The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan Calls On The Entire Black Nation To Begin:
Building The Will, Continued
[Editor’s note: The following article was first published in The Final Call newspaper, Vol. 10, No. 18, September 9, 1991, as the fourth installation of a special five-part series on health penned by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. This is the final excerpt from that article.]
(According to the American Journal of Public Health, December 1990, less than 10 percent of Americans are getting the minimum amounts of fruits and vegetables in their daily diets while National Institute of Health physicians reported that fruits and vegetables have “a significant protective effect against some forms of cancer.” Prevention magazine, which reported this statistic, said that despite the knowledge of this fact, it is difficult to get fresh produce into the diet and “takes a conscious effort to meet those healthy-eating goals.”)
The priorities of the food industry should not be profit first and health last, but health first. No rich man would be unwilling to give away his wealth in return for his health. It is sad that we spend our lives amassing wealth, only to die of heart attack, stroke, cancer, or some sexually transmitted disease that renders us unable to enjoy what we spend our entire lives amassing.
Television and radio are powerful tools that should be used as teaching instruments. I am disgusted at the misuse and abuse of the airwaves to poison the hearts and minds of children and adults with words and pictures of filth, debauchery and indecency, when the same medium, properly used, could motivate and stimulate the American people to accept the challenge of living a moral, healthy, productive life. By developing the Will of the people to change and improve their lifestyle, we could bring about preventive health care that would turn our kitchens into health care facilities for our families.
America will not be a great nation in the 21st century unless she changes her priorities. Whether she chooses to do so or not, we, as Black people, MUST change our priorities now. We MUST NOT let the Merchants of Death control the necessities of life for us. We MUST Take control of our destiny. Let us begin by taking control of what we put in our mouths as food and drink. We MUST rid ourselves of the lazy spirit which puts exercise off of our agenda for a happy and productive life.
I repeat, get HOW TO EAT TO LIVE, BOOKS One and Two by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. These books are so reasonable in price, particularly in comparison to what we pay for medicines that we have to ingest because we have eaten the wrong kinds of food. The Great Mahdi, Master Fard Muhammad, to Whom praise is due forever, came among us to give us abundant life. One of the first things He did was ask us to go to our medicine cabinets and throw away every prescription drug we were using.
In the early days of Islam (submission to the Will of Allah (God)), you would find no prescription drugs in the home of any Muslim follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, not even aspirin. Our wives and mothers were the official doctors and nurses of our families. In our kitchens, we produced the health and well-being of our families. We MUST go back to what we were taught and what we know has worked for us and pledge to never depart from that again.
Remember, as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us, we dig our graves with our teeth—eating too much, eating too often and eating the wrong kinds of food.
The body is the House, Temple, Synagogue, Cathedral, Church, Mosque of The Living God. The Greatest Gift of all, the most Magnificent Structure in the Universe, is the Human Body. Allah (God) teaches us in the Qur’an that He fashioned for us the best of forms. It is also written in the Qur’an that there is a special place of honor for those who maintain the House of Worship (a Mind and Body in which Allah (God) can dwell).
“Certainly We created man in the best make.”
Holy Qur’an, Surah 95, verse 4
Be it the Will of Allah (God), in the next edition of The Final Call, I will address the subject of weighing properly, mentally and physically.
