By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
I love going out after a heavy rain or after the storm. I can feel the freshness in the air and the cleanness of the environment.
Water is a great cleansing agent. In fact it is nature’s best cleanser. It is what people have been using for centuries. Soap is just to “melt” oil, but it is still water that will wash away whatever you want removed. We have been conditioned to think that soap and detergents are the cleansing agents. Well, think again.
Many years ago, we conducted a means test in Mountain Province and I found it hard to believe that many families consumed only one soap a month. Years later when me and my family turned macrobiotic, I found out that soap is indeed hard to consume if you don’t have a lot of oils to remove, whether from your pots and plates or from your body. I now understand why one can take a bath without using any soap and still be clean just like they did before in the Cordillera. And why we can wash clothes and anything else without soap. But try washing anything without water. Not even alcohol can do the cleaning job of water.
What makes water such a wonderful cleanser is that it doesn’t have any adverse effect to the environment. Unlike soaps and detergents which contain toxic chemicals which later on will be absorbed by the plants that we and pigs eat and then will accumulate in our bodies. These toxic detergents and other synthetic chemical cleansers that we drain to the creeks and rivers will also be taken in by the fishes on to our bodies. These will also find their way to our ground water sources polluting the very water that we need to drink.
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Just as we need water to clean the outside of our bodies and our environment, we need water to clean the inside of our bodies. Not only that, we need water for all our body systems to function – our body is about 70% water. Without water, any living creature will die after a short time.
One of the most frequent questions I get after I tell people the disadvantages of milk and chocolate drinks is “What then shall we drink?” Well, the answer is “ Water”. It’s common sense. That’s what creatures have been drinking all throughout the centuries. That is what Ina and Ama and our a-alapos drank. And they didn’t get sick from drinking water. In fact, they lived long lives. And they smelled good.
But just what greed has done to us regarding our food, it is conditioning us to believe that the sugared drinks that it is selling is better than water. But let us look at the evidence. Our parents and a-alapos certainly had better health than us today- they had strong bones and more complete teeth. I remember when I was a young child my dad would crush the bones of the native chicken with his teeth so we can eat the marrow. That’s a tough job. And yet they didn’t drink milk or milo (our generic term for chocolate drink) or yakult.
What about coffee? Ask the olds and they will say they drank rice or corn coffee way back then. The regular coffee is not indigenous to the Cordillera. Some tribes like in Central Bontoc have been drinking coffee but they took it black then, no sugar no creamer. But take note, caffeine, just like alcohol is dehydrating thus it is recommended that for every cup of coffee or alcohol, drink an extra cup of water.
Of course, the best drink or beverage is fresh spring water. It has no calories and yet contains some important minerals that we need. Boiling it will destroy some of these nutrients. Soft drinks or coffee or milk or chocolate contain sugar that need to be digested. At the same time sugar slows down digestion. And since these are calories, these will produce extra fat and blood sugar swings. They will also increase acid secretion in the stomach. Almost all processed drinks contain “chemicals that are added for color, flavor, preservation, and many other reasons. Some of these may irritate the delicate stomach linings, and some may require the liver and kidneys to detoxify and dispose of them.” (Health Power by Aileen Lundington, MD & Hans Diehl, DrHSc, MPH). How complicated! Water does not pose these problems.
Let us be grateful here in the Cordilleras for our abundant clean spring water. It is ironic that we buy bottled water all the way from Manila. We should be the ones selling fresh spring water.
But we have to protect our water sources or else it won’t be long before we will be buying not only drinking water but even bath water which is happening in some town centers. People have discovered long ago that water is life and thus have evolved practices to care for and protect our sources of water. We don’t cement springs as these will dry up – well, perhaps it’s like choking it. We also have this indigenous practice of not polluting our water sources, not even soap is to be used near water sources. Bathing or washing near springs is a no-no.
It’s so sad that we, Igorots, by the looks of our land, have lost our sense of respect for the environment and nature. Look at how we overuse soaps and detergents and other abrasive cleaning agents, how we dump garbage anywhere, how we cut down trees left and right, how we cement land leaving no breathing spaces…. Sigh. ***
