Best Way to Eat Garlic to Retain Its Medicinal Value

 Dear Dr Lim JB

My wife intends to make her own garlic and ginger sauce which she thinks is healthier than buying ready-made ones from the super markets.

She reads a lot of your various articles in your blog often, sharing with me. She is asking me to find out from you what is the best way to retain the medicinal value of garlic if she makes her own garlic and ginger sauce and how best should garlic be eaten as you are also a research nutritionist and food scientist from your CV on the right. You would be the most qualified person to answer.

Sorry for your precious time, but I hope you would not mind

Thanks a lot

W. Parker

I receive a question from a gentleman here posted in the comment section below this article:

“The Elixir for Eternal Life”

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-elixir-for-eternal-life.html?showComment=1660996545152#c4439152436355336025

He was asking about the medicinal values of garlic and how best to prepare and consume them in the form of a sauce?

Here’s my answer to Mr. Parker.

Thank you for your question Mr. Parker.

Here are some suggestions on how garlic ought to be eaten. But first, let’s look at some of the bioactive principles and medicinal values in garlic.

The major bio-active principles in garlic (Allium sativum) are its organo-sulphur compounds, such as diallyl thiosulfonate (allicin), diallyl sulphide, diallyl disulphide, diallyl trisulfide, S-allyl-cysteine, and S-allyl-cysteine sulphur oxide (alliin). Probably one of the most important is ajoene.

However, I remember in 1964 (58 years ago) when I was still a postgraduate student in London, one of my professors there was telling us they did a study on some 20 different brands of garlic pills from all over the world, and what they found was, ajoene in garlic was not present in any of the pill. Probably they were destroyed during the processing when garlic were made into pills?

But I am not sure if other bioactive sulphur compounds like alliin and allicin were absent. We were also told the pharmacopeial dose of garlic was 4 gm daily.

Another bioactive compound in raw garlic is allicin. The original alliin is converted into allicin when the enzyme alliinase is activated by chopping up or crushing the garlic.  

Similarly, other organo-sulphur compounds in garlic are also activated when the garlic is crushed. It will then release the enzymes that will in turn liberate these sulphur compounds to give garlic the pungent smell and chilli-hot taste and their medicinal values.

However, if garlic is boiled, cooked or fried, the enzymes are destroyed. Not only are the enzymes destroyed, but the medicinal properties of these sulphur compounds themselves are destroyed. Both are damaged even before the boiling point of water at 100 degrees Celsius. That is why garlic loses its taste and pungent smell when cooked.

However, sometimes cooking vegetables other than garlic lightly in hot water for a short period such as blanching them in hot water for 2 minutes increase their nutritive value by inactivating the enzymes that destroy the vitamins in them. One example is ascorbinase that destroys vitamin C. Blanching vegetables may also preserve the colour, flavour and texture of the vegetables besides preserving their nutritional value. But in this case, blanching garlic may not be advisable.

In short, it is far better to eat crushed garlic raw, rather than cook them. It would be advisable to use crushed garlic without cooking them to prepare garlic sauce probably with olive oil, a little salt and some apple cider vinegar added if desired. The garlic and ginger may be macerated in a blender.

Try not to consume too much salt to avoid hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases. The recommended salt intake is just 4 g. per day.

This applies also to the ginger if garlic-ginger sauce is what was intended.

On the question of the medicinal value of garlic, it has been shown to have anti-cancer properties provided again it is crushed or chewed and not swallowed whole. This is because alliin itself in garlic has no anticancer properties unless it is converted into allicin which then plays a major role in their antiproliferative effect in cancer. Nutrition scientists think this effect may be credited to the ability of allicin to briefly deplete the intracellular gluthathione (GSH) level.

The level of the decline in GSH levels correlated well with the growth inhibitory activity of allicin, thus demonstrating its anticancer values if consumed raw in a crushed state. Allyl sulphur compounds are important antitumorigenic agents, and diallyl disulphide reduces the size of cancer growth.

In laboratory studies, garlic intake may reduce the risk of colon cancer because diallyl disulphide inhibits the growth of neoplastic CMT-13 cells and of N-acetytransferase activity in human colon adenocarcinoma cell line. Additionally, it was demonstrated diallyl sulphide is an active inhibitor that promotes phase of 9,10-dimethyl-1,2- benzanthracene induced skin tumours in the mouse.

Other therapeutic uses of garlic are for conditions linked to the cardiovascular system, including atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), high cholesterol, heart attack, coronary heart disease, and hypertension.

Garlic has been used for the prevention of various cancers, among them for lung, prostate, breast, stomach, rectal and colon cancers.

The effective pharmacological doses of garlic surprisingly are quite small. It has been suggested that only 2 to 5 g of fresh raw garlic or 0.4 to 1.2 g of dried garlic powder is sufficient for its anti-cancer and antithrombotic properties.

