Knowledge is Power?
by Don Bennett, DAS

Many of us have heard this expression: Knowledge is Power. To fully understand this expression, we first need to define knowledge: 1. truthful information  2. false information thought to be true. Indeed, if you possess knowledge which consists of truthful information, you're well on your way to being empowered. If, however, the knowledge you possess is untrue (as is often the case when this knowledge comes from industries and individuals that place a higher priority on profit than on people), then you may feel empowered, but in reality (where we all live), you are not. If you make decisions based on false dietary knowledge for example, you will not be empowered to make positive changes in your health, and you may very likely negatively affect your health instead.

Now that we know about the true and false aspects of knowledge, you should also know that knowledge by itself is often not enough; if you don't have an understanding of the knowledge you possess, it may be difficult if not impossible to put it into practice. And, even more important, if you simply accept knowledge as the Gospel truth, without a proper understanding of it, there's no way to determine if the knowledge is made up of truthful information. And if it isn't, you aren't going to be the one to benefit; an industry or individual other than yourself will.

How do we acquire knowledge? 1. Passively 2. Actively. TV is an example of passively acquired knowledge. When you watch television programming, as the name implies, you are being conditioned to believe many things; some of which are untrue. Were you lied to? Probably not. Luckily for us, it's hard for an advertiser to get away with a lie. But that doesn't stop them from programming you with deceptive misinformation. Here's an example. The following was a TV commercial; it was just black text on a milky white screen: "Calcium is good for strong bones" Next screen: "Milk has plenty of calcium" Next screen: "Got milk?" Notice the dairy industry never said, "Milk is good for strong bones", because they can't, because they know it isn't, and they know they'd be taken to court in a heartbeat if they said it was, so they never say that. But this doesn't stop them from letting you draw that conclusion from the two truthful statements they did say. It's called "association". I call it "indirect lying".

If you rely on only passively acquired knowledge, your health is probably being compromised. Only actively acquired knowledge can protect you from the damaging affects of certain human's nature. If you care about your health, you'll want to actively seek out accurate health information so you can have truthful knowledge. One way is to read books. But the problem with books is, which books? There are books that admonish you to drink your own urine for optimal health. True, you'd probably have some healthy skepticism about a book like that, but what about the books that recommend eating a high protein / low carb diet, and the books that recommend eating a low protein / high carb diet? Do you have the expertise to read both and make, not just an educated decision, but a correct decision? And in the case of your health, correct decisions are extremely important! So treat the acquisition of information as a researcher and question all info you come across. If you acquire knowledge as a student of someone's program or book, you're not likely to question what you're learning, and if you're learning 90% accurate info, you're also learning some inaccurate info without realizing it, and that small amount of inaccurate info can be what derails your health a few decades down the road.

Naturally, I'll mention here the books I've written, and they're good ones to read because they were written from the perspective of a researcher, and their goal was to contain accurate information... except for the third book which contains 100% inaccurate information (to provide you with the examples of the inaccurate information circulating in the health restoration community).

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