Only Those Who Practice Temperance Can Endure

When my son was very small, I bought him a pair of children's shoes that lit up when he stepped. He loved them but rarely wore them. When I asked why, he said he was afraid of using up the batteries; once they were dead, the shoes would not be so cool, and he wanted to save them. I had not expected such a small child to understand temperance.

Since leaving school I have stayed close to my respected teacher. Sometimes when he needed medicine bought, I would buy it. He would offer to pay, but I always refused. Once he said to me: "Zhiyuan, I am older and more experienced than you; in such matters you should listen to your teacher, so that our teacher–student relationship can last long." This is what sets my teacher apart: in dealing with others he always restrains himself, so his conduct commands respect everywhere. For more than twenty years I have served him like a father; my respect and love have deepened, not faded, with the years.

Our family has a vegetarian tradition; my grandmother and aunt ate vegetarian all their lives and were industrious all their lives. Their diet, in nutritionists' eyes, was unscientific, yet both lived to great age with little illness. At eighty my grandmother could still cross mountains to burn incense; my aunt, now eighty, not only runs the household but works in the fields every day. People who spend all day pondering which foods are nutritious are often, at less than half their age, already beset by ailments.

A centenarian in our village died two years ago, and everyone wondered how she became the village's oldest. She was poor all her life; her family was the only one in the village with no electrical appliance besides a light bulb. My father said her two sons were not very filial; the old woman never enjoyed any comfort, living most of the year on plain tea and simple food, her only "nutrition" perhaps eggs from her own chickens. Yet she lived healthily to 100 and never set foot in a hospital.

Regarding factors affecting health and longevity, the only thing medicine can currently confirm is low-calorie diet. The body metabolizes daily and needs calories; we need food to live. But if intake exceeds expenditure, problems arise.

I have guided some patients to adjust their diet, spending a month counting daily caloric intake. These figures are easy to look up; the caloric value of every food can be found online, and a simple calculation of what and how much we eat each day suffices. At the same time, calculate daily calories burned through exercise and those needed to maintain temperature and breathing, and compare the two. The result: more than 90% of modern people consume far more than they burn—i.e., the great majority are on a high-calorie diet.

High-calorie eating has only gradually become the norm for most Chinese in the last twenty years or so. Since I can remember, Chinese living conditions have improved, but diseases have increased; the incidence of high-calorie-related diabetes and cancer has soared. Women with irregular periods are also increasing; most such irregularity, including amenorrhea, is simply because they are overweight; once they lose weight, amenorrhea resolves on its own.

The FAO has repeatedly warned that modern dietary structure is deeply problematic and that too high a proportion of meat is destroying health. Contemporary junior-high biology textbooks state plainly that toxins pass through the food chain, and animals at the top of the chain carry more toxins, having accumulated those absorbed from their food. Animal-sourced foods therefore carry more health-affecting toxins than plant-sourced foods. People once thought deep-sea fish might be healthy, but New Zealand scientists recently found microplastic particles from human plastic waste in the muscle tissue of deep-sea fish; microplastics are carcinogenic.

And ocean plastic pollution cannot be solved in the short term. Microplastic particles in seawater are now alarmingly numerous. Scientists have found microplastics in many foods: studies show an average of 1.8 microplastic particles per marine mussel, 1–10 per kilogram of table salt, and even hundreds per bottle of beer. From these figures it is not hard to understand why vegetarian country grandmothers are healthier.

I have repeatedly emphasized to cancer patients and families that a plant-based diet is one of the key factors lowering cancer incidence and recurrence: at least 80% of our food should come from plants, not animals. Regrettably, many patients and families cannot manage this.

How much a person eats in a lifetime is fixed; those who finish early die early, gluttons die young, and only those who practice temperance live longer.

When my father was young, a local doctor kept saying my father ate too poorly and his complexion was not as ruddy as his own. That doctor died of illness before sixty; my father, now in his seventies, still robust overall despite some health issues. He now loves cycling as I do and rides around looking at scenery when free.

A friend of mine recently died suddenly of heart problems, in his fifties. When I saw his family's obituary inviting relatives to Babaoshan for his final send-off, I sighed. The most expensive meal I ever ate was hosted by him; he valued my writing and wanted me to write something, so he took my whole family to an upscale private restaurant at over ten thousand per person. When I learned the price, I cried "for shame." His family was wealthy, with many antiques. He treasured his life, with personal health consultants and nutritionists. Yet someone with so many resources and so much health knowledge was less healthy and long-lived than a country grandmother. Over-educated intellectuals can end up worse off than the illiterate.

The importance of temperance cannot be overstated. Temperate diet gives us good health; temperate speech and conduct give us lasting friendship; temperate emotions give us calm. Those who have no self-restraint will pay the price sooner or later.