In this era in the 21st century people’s relationship to food is complex.  Even then, my particular relationship with food has been outside the norm.  All creatures get hungry when they haven’t eaten for a while – one of life’s biological necessities.  What's unnatural is the amount and frequency of Homo sapiens eating.  Many people's eating habits get mixed up with other reflexes; these reflexes combine into destructive behaviors.  For example, certain emotions drive some people to eat.  When I was a kid, I was encouraged to overeat, which I did.  My mother wanted a “funny, fat, fuzzy-top,” so that’s what I became.  I was fat until high school, and then lost a lot of weight.  I weighed 180 pounds at twelve; at one point during Peace Corps I was 145 pounds.  Half of the class at my thirty-year high school reunion was overweight and, ironically for me, I wasn’t.  My life depends on food, though, for more than simple sustenance.  As an agriculture professional my job is to find markets for poor farmers in low-income countries. 

        I’ve experimented with eating and have found such experiments to have great psychological value.  Twice I have fasted for over a week, during strenuous physical exertion in a “spiritual” quest.  Noted teachers have observed that fasting at high altitude can bring interesting results.  Traditionally, fasting has been used for physical and spiritual cleansing.  Combining prolonged fasting and high altitude, I was able to observe the physiological and psychological effects.  I chose Tilicho Lake as the site for this trial.  To reach Tilicho Lake one must turn south from the main Annapurna Circuit trail just west of Manang to the village of Khangsar.  Khangsar is the last outpost on the way to Jomsom over the Tilicho Pass, or the first one returning by the same route.  From Khangsar to Tilicho Lake was for me a strenuous two-day trek.  I brought a tent since there was no place to stay, although I’ve read that now there is a trekker lodge midway, providing nominal accommodations.  Khangsar is a Manangi village, which could be in Tibet.  As is typical of such towns, on the outskirts are large numbers of prayer (Mani) stones piled together, prayer wheels adorn the path to the town's entrance, and one is greeted by fluttering white flags on rooftops sending “Om Mani Padme Hum” prayers to the heavens.  I stayed there one night; fortunately the matron spoke Nepali and we discussed the quality of the trail to the Lake.  The map showed the trail following the river, but it was the monsoon and runoff from snowmelt had raised the water level.  She suggested that the high trail would be safer.

        My map didn’t show a high trail and as I walked along the river that morning I didn’t see the trails split.  After hiking a few hours the going got rougher because the water got higher, encroaching on the path, until I reached a point where the trail was completely impassable.  My backpack held a tent, sleeping bag, clothes, and a few books; fortunately I wasn't burdened with the weight of food or cooking equipment.  To reach the high trail I had two choices: retrace my steps to Khangsar or go straight up.  I chose the latter route.  This was nearly a fatal mistake.  The climb up started out steep, but not too steep.  However, I couldn't see more than a couple hundred feet above me; had I been able to see farther I might have gone back.  I climbed up several hundred feet until I found myself in cliffs, which couldn’t be seen from below.  Eventually I reached a point where going down was no longer an option, and I could only go up.  At this point I became scared and shaky.  Some of the rock was loose, jettisoning downward when disturbed, handgrips were uncertain and I was alone.  I realized that if I made a mistake it could be my end.  I continued up slowly, taking my time and being deliberate, and pushing down the panic that occasionally crept up on me.  I wound my way through the cliffs until at last I reached an area that had some grass and the footing was a bit more certain.  I continued up.  Eventually after climbing a couple thousand feet I came across an animal trail or possibly a trail used by yak herders in the summer.  I continued along this trail and eventually reached a high plateau.  Across this plateau, I walked alongside a small streambed until I found myself entering a narrow mountain canyon.  At this point I realized that I had taken another wrong turn.  In 1987 the high trail was not very well defined, although I understand that now it is clearer.  Once again I retraced my steps until I found the right trail, marked by prayer flags, which I was able to see on my return descent.  I spent the night in a closed-in but pleasant vale and continued to the lake the next day.

        The trail to the Lake is steep, in spots treacherous, and deceiving in its length.  When the trail flattened out and then started to descend I knew that I was close to the lake.  First one reaches a small, clear pond.  This is where I decided to set up camp.  There was a flattish area without too many rocks where I could sleep without great discomfort.  After setting up my tent I went on to explore Tilicho Lake proper.  In the preceding autumn a trekking group was decimated at Tilicho by foul weather and some trekkers died.  They were stranded in Tilicho for many days without any hope of rescue because a blizzard pinned them down.  Tom and I were trekking in the Everest region at that time and saw firsthand how dangerous the storm was, but we were in the less remote Sherpa areas where there were places to stay, although the storm still killed some people there.  The people who died at Tilicho were buried in rocky mounds, which one could see from a distance.  The ground was too rocky for digging graves, and the group would not have had time to do so since a helicopter evacuated the survivors once the storm broke.