Since the effective pharmacological dose of garlic is 4 gm a day as mentioned earlier, 30 cloves of garlic were then weighed. A head or whole bulb of garlic will have about 10 lobes, each lobe is called a clove.

Weighing each clove of garlic individually, and the whole bulb collectively, it has an average reading of 7.3 gm per clove. This surprisingly means that by chewing just one clove of raw garlic is sufficient to impart all their medicinal properties

I hope I have answered.

Jb lim

Earliest and Smallest Life Forms in Evolution

 Someone, a Christian doctor friend who was my former medical colleague asked me if I could elaborate a little more on how the smallest life form came into existence into other bigger species of life during Creation after I wrote this article:

 

Creation or Evolution? The Bible vs. Science here:

 

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=evolution

 

and on:

 

The Spark of Life: From Birth - A Journey till Death here:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=spark+of+life

 

Here’s briefly my answer:

 

The smallest life forms are the viroids containing less than 10,000 atoms, exclusively nucleic acids unlike viruses which also have a protein coat besides their single strand of RNA either a linear or a closed circular geometry. Sometimes viruses may also be a strand of DNA. The first free-living viroids was only a few hundred nucleotides long  

 

The next smallest cell-like living organism are the pleuropneumonia-like organisms (PPLO) composed of about 50 million atoms

 

The simplest one-cell organism is far more complex than the precision-made watches. The pocket watches do not spontaneously self-assemble themselves. They obviously require a watch-maker. Neither do atoms and molecules fall together on their own to create life. There must be a designer and a creator behind to put them together before pumping life into them.

 

The origin of life 4 billion years ago remains a mystery despite several theories being forwarded. How did the first organic molecules dissolved in the primitive oceans manage to assemble themselves into the earliest ancestors of the DNA, the master molecules of life? Even if they did by random chance, these early molecules still would not sing the music of life in them as much as a the most precision watch would still not tick with life had the watch maker not wind them up  

 

The nucleic acids that make up the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are the information-carrying molecules of the cell. They direct the process of protein synthesis, and the enzymes produced. They also determine the inherited characteristics of every living thing.

 

All life on Earth is made from organic molecules. There are tens of billions of organic molecules known. The list of organic molecules known is so huge that they are contained in the ‘Beilstein’ a German compendium in 28 volumes, the largest database in the field of organic chemistry covering the scientific literature from 1771 to the present. It contains information on millions of chemical reactions and substances from original scientific publications

 

However, only about 50 of them such as proteins, enzymes and hormones are needed and used for life activities. The proteins control cell chemistry, and the nucleic acids carry the hereditary instructions. Enzymes work on orders of the nucleic acids of the DNA.

 

All living things on Earth are made of these nucleic acids that instruct how each species should be different from each other as much as an automobile manufacturer instructs how each car should be made into different models. But they all take the same journey in life from birth to death as described in:  

 

“The Spark of Life: From Birth - A Journey till Death”  

 

During the evolution of life on Earth a lot of changes took place in the DNA, blueprint of life through mutations for the next generations to be better adapted.

 

A mutation is a change in the nucleotide copied in the next generation. Mutation is a random nucleotide change often coding into existence non-functional proteins and enzymes. However, in the event of a very small chance an error is made, DNA polymerases are kicked in to erase the error to ensure accurate and efficient replication of the genome in order to ensure the maintenance of the genetic information and its faithful transmission through generations. A small beneficial mutant nucleotide is only ten-million cm across.

 

In the process of evolution as time went on through millions of years mutation got better and better with less and less errors as if the craftsmanship of a potter improving his skills in making potteries and porcelain figurines with time and discarding the older models into extinction as described in “Creation or Evolution? The Bible vs. Science”

 

 

 

As mutation got better and better with less and less errors in the earlier pre-life molecules, they created better molecules with specializations till they form the first plant cells – chloroplast that are capable of photosynthesis changing the carbon dioxide rich primordial atmosphere into an oxygen-rich one for animal life to be evolved after the plants. The change in the early atmosphere from a hydrogen and carbon dioxide enveloped one into an oxygen-rich sky was 99 % was due to the early blue and green algae bringing in photosynthesis.

 

600 million years ago, the blue-green algae flooded the oceans. Once oxygen became available, air-breathing animals became possible. 100 million years later (500 – 542 million years ago) the trilobites dominated the ocean floors

 

The trilobite is a group of extinct fossil arthropods easily recognized by their distinctive three-lobed, three-segmented form. Trilobites, exclusively marine animals, first appeared at the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 542 million years ago, when they dominated the seas.

 

Once oxygen was made available through photosynthesis by the algae, trees and plants animals made use of the oxygen and food available for energy and reproduction. It was the mitochondrion in those membrane-bound cell organelles that generate most of the chemical energy needed to power the cell's biochemical reactions. They do this by combining food with oxygen. Initially, chemical energy produced by the mitochondria is stored in a small molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) till oxygen is available to change them back to ATP after the energy is released.

