Having drawn attention in the previous chapters of the present book to the disharmony that the consumption of blood, fat and meat causes in the spiritual as well as the physical organism of the human being the great question will arise for every earnestly seeking reader: What is the ideal food?
      In order that the answer to this should not be too discouraging it will here be necessary to give a brief overview of the attitude of meat-eaters to the absolutely natural food for human beings. This food is so simple, so little sophisticated and devoid of spices and stimulants that for the habitual meat-eater it will seem just as boring and impossible as water or milk would be for the alcoholic or drunkard. Just as the latter has cultivated a quite unnatural desire as far as drinking is concerned, so have the adherents of animal nutritional products, even if unconsciously and over a far longer span of time, cultivated in themselves a totally unnatural desire as far as food is concerned. People, through a great many generations, have so accustomed themselves to the taste of meat-products that, where previously they evoked natural disgust, they now evoke great unnatural pleasure. Just as the organism, through habituation to tobacco, alcohol and other unnatural stimulants, loses its natural ability to react to these poisonous substances, these thereby becoming "stimulants", so too does the organism, through habituation, lose its natural ability to react to the poisonous substances appearing in the form of animal food, whereby these, like tobacco and alcohol, evoke an unnatural feeling of pleasure. But even if the habituation to some degree hardens the organism against the effects of the poisonous substances, it cannot be denied that the organism in the long run becomes completely undermined. This undermining is visible mainly through occult sight, which can follow the individual through numerous incarnations.
      Since it is the purpose of the sense of taste to create aversion or repugnance in the individual's consciousness to unnatural nutritional products and create a desire for natural ones, it is here evident that the meat-eater's sense of taste is lost since it does not create aversion to blood products, but on the contrary lets their taste, as previously mentioned, be a very great pleasure. But feeling pleasure from things that destroy or undermine the organism and whose nature should therefore, by means of the sense of taste, be hostile to the individual, is the same as a vice. Breaking of the habit of eating the bodies or bodily parts of animals is thus the same as getting rid of a vice. But getting rid of a vice sometimes costs tremendous effort and willpower. Liberation from this vice consists in transforming the warped sense of taste so that it regains its natural ability to react to damaging stimulants. But transforming the sense of taste can only be done by getting used to natural products. What makes this process of habituation so difficult is that the natural products, because of the faulty sense of taste, are, if not disgusting, then boring or less satisfying for the spoilt individual. But just as tobacco, alcohol and other unnatural stimulants were repulsive and unpleasant before one became accustomed to them but gradually came to produce a feeling of pleasure, so too will it be possible for the natural nutritional products gradually, through a process of habituation, to return once more to promoting the real, healthy and natural feeling of pleasure in the individual concerned for which Nature originally created him. But training is required.
      The fact that this vice is universal – one's parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, great-grandparents, friends and acquaintances and so on as a rule being also victims of this – does not change the principle or cancel out the effects of the vice, but, on the contrary, in many cases blinds the individual's sense of reason so that he does not see clearly in the field concerned, indeed, is sometimes simply suggestionized by these circumstances into believing that the entire problem of faulty nutrition is not a problem but absolutely in harmony with Nature and therefore also in harmony with health. And it is a matter of course that this attitude of consciousness is absolutely fatal for the desire for what is natural. Such refined individuals would therefore never come out of this suggestion, and therefore out of the vice, if the eternal laws on which Nature is based did not have the effect that a vice can never in any case whatsoever exist without being identical with the undermining of the organism in question, quite unaffected by the extent, however great, to which it may be a pleasure for the individual concerned. And it is this undermining that, in the form of all existing organic illnesses, is the greatest instigator for people's evolution towards the true human food. As the illnesses increase to the same extent as people's nutritional aberrations increase, and as absolute health or an existence free of illness is thereby impossible as long as the vice or the narcotic-animal source of nutrition is maintained, all people, through their organic sufferings and illnesses, will ultimately be led to a purer source of nutrition, to absolute health.
      The main factor in the leading of mankind towards the real human food, towards health, is thus not ordinary propaganda in the form of speeches and writings, for, even if these were totally lacking, mankind would all the same inevitably be led forward to being in harmony with Nature. The mainstay in this leading of mankind is the sufferings or illnesses. But written or spoken information is a splendid supplement to the sufferings and makes evolution progress more quickly for those beings who have reached so far through the sufferings that they have become receptive to the theoretical form of influence and want to, and have energy to, comply with it. For the other beings all teaching or theoretical influence is quite without meaning. For these the narcotic-animal source of nutrition based on their faulty or unnatural sense of taste is still a kind of quagmire, a kind of flypaper, from which they cannot free themselves. Illnesses or sufferings are therefore for these beings the only telling or effective language. And it is up to everyone to be tolerant and understanding towards such beings, for they have not yet the ability to grasp or understand the seriousness of the situation.