        The mountains surrounding Tilicho, especially Nilgiri and Annapurna I to the south, are unforgettable; icy gods of the alpine world, they stand sentinel over the desolate wilds.  Yes, I grew hungry but the gnawing hunger was not hunger for food.  The quiet solitude of such places has an effect on the brain, dispelling the polluting electrochemical smog that accumulates in “civilized” places.  Such smog is thickest where populations are densest.  After a week I decided that it was time to return.  I had given up on the idea of crossing over Meso Kanto La since I had not found the trail.  The northern edge of the lake terminated at a cliff wall.  Anyone attempting to go up there would almost surely have failed, and in bad weather died.  There was a possible westward way to Jomsom around the Lake’s southern shore; however, this way too would have been dangerous because of the glacier field that ended at the Lake’s edge.  A mountaineer with proper equipment might have maneuvered between the glaciers and the water’s edge; on inspection I thought that it would be a high-risk gambit.  A trail over the Meso Kanto La exists, but one must turn north and hike upward. In 1987 there weren’t any obvious trail markers.  In any event, by the time I was ready to leave I didn’t have the strength to go the western Annapurna Circuit route. 

         The morning I left Tilicho the weather was very cold and I got frostbite while packing up my gear; the aluminum tent poles froze my fingers, which lost their nimbleness and then their sensitivity.  At that altitude, even July can be freezing.  The way down proved to be much more difficult than I anticipated.  The trail was made of rocky scree and would slide underneath my feet.  With each step I found myself sliding several feet down the mountainside.  I tried slowing my pace but still slid with every step.  The sliding continued until I had slid over a thousand feet to a point where I was just a short distance from the cliffs that tumbled off into the Khangsha Khang River.  At that point I stopped to consider my options.  There were two choices: I could try to go even slower or I could make a mad dash across the scree to a distant outcropping.  Since going slow hadn't been working very well I decided to make a dash.  The outcrop was about a quarter of a mile away and the ground there would certainly be stable.  Before dashing I took some deep breaths to gather what energy I had, and then ran.  I slid half the distance to the cliff’s edge, but my speed carried me to the outcrop, just a short distance above the cliff.  I followed the outcrop up until I was again on the trail.  Soon after this close call I was overcome by nausea.  After going without food for a considerable length of time microorganisms in the stomach get out of balance and over-produce.  I vomited and it wasn’t pretty.  Eventually I was able to continue walking and reached the vale that I had camped in on my way up, still a day from food.  The next day I made it to Khangsar village.  I stopped at the same trekking lodge where I had stayed on the way up.  The matron was surprised to see me.  We discussed my adventure and talked about Dharma.  “After dukha comes sukha,” she said – after suffering comes reward.  The next day I continued down to Manang village.  On the high cliffs above the entrance to Khangsar Valley there is a perfectly round hole carved out of the rock, piercing the ridge.  Through this circle is the blue sky of heaven above.  A circle, the sign of eternity; there can be no more appropriate landmark.  Surrounded by prayer flags and roped off, this natural wonder stands testament to all that is divine on Earth. 