 

It was not until a sexual companion was created to introduce sexual production some two billion (2,000,000,000) years ago that more complex species of life emerged much faster.

 

 

It was during the Cambrian Period, the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon that lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million years ago to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 million years ago that there was actually an explosion of life on Earth.

 

However, the early stage of evolution is excruciatingly slow through letter-by-letter changes in the alphabets of the ancestral DNA and their arrangements in unicellular organisms. A lot of mistakes were made during the evolutionary process through mutation. However, if any error was made, it is erased by the DNA polymerase.

 

The primary role of DNA polymerases is to accurately and efficiently replicate the genome in order to ensure the maintenance of the genetic information and its faithful transmission through generations. All the notes of life (DNA / RNA) must be put together in their correct sequence. 

The Spark of Life: From Birth - A Journey Till Death

 

I received this comment from a close friend and former medical colleague of mine.   

‘Dear JB, I am very fascinated by all your thoughts in your enlightening articles here and there throughout your blog, especially this one.

Can you explain to us exactly what life is, as I knew you as a former colleague who was so prolific in medical research and was able to interpret and explain results so clearly

Sincerely,

SM Tan

-------------------------------------------

The above comment from Dr Tan was published under ‘Creation or Evolution? The Bible vs. Science’ in July in this blog here:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2022/07/

 

Thank you, Prof Dr Tan, for your question.

So far no one, no scientist, no theologian that I know has ever defined, explained or told us exactly what life is that is present inside a body that makes us and all creatures alive and living.

The best scientists could do so far is merely describe the characteristics of life such as it reproduces itself, it feeds and nourishes, it moves, it respires, it excretes, it responds to stimuli such as given in the acronym – MRS GREN to mean the same - Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition.

But this definition still falls short to describe what living inside a body that gives it all these characteristics of life.

It miserably failed to tell or explain exactly what life is, and why does it give these characteristics as in the acronym - MRS GREN? 

Personally, I am not happy at all with such a definition. It does not describe exactly what is inside a something that is living to cause it to move, feed by itself, produce by itself, breathe by itself, and respond by itself when stimulated. This ‘definition’ merely explains the things they do when they are alive, and they stop instantly when the life in them vanishes.  Everyone, including the biologists try to avoid explaining them, but at best came out with this MRS GREN definition which is highly unsatisfactory, at least to me.  

Allow me to try to explain with an analogy just like Jesus using parables. We shall try to explain using a car to compare with a living species of life or anything that is living and compare this with a life that is already dead. We shall explain them side-by-side for comparison. Ready?  

Imagine a manufacturer of a car, let’s say the German engineer Karl Benz who invented the Mercedes Benz 136 years ago till the present 2022. But it could also be any other car manufacturers for any other models of cars as they are now manufacturing.  We are only giving Mercedes Benz as an example. 

Imagine each year a new car model is produced by Karl Benz, assuming he is still alive, each new model representing each species of life emerged over the millions of years through evolution.  As each new model is churned out, the newer model of the car is better and more adapted, and better looking too than the previous, like newer and better species of life evolved through adaptation and natural selection.  

Let us say the first model of the Mercedes Benz in 1886 was a three-wheeled motor car, known as the "motorwagen,", and as more and more new models are produced, they become better and better, more and more durable and better adapted to wear and tear just like the evolution of better and better adaptable species of life here on earth till now we have the stylish highly efficient and the current more expensive Mercedes Benz EQS costing US $ 160,000

Let us now park all these different models of Mercedes Benz over the years on the road. What happens? Nothing happens no matter what the model.

Absolutely none of the cars, no matter which model, moves. They do not represent something similar to life that is able to move (locomotion) on its own as one of the definitions of life unless the cars are ‘fed’ with petrol - power and energy pumped into each of them. Cars too ‘breathe’ in air for the petrol to be burnt in their combustion cylinders similar to the air we breathe for food to be metabolized.

Similarly, neither would any of the air-breathing (aerobic) species of life be able to creep without feeding itself for energy.

Is that the answer? Not yet, not quite. Even if we pump petrol full tank into every model of these cars, none still can move by itself unless there is a spark (plug) to ignite the petrol in the cylinders. This is similar to the food we eat that enters the stomach before entering into the bodies of every species of animal for energy. But the nutrients need a spark of life to ignite them.  

Now we are getting closer to understanding, but not quite yet. The car represents the body, the petrol represents the biochemicals such as sugars, amino acids, fats, vitamins, minerals, microminerals, enzymes, hormones. etc in a living body before they can be metabolized (burnt) for locomotion. But in order for the nutrients (‘petrol’) in a living body to be metabolized (burnt) the body it needs the fire (sparks) of life to ignite them since none of the sugars, fats or amino acids in the body can burn (metabolize) by themselves.

