179
16
Picturing Vitality,
the Crystallisation
Fingerprint Method
Paul Doesburg
Crystal Lab
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, food is increasingly being divided into ‘ good’ and ‘ bad’. This perspective focuses on the
nutrients, rather than on the products that we actually eat. This nutrient-oriented framing of food
regards food quality as good when it contains few potentially harmful constituents – ‘ the bads’ – and
higher levels of health-supporting constituents – ‘ the goods’. Logical reasoning, right? However, when
you take a closer look, this issue is somewhat more complicated, because a living organism is much
more complex than a simple chain of cause–effect relations between single ingredients. Lycopene,
for instance, is a major antioxidant that is widely distributed in the human body, and is thought to
act as a preventive agent against prostate cancer. While isolated lycopene does appear to be effective
against single prostate cancer cells grown in a Petri dish, the results from animal and human patient
studies are ambiguous. A few studies demonstrated a preventive action from tomato powder ( which
contains lycopene), but not from isolated lycopene itself ( Applegate et al., 2019; Boileau et al., 2003).
Even more striking, the daily consumption of carrots by smokers appears to reduce the incidence of
lung cancer, a variant on the proverb ‘ An apple a day keeps the doctor away’. However, when you
regularly give smokers beta-carotene tablets – the most important antioxidant in carrots – the risk
of developing lung cancer actually increases. Why is that? Doctors aren’t completely sure about the
difference between the absorption of nutrients through food and their intake as a supplement, but
they do acknowledge that the relationship between diet and cancer is far more complex than simply
supplementing one’s daily nutrition with a few micronutrients ( Whitworth, 2006).
Clearly, this cause–effect approach has provided us with a wealth of information concerning
the structure and functioning of the inorganic world, but remains inadequate to understand organic
aspects such as shape, self-regulation and resilience 1 : characteristics of ‘ the whole plant’ or ‘ the
whole animal’ from which our food originates. Living organisms permanently protect their integrity
1 Vitality indicates how the ‘ self-regulation’ of an organism is expressed as ‘ resilience’ – resilience in the sense of
‘ elasticity’, the capacity to cope with challenges. This may be related to the product itself or to the effect of the product
on the consumer ( Kahl et al., 2012). Self-regulation is the ability of organisms to adjust and maintain various physiological and other biological parameters at comparatively constant levels. Individuality is the characteristic ( species-specific)
nature of living organisms.
CONTENTS
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 179
The Crystallisation Method ............................................................................................................ 180
The Influence of the Agricultural Method ..................................................................................... 184
A New Perspective on Food Quality .............................................................................................. 185
References ...................................................................................................................................... 186
DOI: 10.1201/9780429440939-18
16
Picturing Vitality,
the Crystallisation
Fingerprint Method
Paul Doesburg
Crystal Lab
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, food is increasingly being divided into ‘ good’ and ‘ bad’. This perspective focuses on the
nutrients, rather than on the products that we actually eat. This nutrient-oriented framing of food
regards food quality as good when it contains few potentially harmful constituents – ‘ the bads’ – and
higher levels of health-supporting constituents – ‘ the goods’. Logical reasoning, right? However, when
you take a closer look, this issue is somewhat more complicated, because a living organism is much
more complex than a simple chain of cause–effect relations between single ingredients. Lycopene,
for instance, is a major antioxidant that is widely distributed in the human body, and is thought to
act as a preventive agent against prostate cancer. While isolated lycopene does appear to be effective
against single prostate cancer cells grown in a Petri dish, the results from animal and human patient
studies are ambiguous. A few studies demonstrated a preventive action from tomato powder ( which
contains lycopene), but not from isolated lycopene itself ( Applegate et al., 2019; Boileau et al., 2003).
Even more striking, the daily consumption of carrots by smokers appears to reduce the incidence of
lung cancer, a variant on the proverb ‘ An apple a day keeps the doctor away’. However, when you
regularly give smokers beta-carotene tablets – the most important antioxidant in carrots – the risk
of developing lung cancer actually increases. Why is that? Doctors aren’t completely sure about the
difference between the absorption of nutrients through food and their intake as a supplement, but
they do acknowledge that the relationship between diet and cancer is far more complex than simply
supplementing one’s daily nutrition with a few micronutrients ( Whitworth, 2006).
Clearly, this cause–effect approach has provided us with a wealth of information concerning
the structure and functioning of the inorganic world, but remains inadequate to understand organic
aspects such as shape, self-regulation and resilience 1 : characteristics of ‘ the whole plant’ or ‘ the
whole animal’ from which our food originates. Living organisms permanently protect their integrity
1 Vitality indicates how the ‘ self-regulation’ of an organism is expressed as ‘ resilience’ – resilience in the sense of
‘ elasticity’, the capacity to cope with challenges. This may be related to the product itself or to the effect of the product
on the consumer ( Kahl et al., 2012). Self-regulation is the ability of organisms to adjust and maintain various physiological and other biological parameters at comparatively constant levels. Individuality is the characteristic ( species-specific)
nature of living organisms.
CONTENTS
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 179
The Crystallisation Method ............................................................................................................ 180
The Influence of the Agricultural Method ..................................................................................... 184
A New Perspective on Food Quality .............................................................................................. 185
References ...................................................................................................................................... 186
DOI: 10.1201/9780429440939-18