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        On my second prolonged fast I went to Montana’s backcountry, north of Yellowstone Park.  Starting south of Bozeman I hiked to Mystic Lake and on to Hylight Peak.  Crossing Hylight Peak, I went south and then east to Paradise Valley, across to Emigrant and into the mountains behind Old Chico.  I returned to Bozeman via Trail Creek and Three Bears Lake.  My object in doing this hike was to explore the limits of my endurance under duress, and to gauge the effect.  There were moments – or were they eternities? – when space and time merged, subsumed into a greater vastness.  In this vastness there is no "here" or "there" and the thread of time, moving from the past through the present to the future, is lost.  Behind Old Chico one afternoon I sat on a rock watching the river flow, sunlight dancing on the sparkling waves; individual drops flew into the air, turning on themselves for one shining moment and falling back into the water, merging immediately and imperceptibly into the flow.  Glittering, shining, the light played upon the water.  The sun dipped behind the mountains leaving them silhouetted in deepening dusk.  The evening sky became orange, red, and then purple, and slowly the stars began blinking in the twilight, awakening from their daytime slumber.  Later the moon rose above the opposite ridge, casting its silvery light on the dark ground and the shimmering river.  The foam on the river, lightly colored rocks and heavy boulders strewn along the banks appeared fluorescent against nighttime shadows and forest pines.  The temperature cooled and sounds of river, insects, whispering pines, an occasional rock, crashing down the mountain, merged; sensations all blending together, losing yet keeping their distinctness.  At times my pulse raced, my heart quivered then pounded in my chest; my head dizzy and light, sharp and focused.  Fatigued, I got up, went into the tent and crawled into the sleeping bag.  I recalled that once at a summer cabin I passed a tree through which the breeze blew the leaves.  The sound caught my attention.  What causes the sound of leaves blowing on a tree?  Before, I might have reasoned, “oh, well, it’s probably the leaves tapping against each other when the wind blows them, and that makes the blowing sound.”  Wrong.  As I watched I noticed that the leaves did not touch each other yet they still made noise – the distinct sound of a tree.  Interestingly, different tree species make different sounds when blown by the wind.  Each leaf flapping in the air makes its own sound – has its own voice; their distinctive shapes and sizes aerodynamically create their pitch and tone.  A single tree can be an orchestra of sound, a grove a symphony; quaking aspens make a wonderful, happy noise, while pines whisper.  The trees in this canyon play their music day and night, filling a space in nature with their leafy harmony.  Who knows if this music is not the main function of a species, filling some chord in nature of which we are but dimly aware?  In nature, without other people around, one’s sense of personal identity weakens.  This identity, wired into our brain’s neurons by electro-chemical pathways, can short circuit.  If our internal conversations with ourselves and with imaginary others can stop for but a little while we may glimpse beyond our “identity reflexes.”  If we stop “becoming” and “be”, one moment can be the portal to the All of our life. 

        Besides experimenting with food psychology, I have had some quite accidental experiences with food, including instances of food poisoning and decimation by typhoid.  These experiences, and working in agriculture, make me appreciate the importance of safe food.  Safe food, however, comes at a price, a price that makes some products unaffordable to poorer consumers in the very countries where they are grown and processed. 

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        My first case of food poisoning was from an anchovy pizza, courtesy of Pizza Hut.  When we started to eat I noticed an off smell, but didn’t pay heed.  The next morning we planned to go skiing but instead I found myself befriending the toilet bowl; the “porcelain god” as it was also known.  After spilling my guts, we smoked a bowl, which took the edge off my nausea, and headed up to the slopes.  Chemotherapy patients and others who smoke ganja medicinally to ease their nausea have my full sympathy.  I have first-hand experience of its benefits.  Lest there be misunderstandings, taking any mind-altering substance has a long-term effect, though not one normally mentioned: such drugs diminish one’s sense of pleasure over time and deaden one’s sense of pain.  Pleasure and pain are not equated here with emotions.  Young people find it easy to abuse things if the consequences are delayed.  Youth is flippant, age severe, the relationship direct.

        My first serious case of food poisoning nearly killed me.  Dale and I had just finished trekking the Annapurna Circuit.  We ate breakfast at one of the westernized Pokhara restaurants.  Pokhara, like Kathmandu, made a good business out of providing Western style cuisine to tourists.  Some of the restaurants were quite good.  Before heading back to my Peace Corps post I decided to have a piece of pie, since I wouldn’t get another chance for months; so I stopped at one of the specialty pie shops and bought a piece of lemon meringue.  After I ate it I walked to the bus station and caught a bus to Butwal.  While I was waiting at the bus stand I bought some pineapple.  Since I was one of the first to board the bus I sat in a rear window seat.  The road from Pokhara to Butwal is truly a long and winding road – one of the windiest roads in the world.  The hills are so huge that one can look from one point on the road to another point on the road, a short distance as the crow flies, and find that getting from point to point takes an hour.  The road follows the contours of the hills that drop back out of view, winding and twisting deep into mountain recesses to meet the next hill and then slowly wend its way back to within view of the first point.  And the road continues like this all the way down to the Terai.  The bus had been on the road for a couple of hours when it started to get crowded and I had two young passengers sharing the bench I was on.  The bus was a “local” bus, meaning it stopped for everyone and everything that needed a lift.  “Everything” could include goats, chickens, appliances and whatever else somebody decided they wanted to bring with them.  That day it had gotten progressively hotter and as the bus continued south, more oppressive.  It was one of those really sunny, hot and humid, intra-monsoon days that made everyone feel very uncomfortable – before getting on the bus.  The young passengers next to me were a couple of Brahman kids with chips on their shoulders.  The one kid told me to move so he could sit next to the window, I didn't bother to answer.  I was starting to feel sick and needed to be near it. 