Another way to make this clearer to understand is, if a body is already dead without that mysterious “spark” or “fire” inside, we may put in as much food as we like inside its mouth, stomach, intestines, none of those food will be burnt or metabolised, not even if we infuse nutrients directly into the bloodstream like we do for parenteral nutrition - feeding intravenously through a vein to bypass the digestive tract.

The nutrient (“petrol”) will still not be metabolized inside a dead body as much as the petrol will not ignite in the cylinder of a car without the spark plug. That spark represents life. It must be present first in all things living.  That “spark” is the definition of life. 

Unfortunately, this was missed out, unthought off by scientists trying to define life until today. They have not offered this explanation except to describe the characteristic or behaviour of life as its definition. Is that the final explanation?

No, not quite yet. That spark to give life, plus the nutrients to the body, as petrol to the cars are still not enough. It needs a driver to drive the car. That driver is God to give directions where to go, when to go, and when the journey has to stop and end (die).

The car, whatever the make or model, just cannot move by itself without a driver to turn on the ignition key even if it has all the ingredients – the body, wheels (limbs and legs), lamps (eyes), petrol (food and nutrients). It needs a driver to turn on the ignition keys to the spark plugs of life to direct it when to start and when to begin the journey and when to end a journey (birth-journey in life till death). 

God is the driver of our life. He decides when and where to turn on the ignition key to our car. He decides what journey He is going to take for us. It may be a short one, it may be a very long one, the scenes we saw and experienced on the way, and when and where He will end this journey for us. 

The journey even on death may be very far, far away in another world towards the ends of heavens, considering in astronomy there could be an estimated 100 trillion, trillion other stars and worlds out there. That journey could also be a very short one to a nearby world.

Moments before the ignition key is turned off by the Driver of our life, it will be our last journey, the last scenes we saw and the last experience in that journey.

I believe this is true not just for us, but for all living things, including all the animals that creep, feed and reproduce in this world.

But what causes death? Straight away the most common answer almost everyone would offer is, when there is any kind of serious injuries to the body that disrupt the normal biochemical and physiological functions such as from a fatal accident, or from an intractable and incurable disease where the heart, lungs, and all body systems and their functions permanently and irreversibly cease. No one in their thoughts would offer to explain it was because his soul that controls these complex chemistries left the body.

 

But they would tolerate it if you tell them his soul left his body because his / her organs and systems shut down into multiple organ failures due to an accident or some illness.

 

Furthermore, when we say a person, let’s say, Mr. A telling Mr. B that Mr. C left has the house this morning, Mr B will normally ask Mr A where did Mr C go? But hardly anyone this far whom I know, or have heard someone ever asked or enquired where did his soul go, especially to which world when told someone has passed away?

 

I have often asked myself this very perplexing question, which is which? – when a person dies, was it the body that shuts down first, before the soul leaves, or is it the reverse, the soul leaves first, and the body shuts down?

 

As far as I know life residing inside a living body is an undefined and an unmeasurable “vital force” that controls all the body’s biochemistries and physiological functions. Would this unknown, unmeasurable entity, yet to be defined by science leaves the body first after being harassed by accidents and disease?

 

 

I have given the illustration that a car presents our physical body powered by petrol. In a living body, the petrol represents the energy from the food we eat that drives our normal body’s need for energy. The energy is needed to drive all our body’s biochemistries in life. But in a serious accident the car is “dead” and will not move. The spark within its combustion chambers is also “dead”

 

It was actually the sparks from the spark plugs representing the actual sparks of life that burns the petrol (food) without which the petrol in the car would never be able to ignite to cause the car to move as much as food is needed for locomotion as one of the characteristics of life defined by scientists

 

But then this still have not answered whether it was the spark or the car that came to a standstill first in an accident?

 

I thought over this question for a day or two. Suddenly a vision came. If the car was taking a journey till it came to the end of a voyage without incident, we, as well as all living creatures would live out our normal lifespans. But what, if a car suddenly meets with an accident halfway in its journey?  Would it be the car representing our body suddenly come to a grinding halt with death, or was it the spark plugs that gave it life and motion? In a serious accident when the car is completely smashed up it would not be able to move anymore.  The car needs to be towed away and the remains put away (buried). It can no longer be repaired

 

However, if it was a minor accident, we can “resuscitate” it into working order immediately by turning on the ignition key for the spark plugs to fire into life as much as we do Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) on a heart that temporary stopped.

