rajiva, Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics (Agora Series) (Get the book.)

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