As it was already mentioned, cows, as well as all he other animals, receive life power from plants. That’s why animals are called heterothrophs – living on organic substance (that is, other organisms). But what do plants live on? In comparison to animals, plants are called autothrophs, from the Latin “self-nourishing”. But this term is incorrect, as plants do not feed on themselves, but on other substances.

In accordance with the present conception of life, the most wide shared opinion is that plants receive life power from minerals as potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen, as well as animals receive it from plants. But this opinion is based upon a logical mistake: animals receive life power from the life of plants. But life is a kind of power that is only temporary connected with substance, so plants can receive life power from neither potassium, nor phosphorus, nor nitrogen, as they are absolutely lifeless matter.

Mere observation shows that light is the most essential thing for the life of a plant. Light, as well as life, is a kind of power. Any green plant can absorb light directly. This process is thoroughly studied: it’s well known that plants absorb light through the medium of a special green pigment – chlorophyll – and thus are able to convert carbonic acid and water into carbohydrates, that build their living substance. Thus, life originates from sunshine! In other words, life is transformed light.

But what significance do the upper mentioned minerals have, being brought about into the ground as fertilizers? The matter is that life is the most universal thing in the world and it takes lots of carriers to combine with. For instance, water is one of the basic carriers of life, while Живая вода….. Any alive juice contains, for instance, potassium, for this mineral is inherent for water according to all its characteristics. In the carbohydrates that a plant produces, water turns into Живая. That is the reason for calling these compounds carbohydrates (carbo = charcoal + hydrate = water) in accordance with their component structure.

However, alongside with potassium, plants need phosphorus to use these substances. Though phosphorus doesn’t enter the structure of live carbohydrates, it is essential for the process of their construction and later metabolism. The same is valid for nitrogen and proteins. Surely, no plant consists exclusively of carbohydrates. Plants need some quantity of proteins as well, though they gain the leading part only in the organism of animals and people. Some plants are able to take nitrogen from the air (green fertilizers), but more commonly people add to soil nitrogen containing substances of animal origin for the plants to gain organic nitrogen.

If plants are provided with potassic salts, that are constituents of soil, plans are able to absorb more water. But this doesn’t mean that plants receive ore life power; There can be “dead” water or hardened cellulose bearing no more life in it. It’s still difficult to measure life power in practice (in contrast to increase in weight), so a false opinion is widely spread that quantitative increase in food production is equal to increase of real life funds. The same is true for nitrogen: in its organic form it is taken from natural fertilizers. Constant flow of life is possible due to it. Artificial fertilizers contain nitrogen in the form of soluble nitrates, which plants easily absorb. This can lead to accumulation of nitrate residua that are hardly effective and even dangerous as they can turn into poisonous carcinogenic (nitrosamines). Solubility of nitrates makes plants assimilate these substances, but it is a matter of verification if plants can convert them according to the natural metabolism.

With the help of additional fertilizing plants receive instruments to convert light into life. It’s impossible to extract life from fertilizers as they are. However, the more lively a fertilizer is, the more useful it is in the process of life power accumulation.

Thus, we can treat the process of additional fertilizing in its juncture with light ad life itself. Biodynamic Agriculture established by Rudolf Steiner adopts this treatment. Products of biodynamic farms are available under the trade name “Demetra”. Peasants who accept this method assume that not only sunshine, but the whole Space collaborates in the process of growth. If we comprehend some cosmic effects upon growth, we can enlarge them with the help of certain organic chemicals. This gives us an opportunity to increase the quality f life. Products produced according to this method are distinguished not only for better vegetative conditions, but also for the animals’ health fortification and even improvement of taste.

The general situation in food production has recently changed, as specific volume of crops has substantially increased. This effect is a result of new intensive agricultural methods – they are mainly educton of high-yielding varieties of plants and highly productive breeds of cattle and poultry. But these new varieties are highly lopsided as they are oriented upon separate easily controlled qualities as gluten or starch content, baking quality etc., but not upon life content or long-term nourishment abilities as in experiments with milk.

The fact that newly educted varieties of plants have high yields is evidently very important. However, this quality gets exhausted very soon and we have to buy new seeds. It is true both for potato and for other agricultural crops, and even for cattle breeds. This means depletion of reproductive force. Initial varieties of grasses were distinguished by their vitality, while newly selected “elite” varieties are viable only under the condition of application of artificial fertilizers and different agricultural additions, that is, protected from diseases and pests. Naturally enough, new varieties’ tests are produced on a field with additionally fertilized soil. If a plant shows some negative reaction, such fertilizer is later excluded. This is effective as only growth stimulating fertilizers can help the increase of yields.

So we can see that elite selection is strictly connected with artificial fertilizers, because receiving the maximum crop demands appropriate instruments, for instance the above mentioned injection with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Still, plants that are not yet oriented on high productivity and living an accord with the environment do not demand any additional fertilizing as natural soil provides all the conditions for balance and harmony.

The same is true for elite domestic animals – cattle, pigs, hens and other “producers” of organic food. Special fodders are being prepared for them. Milking capacity of a “modern” cow having a huge udder giving daily 20 – 25 liters of milk is possible only due to so called “concentrated fodder”. The problem of its real profit is still unsolved. A list of calorie content, joule quantity, proteins, vitamins, minerals etc. containing in milk is as useless in giving any information of its quality and its life power as the above mentioned trade characteristic of milk. Though these data are useful to some extent, they lead away from the essence of the investigation. It can be compared to considering music by loudness.

No doubt that elite cow with high milking capacity needs additional potassium. But it is important to know what potassium we use for it. For example, for a whole period of time cows were given “bone flour” mixed with protein cows also need. Nobody considered that both components were received after processing corpses of animals. It was not taken into consideration that cattle is exclusively vegetarian. It’s absolutely unnatural to feed cattle with animal food, especially taken from the same cows and oxen. In the matter of fact, animals were forced to cannibalism. Such feeding is the result of disregard of natural animal requirements. Humans have lost understanding of animals as the result of materialistic mode of thinking when substance and quantity are more important than quality. Only when cases of cow rabies have become more frequent (an illness causing damage of medullary substance) and it was discovered that it is rigidly connected with cattle food many countries strictly banned the usage of suchlike food supplements in 1988-1990. The terrible consequences of such feeding can be even called “human rabies” as the illness has originated from an insane mistake pf people who think that productivity of an animal or a plant is similar to those of a chemical factory. Such industrial treatment has led not only to disastrous consequences, but also to moral suffering of people and animals! It’s high time to understand that we deal not with a single technological mistake but with a great defect in human thinking, in their attitude towards nature and life. We have evidently lost our natural instinct, that’s why it should be replaced by an understanding of correlations and interdependencies. On the basis of numerous examples below we will see that incorrect or insufficient nourishment of people and animals leads not only to temporary and superficial organism disorders, but also to long-term negative influence upon life as a whole, which is much more serious. It’s impossible to comprehend this interrelation studying minor components like prions (pathologic proteins, causing “cow rabies”), different biologically active substances, genes and others; we need to investigate the essence and meaning of life and nutrition.

By the way, Rudolf Steiner considering these interrelations described in his lecture o 13th January, 1923, the consequence of an ox being given meat nourishment: its organism will produce “harmful substances” that will get into its brain and cause “madness”. And what is madness if not he notorious cow rabies?