 

After the spark in the combustion chamber is ignited by turning on the ignition key again, we can continue with our journey to the workshop for some repairs as much we would go and seek treatment in a hospital after CPR was instituted, or for any injuries to our body or in the event when we are sick and less functional

 

This spark clearly answers my own question that any irreparable or irreversibly damage to our body, whether sudden as in a fatal accident or long-term as in a chronic illness, it will cause the soul, the spark of life to leave the body almost together with all the chemistries in the body it controls. These functional body chemistries it controls need to stop irreversibly at once when physical death ensures,

 

However, the flame of life cannot be extinguished when the body returns to the soil from where it came, and the life force that is the soul of the body returns to where it once came to bring life to another body.

 

I strongly believe all life on earth, from the tiny organisms like viruses, bacteria, including the pleuropneumonia-like organisms (PPLO), animals, plants and trees of all species and us will one day reunite with the soil from where all life first came, perhaps not here, but in one of the 100 trillion, trillion other worlds out there across the reaches of heavens some 93 billion light years across.

 

After all astronomers tell us we are all made from star dusts arriving from a distant world through a super nova explosion thousand to millions of light years away millions of years ago. Does that ring the bell and make sense?

 

References:

 

Isaiah 26:19 

Matthew 17:3 

Luke 24:36-39

1 Corinthians 15:47 ES

1 Corinthians 15:51-55 E

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Revelation 7:9 

Then where did that life go after that? That’s another question we ask. See these alternative beliefs of mine here:   

Does Life Exist After Death?

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/

The Body and the Soul:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=soul

The Conveyer's Belt of Time and Life Through a Tunnel:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=time+tunnel

Life in the Universe:  By Intelligent Design or by Accident

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=mystery+of+life

Mysteries of Life: An unmeasurable Vital Force

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2010/09/mystery-of-life-unmeasurable-vital.html

It's all there, beautifully designed for us with a purpose, except scientists though normally immensely qualified with knowledge have not seen this.

This applies to church pastors and all those “learned theologians” too who are spiritually blind. They were unable to see and explain to those who seek and ask because everything they see is physical just like the learned Jewish leader Nicodemus who could not understand what is to be born again, because Nicodemus saw birth as physical.

(John 3: 1 – 15). The verse in 3 that describes ‘spirit’ by Jesus is this mysterious entity – life.  

I hope this analogy helps with the definition of life and to understand what it is inside a living body.

jb

 

 

Does Life Exist After Death?

 

 

Over 20 years ago I bought a book called “Life after Life” by Dr Raymond Moody, an American philosopher, psychiatrist and physician where he described his study on people who have died and experienced what’s on the other side after they were revived.

The testimonies of those who have died and came back again all have similar descriptions of 'death' and 'beyond' – their experiences were all so strikingly alike, so vivid and so overwhelmingly similar despite their differences in cultural, belief systems and religious background.

They all saw what was in the other dimension not seen when they were physically alive here in this world.  What they saw and experienced after death changed the ways they lived after that. Their views on life and death, and the spiritual entities they saw after they experienced Near Death Experience were so uncannily similar where they all saw a bright light and travelled through a very dark tunnel and saw a very bright light at the end, and beautiful field at the end of the tunnel

Later after Dr Moody wrote his book, numerous studies by other authors on those who have also died and came back also described exactly the same experiences.  

https://www.readersdigest.com.au/true-stories-lifestyle/thought-provoking/11-people-back-to-life-reveal-what-they-saw-other-side

I have written quite a bit on the mystery of life, attempting to answer what exactly is it residing inside a living body, and I know for sure a soul does exist, and only the physical body dies, but the soul lives on for all eternity after flying away on death of the body.

Even Jesus has a soul which is clearly written as “my spirit” moments before He died, and He gave up “His Ghost” (soul and spirit) after that – here:

“And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend “my spirit”: and having said thus, he gave up “the ghost” (Luke 23:46).

Read further my thoughts on this:   

“The Body and the Soul” here all the way down to “Does a soul exist” here:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=soul

I think one of the best pieces of evidence we have that soul exists in all of us is given by Jusus Christ Himself who illustrated this in His parable of the rich man and Lazarus who had nothing in life when he was in this world.

 

Jesus mentioned when both of them eventually died, their souls were brought to different places. Here’s what the verses say:

 

 “¹⁹ There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. ²⁰ At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores ²¹ and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

²² “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³ In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. ²⁴ So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

²⁵ “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. ²⁶ And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

²⁷ “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, ²⁸ for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

²⁹ “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

³⁰ “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

³¹ “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’’

 

(Luke 16:19-31)

 

Many, including the church, preachers and church pastors missed out this hint of the existence of a soul. Not just that alone, the soul remembers all it had when they were in this world just like the rich man who was asked by Abraham to remember all the good things he enjoyed when he was in a bodily physical form when he was in this physical world (Luke 16:25)

Jesus couldn’t be not telling the truth as a Son of God from heaven

 

See also my own explanation on “The Persistence of Memories After Death here:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-persistence-of-memories-after-death.html