        As time went by, and stops became starts and then more stops, I felt sicker and sicker, until the bus stopped in one village and I could hold back no longer.  It must have been a sad sight.  We pulled up to the bus stop; a wedding party was there waiting.  The people were dressed in their finest clothes waiting for the bus.  When the bus braked to a stop I projectile-vomited out of the window, where it hit the pavement, ricocheted off and sprayed the wedding party.  There were looks of horror and disgust from people in the wedding party, now glowering at the pale, white face drooping limply out of the window.  That was the beginning.  The vomiting continued for hours.  Once when the bus stopped I had to dash out into the rice field - both ends at the same time.  The driver and his crew urged me to go to the hospital when we reached the town of Tansen, where there were expatriate doctors.  However, just a few months before one of my friends had nearly died in that hospital from maltreatment and I wanted nothing to do with the place.  By the time I'd been on the bus for six or seven hours, having suffered through one flat tire and I don't remember what else, there was nothing left, except violent spasms; my stomach was empty and I was exhausted.  I was also thoroughly dehydrated; there was nothing to drink and none on offer.  Finally I was laid on the backbench, taking up space that could have seated several people, and passed out.  I must have been unconscious for several hours.  When the bus reached Butwal it was nightfall.  Fortunately, there was an Italian couple that had gotten on the bus at one of its many stops, probably in Tansen.  I had not noticed them before.  I wasn’t aware of it, but they had been keeping an eye on me.  The bus was unloading and they offered to help me.  I was hardly aware of their aid.  They took me with them, gave me liquids, and got a hotel room with an extra bed.  I don't remember much except waking up the next morning and feeling bad, but better than the night before, and noted that the couple was looking after me.  In many ways they were my guardian angels and may very well have saved my life.  Once I felt good enough to leave, they helped me get to the bus station.  They were bound for the Indian border so we got on the bus together.  When we reached Tutipiple I said goodbye and never saw them again.  It took the better part of a week to recover.

        The next bout of food poisoning was courtesy of “the friendly skies” of United Airlines.  I was returning from a work assignment in the Philippines via Tokyo, then on to Chicago and Washington, DC.  The flight left Manila early in the morning with a four-hour flying time to Tokyo.  En route to Tokyo we were served the “Japanese Lunchbox,” which had some wonderful delicacies including raw fish.  What I later guessed was that those lunchboxes had been sitting on the tarmac in Manila too long and the fish had started to spoil.  The plane offloaded in Tokyo and we waited for the flight to Chicago.  About 45 minutes after leaving Tokyo it hit: that sick feeling of nausea when your innards seem like they are going to heave themselves out.  For the next eight hours of the 12-hour flight I was continuously in the toilet.  My stomach muscles started to contract painfully to rid my body of the tainted food.  These contractions reached a point where they seemed timed to make me throw-up every half minute.  At one point I wasn't even able to get up from my seat; I was just passing puke bags off to the flight attendants, who were clearly inconvenienced by the situation.  Supposedly the flight attendants are there for passenger safety and to provide first aid.  I didn't get much aid at all.  By the time the plane landed in Chicago I was over the worst of it, but I must have looked like hell.  Since it was an international flight I had to clear Customs before I could go on to Washington, DC.  Customs officials are not generally known for their bedside manners, yet the Customs officials in Chicago actually escorted me through.  They wanted to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital but by then there was no need.  I had to wait in Chicago O’Hare for several hours before the flight to DC left, so I found some carpeting that I could lie on.  I stopped at the United Airlines Helpdesk to let them know that they needed to monitor their food more carefully; they denied any culpability and argued that it must have been something else that I had eaten.  This could not have been the case, however; since the flight left Manila so early in the morning I had had no chance to eat breakfast.  While I was lying on the floor a United Flight Attendant took notice of me and offered to help in any way that she could.  I gratefully accepted her offer for water.  Eventually when my travel agent heard about the incident she got a $200-off travel voucher from United – big deal.  Other Manila passengers also became sick, one of them a young girl.  I was miserable for several days afterwards, even suffering a relapse.  The moral?  Beware of airline food!

