I once had an excellent disciple named Sasaki who was rigorously undertaking a fasting regimen in a dojo (training school) in Ikoma, Osaka. He visited me at my house one day and said, “Teacher, I attended a fasting dojo where I ate one third the amount that people normally consume, and I walked 15 kilometers every day on Mt. Ikoma.” Then he asked, “Other people eat three times the amount that I eat and must therefore walk 45 kilometers a day to work off the resulting calories. Do you think that people become sick because they are over nourished?”
Just as he suggests, when compared with the number of people who die from extreme malnutrition during or after wars, the present age seems beset by many and various diseases that should not exist among people who have such an abundant food supply and are so well fed. I wonder, in particular, about the effect that the recent popularity of nutritional supplements has.