PLANTS, DAWN AND DEW

June 24th, 2011 - Food alarm on Europe these last times. At first, spanish cucumbers were incriminated then some germinated seeds of soya were accused of having intoxicated many Europeans, particularly in Germany. A mortal bacteria (Eceh) which has elected home in some vegetables is responsible for that situation. The deadly result is spectacular: 22 deceased persons and 2000 intoxicated in Europe. And panic gained European consumers who brutally stopped to consume fresh vegetables during several weeks. Today, the alert is in France where several persons have been infected with the E coli bacteria transmitted through some sprouting seeds.

Surely, plants and natural food are popular at this time but without being an epidemiologist, it is good to remember that the world which wants to be very sanitary is above all a world whose relations towards nature are mainly based on productivism and trade. And so, nature is used only for profitable ends. On this principle, the exchanges which we maintain with our natural environment are distorted, even denatured.

In the old times, when the former ones we qualified nowadays of wizards or witches, went to gather plants at dawn, on the basis of the herbs science, in order to make philtres and medicinal potions, they did not do it haphazardly. In the original grimoires, with regard to harvest, it is recommended to gather plants and sprouting seeds respecting the lunar phases, especially at the first light of dawn, after the passage of the dew.

For people of today, this evocation is pure poetry.

However, in addition to the lunar phases which act on the vitality of the plants, the moment of the dew had a real virtue: the dew was purifying indeed. It kept the freshness of the plants at the same time it washed the plants of the various animal and other substances which could have contaminated them and affect thus the products that the wizards had to make. The gathering at dawn was a moment privileged because that prevented the action of the sun on the active ingredients of the plants. Thus, the association of the moon, the dawn and the dew enhanced the performances of the potions and the philtres, ancestors of the drugs of today.

But it is not completely true anymore!

In our resolutely modern times, the dew so much required does not have any more the same effects because it is contaminated by various agents (organic and inorganic chemicals: polymer, pollution, methane, heavy metals... radioactive decay and so on) contained into the ground, the water and in the air and plants are not pure anymore. And for sprouting seeds, fermentation is their worst enemy and really harmful for human health.

There are only some rare places save in the world where one can still hope to gather healthy plants but those areas rarefy little by little at the same time as the primary forests. And so, if some still pure plants have to be transported, their active substances reduce, even disappear.