        The third food poisoning occurred shortly after I returned from a work assignment in Bangladesh; this time I got typhoid.  I went to Bangladesh to start a new project that, ironically enough, was supposed to develop the country's agri-food sector including issues of food safety.  There were only two possible places that I could have contracted it: either at a restaurant that a friend took me to or from the Ministry of Agriculture where I had carelessly had some of their tea.  I suspect it was the restaurant, but noted that in the Ministry’s offices were washing tubs that were used to wash the tableware.  The glasses were washed in one tub of soapy water and then transferred to another tub for rinsing.  I doubt that the water in the rinse tub had been boiled or treated to make it potable.  I was in country for a couple of weeks and then returned to the US.  I had to come back for about 10 days due to a prior commitment, and then I was scheduled to return to Bangladesh.  As my departure date approached I started to feel like I coming down with the flu.  The day before my flight, I had to call the airline and reschedule my trip to the next week because, as I thought, I had gotten the flu and needed a few days to recuperate, after which I would be ready to travel.  Well, a few days turned into a few more days.  I was progressively getting sicker.  When the fever started I could get up and around and still eat some food.  As time progressed I could only lie in bed, and lost all appetite.  A couple of weeks went by and then the chills started; they were so severe that my body shook the entire bed.  I knew at that point that I didn't have a normal case of the flu and I was thinking that maybe I had picked up malaria.  In my diminished mental state, I was struck by how the fever was cyclical, going up 104º and then dropping down again.  I did not take into account that when my temperature spiked I took acetaminophen to ease the pain, but acetaminophen also lowers a fever’s temperature.

        By the second week of fever, my wife was very concerned.  She called the doctor and, after examining me, he arranged for me to go to Georgetown Medical Hospital, supposedly one of the premier hospitals in the country.  After running a battery of tests on me, Georgetown emergency room cowboys sent me home, concluding that whatever I had it was not that serious.  The next day my wife called the doctor and told him what had happened; he told her that I should lay off all medication and see what temperature my fever would reach.  By this time I was delirious; the fever reached 107º and the doctor had my wife get me to the hospital – not the one in Georgetown.  They were going to send an ambulance but I didn't think it was necessary.  Hospital waiting rooms are hardly fit places for the healthy, let alone for the sick.  It seemed to take forever for the staff to get me “processed” and into a hospital bed.  I was lying on the waiting room floor because I was too dizzy to sit upright.  Once I was in a room a nurse got me into a hospital gown and then sent me downstairs for tests.  At that point I was having a very lucid hallucination.  I felt completely euphoric but I knew that the sensation had more to do with the fever than with a general improvement in my condition.  This feeling of euphoria lasted a long time.  I described the sensation to the doctor and my wife as I was experiencing it, explaining that I was aware it was a hallucination.  Knowing that one is hallucinating does not make the hallucination go away.  Most uncomfortably, the fever made my head feel like a metal band was around it squeezing tightly, vice-like.  I was treated with intravenous ciprofloxacin, a harsh treatment that left me feeling toxic.  After several more days of delirium I finally started to feel better.  I was in the hospital for a week before I was discharged, and after I was discharged I was still recuperating for several months.  I returned to Bangladesh and contracted a bad case of dysentery.  Typhoid, that was the diagnosis, kills many poor people in less developed countries, and now I understand why.  I was strong and healthy, and it decimated me.  For people in poverty who are not so strong or healthy, it is often lethal.  Typhoid can also lead to further health complications.  I was to suffer from a condition called “pyro-calcium phosphate deficiency” a couple of months later; the condition is similar to gout but my ureic acid level was normal.  My big toe was painful for several weeks, and would flare up on occasion for the next year.

        Typhoid is a silent killer in much of the world.  Simple hygienic practices would do much to lower its incidence.  The dissemination of hygienic practices takes education, which takes money, which is in too short a supply for this killer.  Typhoid has disappeared in developed countries thanks to filtered water, sewer systems, and simple ingrained habits such as washing one’s hands after using the toilet.  These systems cost money, but good hygienic habits are cheap yet ignorance of them persists.  In the United States about 400 cases of typhoid are reported each year, and overseas travelers contract 70 percent of these cases.  Typhoid fever is still common in the developing world, where it affects an estimated 12.5 million persons each year.  As pointed out in medical journals Salmonella Typhi lives only in humans. Persons with typhoid fever carry the bacteria in their bloodstream and intestinal tract. In addition, a small number of persons are carriers who recover from typhoid fever but continue to carry the bacteria, viz. Typhoid Mary.  Both ill persons and carriers shed S. Typhi in their feces.  Once S. Typhi bacteria are eaten or drunk, they multiply and spread into the bloodstream. The body reacts with fever and other symptoms.  The ancillary danger of typhoid is that it can so weaken a person that even if the disease doesn’t kill them a simple malady such as a cold may, if the victim has been weakened enough.  More readily preventable than, say, malaria or HIV, typhoid gets remarkably little attention from either the development or medical communities.