 

The blogger would greatly appreciate readers views on this

A friend from the UK yesterday (20 October, 2022) sent me these two links on the existence of life after life, and also if ghosts exist. Makes interesting reading: Have a look at the views of others too:

https://www.google.com.my/search?q=life+after+death+xperiences&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-my&client=safari

https://www.google.com.my/search?q=ghosts+are+they+real&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-my&client=safari

Our Dilemma of Over Population

 

Ever since humans started an agrarian society some 12,000 years ago, there were only about less than 2,500 inhabitants on this Earth. As humans began to spread out across the world, his population began a slow increase in arithmetical progression until just after the industrial revolution in 1840 it went up to over a billion. Today in 2022 it is 7.9 billion – almost 8000,000,000. This is almost an exponential rise. It shall reach soon, and we shall use 8 billion for easier calculation.

 

But first, let's have a look at how much space Earth has to accommodate an increasing number of humans teeming on its surface. In order to do this, we need to look at how much land is suitable for living. Next, we need to know how much cross-sectional area a human body occupies, measured at its broadest around his upper body – around both his arms across the body.  

We also need to know the total surface area of his dwelling place, the size of his average house, and let's say also the car he has shared by 4 members of his family. These are just examples of how much space each person occupies along with his properties to help us visualize.

In real situations this varies significantly, and we shall explain that later.

 

Let's begin with some simple calculation

 

Total Surface of Earth:

 

Total surface area of Earth is about 509 600 000 square km (197 000 000 square miles). The oceans and seas occupy 71 % of the surface area leaving 29 % or 147,784,000 sq. km (57,100,000 sq. miles) as land.

1 square km = 0.386102 square mile)

Out of this, 33% are deserts and about 24% are mountains. Total unavailable land is, 84,236880 square km. This leaves us only 147784000 - 84,236880 = 63547120 square km. suitable for living. 

 

How Much Space Does A Human Body Occupy?

 

The circumference (C) of upper body around both arms is 45 inch = 1.143 meters

In order to find the largest area of body occupied by the body, we need to find the radius (R) first by changing the oval (egg-shaped) measurement of the upper body around our arms into a circle, and apply the formula:

 

C = 2 pi r

R = C/ 2pi

= 0.182 metre

Once the radius is known, the area (A) occupied by the body is = pi x r^2

= 0.104 sq. metre

(1 inch = 0.0254 metre)

(1,000,000 square metre = 1 sq. km)

(I foot = 0.3048 metre)

(1 square km = 0.386102 square mile)

 

Flood of Humans and Their Properties: 

 

The world population is currently approaching 8 billion (8,000 million) people.  This means 832 million sq. metres (832 sq. km) or 0.0013 % of habitable space has been occupied by humans squatting here, let alone all their “fantastic” bricks, cement, concrete, and steel structures parked here and there

An average house is 80 ' x 20 ' (149 square metres), and an average car has a length and width of 14.7 feet and 5.8 feet (7.9 sq. metre).

Normally, some houses are very crowded with 8 or 10 people staying, others just a single person, while others have no house to stay except in the streets. So, it is difficult to figure out what would be the density of people in each house? But let us average out 4 people staying in a house – father and mother with two children out to be 2000 million (2 billion) houses occupying 298,000 sq. km of space for houses, and 15800 sq. km for cars = 313800 sq. km, let alone other concrete structures like shops, shopping malls, office blocks, roads, bridges and other infrastructures. Houses and cars alone would have occupied 313800 / 63547120 x 100 = 0.5 % of land space suitable for living.

 

More Realistic: 

 

Of course, what we are discussing here is a hypothetical scenario just for academic interest. In reality, there are so many unpredictable variables as we do not have the actual data that can only be obtained by demography and population studies. Variables such as, not all will stay in a single house with his family of two children. Many families may have over ten or more people – father, mother, children, grandchildren, grandparents, uncles and aunties, nieces and nephews all crowded together under the same roof as nucleated families. Some wealthy individuals may selfishly have 10 or more houses and a fleet of 20 to 30 cars for each person in a family. Others may stay in apartments, flats and condominiums that can hold a few hundred residents under the same roof, others may be homeless, and many may have much larger houses with swimming pools, large sprawling gardens, estates and orchards, huge farms than just an example we give here of a standard size house of 149 square metre and an average car 7.9 square metre. Some houses are far apart from each other, others crowded in rows and rows

Then we also have many in poorer crowded countries like India where many have no car, and even if they have, a car is for 4 in a family. Whatever we have we all take up spaces, albeit a tiny bit individually, but significantly collectively.

Then again, population increase, or decrease depends on numerous factors such as affordability, educational levels, socio-economic factors, birth control programmes...religious beliefs, cultural systems...etc.

