taken from "Living Cuisine" by Renee Loux Underkoffler
Hildegard von Bingen was a twelfth-century German philosopher, writer, and mystic who saw the principle of viriditas, or "greeness," in every aspect of life. This is simply the principle that a life force moves us, makes things grow, and inspires passion, emotion, and creatitivity. She saw this divine energy "penetrating into all places, in the heights, on earth and in every abyss," giving the earth and all living things an effervescence of life and spirit.
Hildegard recognized viriditas to be an essential part of teh natural relationship of symbiotic life. Unfamiliar with this sage, hundreds of years later, in the twentieth century, Dr. Weston Price confirmed the principle of greeness through anthropological and botanical study.
Dr. Price studied indigenous people and native diets in many remote places around the world. He discovered that much of the wild food in native diets contained at least 4 times the minerals and 10 times the fat-soluble nutrients of a 20th century American diet.
Dr. Price recognized an element he called the "X-factor," a potent catalyst for mineral absorption. This factor was found in wild-growing food. It was also found in animal products such as fish, eggs, butter, organs, and meat of animals only if these foods came from animals that consumed green, growing food - algae and plankton for fish and green grass for land animals. Farmed fish and animals fed dry and processed feed provided no X-factor. Subsequently, generations of factory-farmed diets resulted in disease and fertility problems never seen in indigenous people prior to this introduction.
Even our food taht once had viriditas growing in the fields withers during industrial processing. This is seen in industrial farming and processing of foods like soy, wheat and corn. Ground and smashed, pressed and extracted, exposed to solvents and heat, irradiated and homogenized, emulsified and rearranged, foods once containing viriditas are stripped of it to reach the market shelves.
The preperation of our food begins on the farm, in managing and sowing the soil, and continues through careful preparation in the kitchen with love. It is only with mindful care through every step that viriditas is conserved.
As Hildegard recognized centuries ago, "greeness" is necessary for healthy life on earth. Ultimately, the presence or absence of viriditas in our diet and farming is the barometer for the future of humanity and out land.