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        Western palates are sensitive to foods widely consumed elsewhere.  For better and worse, my palate has been exposed to a lot of varied tastes.  One of the least pleasant was monkey.  I was on the Indonesian island of Flores to look at an investment in a small juice processing operation.  We were looking at the raw material supply, the production resource and some other necessary items for investment.  While we were scoping out the locale a villager walked by carrying a dead monkey that he had just shot with an arrow shortly before.  He had the monkey’s four legs tied to a stick that he carried over his shoulder.  We visited with him for a few minutes and he went down to the village.  After we finished examining the site we followed him down.  We met with the villagers to discuss some issues and ask some questions that we had about the location.  While we were talking, lunch was served: meat and potatoes.  I took a bite of the meat and found the taste repugnant, not at all like chicken, or anything else that I could recognize.  I took a couple more bites, at which point I asked my colleague if we were eating the monkey we had seen the guy carrying down earlier.  He confirmed we were eating the monkey, at which point the repugnance became nausea.  Fortunately there were a few dogs nearby and, not wanting to appear rude, I waited until a moment of pitched conversation when everyone was distracted and then slipped them the meat.

        The Chinese prize birds’ nest soup.  Eating bird spittle in broth does not sound appealing, but the nests of the White-Nest Swiftlet are among the most expensive animal products that humans eat.  The tiny Indonesian island of Hansisi has a cave where these birds nest; outside the cave are guards standing watch.  So profitable are these nests that they cover the costs of 24-hour security, the costs of harvesting, packaging and shipment, and the undoubtedly luxurious setting in which the fine meal was going to be served – a very valuable value chain.  Hansisi is off the western tip of Timor, across a narrow strait from the city of Kupang.  It is a small, little-visited gem tucked away amongst Indonesia's thousands of islands.  The shore is rimmed with a soft sandy beach and just offshore was a marvelous coral reef.  An excellent place to snorkel, except that by now, at the rate things were going when I visited there in the mid-90s, the coral may all have been blasted away to catch a few fish.  Dynamite has replaced fishing nets in many parts of the world.  On one visit, our group got stranded there because the boat ran out of fuel.  It was too late to send a boat back to Kupang to fetch some, so we slept on the beach.  The only “food” was very warm Guinness beer.  Although a popular drink, Guinness is not thirst quenching and does not provide much sustenance.  I haven’t had another Guinness since.  Making the best of the situation, we were all in good humor, laughing and joking until the moon passed over the horizon.  We went to bed hungry and thirsty and found that our condition wasn’t much improved the next morning.  We had to scrounge for food in the village.  When a boat finally showed up with fuel we climbed in but couldn’t resist snorkeling once more before heading back to Kupang.  Only recently as a species have humans been able to watch fish in their own environment.  They seem to have no innate fear of human trespassers; we are alien, not pre-programmed into their nervous systems.  But there is always a bigger fish.

        Foods’ byproduct, excrement, is a whole other subject.  But I can’t leave it without mentioning one anecdote.  Stopping to eat lunch one day at a small trekkers lodge on the Annapurna Circuit, I was totally grossed out.  My friend and I had hiked all morning and were hungry.  Since it was the off-season not every lodge served food, but we finally found a place.  The matron was a Manangi woman wearing traditional Tibetan garbs.  She had a small toddler who was scampering around the floor.  There was also a small Lhaso Apso dog keeping watch.  She gave us menus but unfortunately most of the items were unavailable this time of year, the middle of the monsoon season, and her cupboard was bare.  She offered us Ramen noodles, adding the usual garnishes: hot peppers, potatoes, onions, and some greens (probably nettles).  She served us and we started to eat.  While we were chomping down the infant, squatting on the kitchen floor, took a shit – no diapers.  The dog came and ate the pile, which is disgusting (to an American eye) but not unusual since dogs in Nepal often eat shit.  After the dog finished eating the woman picked up the child and held up its ass for the dog to lick clean.  At that point we lost our appetites. 

        An ancient tradition holds that there are three types of food: cells for the stomach, air for the lungs, and light for eyes.  Physical nourishment comes from nature, the cells of other beings – plants and animals; the respiratory system consumes air in the lungs, and the brain consumes impressions taken in as light through the eyes.  Physical food – cells; emotional food – molecules; mental food – atoms.  Some foods are easier to digest, and more nourishing, than others.  Food can be healthy or make us sick.  If it is true that peoples’ eating habits have deteriorated worldwide in recent decades, what does this suggest about the most important food that we consume – the impressions we take in?  What of the waste material from these different types of foods?  The digestive system eliminates waste through the alimentary canal; the lungs eliminate waste upon exhale; and what of the waste from impressions?  Some is eliminated through excess talk – diarrhea of the mouth, or is pent up inside, constipated, eventually to emerge as some insidious thought or belief.  The digestive system is instinctive and it is not something that an individual can easily control.  The respiratory system is also instinctive but a person, properly trained, as are some yogis, can exert considerable control over their breathing.  The brain’s digestion of impressions is not so instinctive, though is highly reflexive, and is subject to control but mostly is governed by the power of suggestion.  So may this be food for thought. 