 

Many are born and die at various ages from numerous causes…accidents, disease, suicides, sudden death, natural disasters, etc. All these affect population growths, it is growing despite deaths with new generations replacing older ones.  

There is no way with all these variables, can we use straightforward mathematical calculations to derive data on how the population shall grow and how human activities here and there scattered everywhere on the surface of earth are going to take up space.

 

Just be aware we are only giving examples. The only way we can tell is to do actual field studies on anthropology, demography, human behaviour, migration patterns, sociology and such a like. Then we need to consider birth and death rates in various countries, some will have more, some less depending on the country such as China, India, United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, and Mexico having some of the highest numbers of people, while places like Vatican City, Nauru, Tuvalu, Palau, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Saint Kitts and Nevis having the lowest.

 

Still, despite these variables, we can predict what it will be like by just looking at the nett result of all these human activities from data collected from actual population studies where we can clearly see there is a rising trend in global population such as here:

 

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/world-population-prospects-2022-summary-

results#:~:text=The%20world's%20population%20is%20projected,and%2010.4%20billion%20in%202100.

 

Or here:

 

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

 

 Food and Nutrition in Deficit:

 

 Currently FAO and other studies shows we are really short of food and nutrition, the only ingredient we need to stay alive besides air and water:  

 

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/fao-statistical-yearbook-2021-world-food-and-agriculture#:~:text=Not%20only%20that%2C%20but%20agriculture,9.4%20billion%20tonnes%20in%202019.

 

https://www.fao.org/sustainability/news/detail/en/c/1274219/#:~:text=Global%20trends,and%20pastures)%20for%20grazing%20livestock.

 

A study claims that only about 38 percent of the land on Earth is used for food production. The rest is either unsuitable for cultivation because of soil, climate topography, or urban development, or its forest land.

 

https://www.sciencealert.com/not-enough-land-earth-support-diet-usda-recommends-guidelines-environment-ecosystem-health

 

Other studies show land usage, crop production and natural resource use:

 

https://www.fao.org/3/y4252e/y4252e06.htm

 

Other Adverse Effects: 

 

Although food security is our main priority, we also need to consider other ill-effects of overpopulation such as over consumption of natural and non-renewable resources such as oil and gas, other fossil fuels like coal all which are depleting inversely to our population growth.

Although food availability, its supply and food security is our main worry to feed an increasing population growth rate, destruction of the environment and ecosystem, let alone other ill-effects such as carbon dioxide emission, greenhouse effects, climate change, shortage of clean water and pollution into the environment. We can go on and on discussing all these issues into chapters after chapters, and these are real issues we may not be able to control.

 

What we are trying to drive home here is, it is not just an increase in human population, but a far, far more increase in all those unnecessary concrete non-biodegradable structures humans build here and there after he was born, when food is the only requirement, he needs to remain in existence. The human body does not occupy much space, but it is all those huge and massive concrete structures he constructs and park them here and there. All these occupy a lot of space meant essentially for growing food as our only crucial requirement. 

Our socio-economic demands for food, clothes, employment, health care, transport among other endless needs is going to be critically strained to breaking point with uncontrolled rising human population. Yet all our human activities are only limited on a “Pale Blue Dot” called Earth

lost among some 300 sextillion (3 x 10 ²³) other worlds according to a 2010 estimate, but probably 10 ²⁶ (100 trillion, trillion - 1 followed by 26 zeros) in my own estimate at a forum discussion in 2019. Yet our existence here is so fleeting and transient like a vapour appearing only for a short while before vanishing away.  

 

Furthermore, every human from birth till death buys and stores all kinds of unnecessary things in life, using them only once or twice before hanging them up somewhere in the house to collect dust or throwing them outside. In fact, 99.999 % of everything we buy we use only once, twice or just three times before hanging them up somewhere in the house or throwing them into the environment till we die.  All these unnecessary additions in life occupy space. Despite our awareness on these issues, the world population continues to rise alarmingly since the 1950’s The highest global population growth rates, with increases of over 1.8% per year, occurred between 1955 and 1975 – peaking at 2.1% between 1965 and 1970. It went up from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.9 billion in 2020.

 

If this trend continues, I think in order for us to be comfortable with each other in such a crowded situation, is to have at least 30 metres of space shared between each human. Even so, we need 225 square metres (2.25 x 10^ - 4 sq. km) for every person on Earth spaced out evenly. This means there shall be:  

 

63547120 square km / 2.25 x 10^ - 4 sq. km = 2.8 x 10^11 or 280 billion people teeming here on the surface of this limited Earth just to move around 30 metres apart, shared between two persons without any more land to grow any food? That’s just too bad and fatal for everyone without any food.

