By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Some Sundays ago, we discussed that plants are the only food factories on earth. They are the only creation on earth that can create food from soil and water, air and sunshine. Cows, goats, chickens, fish, etc. only process the plants to produce meat and eggs (for chickens). The businesses that we call factories only process plants and animals, too, to make them last longer and make money. They don’t create food. If ever they create food, then this is fake food, not natural so detrimental to health. As one wise person said “The human body follows the law of yin and yang. Life can’t exist without conforming to the law of nature. Connection with nature leads to health. Lack of connection leads to sickness. If you do not connect with nature, how long do you think your body can last? One day, you will run out of energy.” Food, as we all know, is one of our basic needs for survival.
We don’t live by rice alone. We don’t live by eating alone. We also need to breathe and the gas that we need is only oxygen and even more urgently. We may be able to live without food for more than a month (as reported by survival stories), but we can’t live more than 5 minutes without oxygen. So where does our oxygen come from? Not from the factory. Like it or not, the oxygen we need comes from plants only, not from animals. People and animals exhale carbon dioxide and fart of plant-eating mammals like cows is mainly carbon dioxide and methane expel- products of fermented vegetables. Fart of meat-eaters like cats and some people I know contain sulfur, ammonia and other foul-smelling gases – products of rotting meat. So there, once again, only plants produce the oxygen that we need.
In line with this, I am happy that many of us have discovered or rediscovered the joy of gardening in our cocooned life this year. Although perhaps many just wanted to have those beautiful greens and other vibrant colors around them (which is very uplifting especially to anxious souls), I suspect many did not realize that those plants also added oxygen in their environment and their homes and improved their lung function and ultimately their energy and health. Some plants are even grown inside enclosed spaces to detoxify the air. In a sense this is true because plants surely absorb carbon dioxide which we exhale as “waste” and they give off oxygen so the room’s air becomes cleaner. This is especially significant if the room has no ventilation or in a congested area.
Now the question is, how many trees can produce the oxygen that one person needs for a year? Some calculations in internet say 7-8 trees are needed by one person in a year. Meaning that those trees will have to survive for the lifetime of that person. But then, oxygen production will depend on the maturity of the tree and the amount of their leaves as these are where most of the photosynthesis takes place. So this is just an estimate. Do we have enough trees for the ever growing population of the world? What do you think? The problem is that as the populations grow, more trees are cut to give way to agriculture and buildings and other human activity. So our trees are decreasing as the years go by. And then we have these forest and bush fires in the densely-forested Amazon region and elsewhere. Meaning our natural oxygen supply is diminishing. Scary. You see, even if this is occurring at the other side of the globe, we are still in one Mother Earth bubble. What happens to tiny Timbuktu will affect giant China. Remember the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo? That caused a drop of the global temperature by 1 degree F. But the equation of survival is not as simple as trees times oxygen equals people.
Part of the life equation is global temperature and climate. We need the original cool climate of the earth to be healthy. What’s happening now is global warming because of too much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from our factories and other human activities. (More discussion on global warming and health in later issues.) We need to preserve and reclaim our forests as these have the capacity to absorb toxic gases.
We cannot underestimate the value of plants for our survival and wellness. Aside from food, they provide clean air and livable climate. What more, they are the only ones who can hold water so it will not run straight to sea. Or can you survive with seawater? Now, there’s no one or two plants that will provide these essentials to us. Our loving Creator has provided everything we need in nature. Depending on where we are on earth, our loving Creator gave us the community of plants and the ecosystem that we need, each part performing a function which the modern scientist may not have discovered. And if the modern scientist still can’t decipher the logic of how nature is designed, I guess he or she needs to be humble enough to accept his or her ignorance and limited capacity to understand and trust the wisdom of the Creator. Or does he or she like oxygen, food & water from the factory? Things that are present in a space bubble – oxygen tanks, freeze-dried food and water bottles. Oops, how about their pee and poo in that bubble kaya? Again, I quote from one of my fav K drama, My Love from the Star: “If you do not connect with nature, how long do you think your body can last?” Am I and are you doing enough to preserve and nurture our native plants?***
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“They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.” Ephesians 4:18