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        Everyone enjoys a good meal.  But, how many really great meals can you recall?  Although I've sampled the cuisine of more than 50 countries only a few meals stand out.  A great meal takes more than just a good chef.  One’s company must be congenial.  Excellent food and tense conversation may make a meal memorable but not pleasant.  Holidays usually afford both opportunities, but what about dining out?  I recall one meal where the company was especially superb and the food not so memorable but overly abundant, in the city of Pagan, in the then country of Burma.  Tom, Dale and I traveled to Pagan together, during the daytime going our separate ways to explore the areas that most interested us.  We met at sunset and watched the light fade under the eaves of one of the ancient Buddhist temples, the world spinning into darkness and night.  We hired a donkey-driven carriage to take us to a restaurant recommended by some locals.  Wicker lanterns on the side of the carriage lighted the road and the donkeys trotted at the edge of their luminosity.  The meal was served by candlelight and for a few dollars at the exchange rate we feasted like kings.  Pagan should be a world heritage site, in its entirety.  With a rented bicycle one can ride to thousands of temples dotting the landscape, dodging the occasional cobra.  By contrast, in another memorable Burmese culinary encounter, I bought a packet of what I thought was dried shrimp at a train station for the trip to Rangoon.  When I got hungry later I pulled them out and began munching.  To my disgust I realized that what I thought were prawns were really crickets; and they don't taste like chicken, even if dried and fried.  But the best meal of all at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, where company and taste came perfectly together was over giant Bengali prawn curry in Rangoon; one of the best meals I ever ate.  At that time, travelers to Burma were allowed just one week in the country, and they were allowed to bring one bottle of booze and one carton of cigarettes.  We learned from tipsters in Nepal that the Burmese preferred Johnny Walker scotch and 555 cigarettes, so we bought one of each item to take with us.  We sold the booze and cigarettes at an exorbitant black market price, which almost covered the full cost of our stay.

        Padang, on the island of Sumatra, is famous for its food and its chefs throughout Indonesia.  Padang is a matriarchal society in which the women have significant influence in the home and the community.  As explained to us by a local woman, the men traditionally did the housework and, hence, much of the cooking.  With their experience in the kitchen, and having abundant spices and other ingredients, Padang’s men’s reputation as chefs spread.  Padang men could be found in the kitchens of many fine Jakarta hotels and restaurants.  Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – for Padang’s women, this meant that many of their menfolk were gone.  Bukitingi, north of Padang near Lake Toba region, site of one of the world’s most violent volcanic explosions, has similarly explosive fare.  A typical meal is inexpensive yet extravagant.  On a small square table the entire top is customarily filled with samples of every available dish.  Diners can sample any of the sauces that come with the dishes but are charged if they eat the food.  Exquisite sauces include coconut, pepper, tomato and other curries; dishes range from chicken to fish to tongue, brain, and more exotic cuisine.  Gastronomic paradise!

        Some meals are memorable for reasons besides their taste or the company.  In Peru shortly after the Government’s devaluation of the Inti in 1990, one could pay 7 million Intis for a hamburger.  There was nothing particularly memorable about the hamburgers but to pay 7 million for a meal leaves one feeling impoverished.  The economist Hernando De Soto was a dinner companion during one memorable Peruvian meal.  At the time he was the closest there was to a “development rock-star.”  At that time, Lima was a dangerous place, the Shining Path was still terrorizing the country and anyone notable was a likely target.  There were armed security guards everywhere; I would have dined easier had I felt less exposed.  A determined terrorist with an ax to grind and a gun could have found a ready target at the local restaurant with the most security guards.  De Soto was engaging, obviously brilliant and aware of it.  Who knows, perhaps one day he may win a Nobel Prize.