 

Thomas Malthus Essay: 

 

See this article on Thomas Malthus Essay, food supply and overpopulation, famine, plagues and pestilence, rise of humans, human growth like cancer cells, an evolutionary threat… etc:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=like+cancer+cells

 

Let us now visualize under extreme conditions if the population growth continues to explode unchecked from current data, at least a hypothetical scenario when a day should come when humans would only have standing rooms, shoulder to shoulder as the broadest area in a human body.

To answer this, a minimum of 25 sampling measurements from a child to a full-grown adult male with various sizes and body frames was taken, and the statistical mean (not average) cross-sectional area of a human body was calculated out to be 0.104 sq. metre (1.04 x 10^ -7 square km). This was already mentioned above in the beginning under "How Much Space Does A Human Body Occupy?". 

 

Extreme Population: 

 

Suppose we have a situation where every square cm of the habitable land is used up just to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with each other at the expense of even land for food needed to feed an explosive rise in population, then we will have:

63,547,120 square km of habitable standing room / 1.04 ^ -7 sq. km of a human body = 6 x !0^ 14, or 600 trillion people standing side-by-side with no space to move a single cm, let alone just to lie down. 

 

Supply and Demand: Population Stability:

 

 Of course, I don’t think we will ever reach that stage where we will not even have standing room, let alone any room to bury the dead. Even the dead needs space to be buried, unless they are cremated. The space needed by the dead is slightly less than the living. Still, new burial grounds need to be found and expanded after each one or two generations.  

 

The population growth may continue to rise infinitely till such a time when food supply, gas and oil are running out and can no longer support any further growth. In such an event the population may flatten off and stabilize where supply of food and natural resources just meet. But even such a scenario may not last long when all supplies of food, oil, gas, power and perhaps even clean water completely run out. In such a situation the population will dip sharply till the entire human civilization is wiped out.

 

This is a natural phenomenon we observe in microbiology where initially when a bacterium is inoculated in a nutrient culture plate just like when the first human was implanted on this earth, nothing happens. There is a lag phrase where there was no growth. Then after being incubated over a period of time, we see a sudden exponential phrase of logarithmic growth. During this bacterial growth phase, the number of new cells appearing is proportional to the population as we saw since the time agriculture and food supply began 10,000 years ago till we see an exponential rise in the current human population at nearly 8 billion.

 

We can expect this trend to continue for a number of decades more, before the population plateau off and stabilizes itself just like we observe bacterial growth in a confined space of a culture plate like on the limited space on earth.

 

See this article:

 

A Lesson in Bacteriology and Cancer Biology under:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=purpose+of+life

 

Then as food supply is being depleted with consumption of essential items and pollution increasing, this results in the accumulation of toxic wastes into the environment. It shall be death to all the remaining human population. Life would be extremely stressful and intolerable by then, and I believe many will self-destruct themselves with suicides bringing the population further down. This is what we also saw by observing the growth of bacteria cultured on a Petri dish as much as we are introduced here by a Creator and observe what we do here on Earth.

 

When Shall it Be? 

 

When shall that be, I am not sure as it also depends not just on depletion of food and famine, gas, oil, power, water supply just mentioned above, but also on wars, civil conflicts, and killing due to political, economic and social disorders because of depletion of human needs, disease and pandemic and other plagues and pestilence to cut us down like cancer cells creeping on the surface of this Earth such as revealed to us about periodical famine, war, plagues and pestilence to befall on Earth in this verse:  

“And I looked, and behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth”

(Revelation 6:8). Also here:

 

 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7598223/

 

 

To summarize, we are the worst animals ever created on Earth. No other animal ever created do the same thing as we do here on Earth – building concrete engineering structures to park here and there, acquire properties everywhere, place our material investments to occupy every square km of this limited Earth from the way we breed, produce, consume, congest, destroy the environment, and use up all the natural resources.

 

Scientists and zoologists classify humans as animals. We belong to the Kingdom of Animalia as a  multicellular organisms with  cells with a nucleus, with cell membranes, in the Phylum as a Chordata, an animal  with a spinal cord, in the Class Mammalia, a warm-blooded chordates that bear live young; females have mammary glands that secrete milk to nourish young in the Order as Primates, and as a mammal with collar bone; eyes face forward; grasping hands with fingers; two types of teeth (incisors and molars) in the Family – Hominidae, and as Primates with upright posture, large brain, stereoscopic vision, flat face, different use of hands and feet. In other words, we are not angels, gods or spiritual beings, but just like all other animals with head, body and limbs 

 

But we are entirely different from all other animals because none of the other animals fight to destroy themselves and the environment unnecessarily, and yet they fly and creep everywhere and are fed free of charge without needing to pay for food or anything else. Only humans build non-biodegradable concrete structures everywhere on land meant for agriculture and food production as our only requirements. Birds use natural biodegradable twigs, leaves and small branches to build their houses and nests, so do beavers use the same to build dams across streams.

 

(Luke 12:27-40, Matthew 6:26-34)

 

We are truly unique