        The island of Ko Samui, off the Thailand’s eastern coast, was a world traveler hotspot in the mid-80s, becoming thoroughly overrun not long after by more affluent tourists.  One of the local joints specialized in mushroom omelets.  With a couple of companions I reached Ko Samui two weeks after two years in Peace Corps, and its liberating beaches.  In the uptight Hindu culture where I lived in Nepal unmarried women were discouraged from socializing with unmarried men.  The uptight Hindu culture spilled over into the Peace Corps culture, and relationships between male and female volunteers were mostly platonic.  Flesh was generally concealed.  Thai beaches were a stark contrast.  We arrived during a model shoot.  International beauties were there in force posing for photographic shoots in fashionable G-strings, many topless.  What better entertainment for three hard-up ex-volunteers?  In the two years and three months that I was in Nepal I’d had one liaison with a woman, more than a year earlier, and that was in a moment of drunken weakness with someone not quite to my taste.  These models, mostly around my age, uninhibitedly displaying their sexuality, made my month.  We stayed at “Munchies” bungalows – a dollar an night.  “Mama Munchie” served special spaghetti or omelets made with magic mushrooms.  We indulged one night.  We chatted for a long time after dinner, eventually getting pulled into a party.  I found myself attracted to the beach.  I went down to the water’s edge and watched the waves coming ashore.  My brain was in a highly sensitive state, aware of everything.  As time passed I noticed that small clouds were forming by evapo-transpiration a short distance from each of the small groves of coconut trees that dotted the shore.  My attention became completely rapt in watching this process of cloud formation.  I walked to one of the small groves and sat down to watch as the clouds formed just above the trees overhead toward the shoreline.  As I watched a small cloud take form just beyond the grove, it began to descend towards me; either that or my consciousness was rising to it.  Whatever was happening, all of a sudden my body jumped up to its feet and fled.  This happened so fast that I was already some distance away when my thoughts caught up with my body.  I became aware that my heart was pounding, my body shaking as though in terror.  I’m still not sure what frightened me that night.  Later I was describing this experience to an Aussie sailor friend who was acquainted with Southeast Asia sailor lore.  He recounted a tale of sailors who were found dead in coconut groves, for no apparent cause.  Hallucination?  On an earlier mushroom adventure at a lakeside hotel in Pokhara I spent the evening talking to the local children, watching the sun set to the west behind the Annapurnas, from another vantage point than the airplane window when, on a different occasion at dusk, they seemed to touch the very moon as it circumnavigated the sky.

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        Twice I've gone without food for more than a week.  So what, if anything, did I gain from these experiences?  One lesson at least became clear: our brains accumulate a certain amount of neuro-physiological smog over time, and a break from society provides space for this smog to dissipate.  This smog is the product of “undigested” perceptions, incoherent representations that we make to ourselves of the world.  Away from society and without a constant supply of food, the body becomes more sensitive, and aware of this sensitivity.  Behavioral reflexes that have become ingrained through repetition begin to weaken.  “Proprioception” happens more naturally.  This explanation uses words that intimate time and process, but the description is not the experience. 

        Trying not to be preachy, we all have images of ourselves, believing “I am this,” “I have such and such tastes, this or that ability,” comparing ourselves to others along these dimensions we identify ourselves with such beliefs.  This self-image drives us to manipulate our environments to suit ourselves to our own advantages.  So motives lead to reflexes.  This “self-sense” impels our actions, though we are often unaware of its influence on our behavior.  When I receive a complement my self-sense reflexively puffs up, if I’m criticized my self-sense becomes defensive; I feel pleasure or pain.  Ambition, vindictiveness, jealousy, even the satisfaction I experience sometimes when I look in the mirror, and all other emotions that have strong personal elements, are driven by this self-sense.  Depriving oneself of food and being alone for periods of time alters this self-sense, or at least makes its operation plainer.  Bohm describes proprioception – a sense of awareness of one’s neuro-physiological responses in action – that apprehends the impulsive self-sense.  Proprioception can happen in conditions of voluntary deprivation.  The self-sense seems to be connected to the system that produces endorphins.  Krishnamurti points out, “thought creates the thinker” and once this image of the thinker is established in our neuro-circuitry it drives the system.  The “thinker” in us divides our mental process in two – the observer (the subject or “I”, the narrator) who watches what happens, comments on and manipulates it – and the observed (the object or “me”) to which things happen.  But there is just one process, not two.  Our feelings and senses follow where thought leads, responding to our self-sense.  And this is the state of humanity; we live our lives indirectly, experiencing life through this filter of our self-sense.  Many will argue that this is only natural – and so we find ourselves living in this messy world.

        Two very different questions feed my inner life, consuming most of my time: (1) “why do I do what I do?” and (2) “how can agriculture improve the lives of poor people?”  These questions have sharpened in focus over time.  Long ago I would have posed the first question as: “what does my life mean?” Or earlier: “who am I?”  Experience and study of philosophy-neuro-psychology leads one to the general question “why do people do what they do?” and the particular question about oneself.  Reflectively, why am I interested in the second question about agriculture?  This question I can’t answer, or the answer I have is not satisfactory: when I was born Mars was in Taurus in the tenth house.