I-78 Relationships between the human being and the plant; the different food substances and their work on the human physical body

Nutrition and Health, Lect. 1; The Evolution of Earth and Man, Lect. 6; Nutrition and Stimulants, Part II, Sec. 24

As with every domain of existence, anthroposophy sheds great light upon the matters of nutrition and healing (as already indicated in I-37). While it is clearly beyond the scope of this work to dwell on this extensively, certain important relationships are reflected in Steiner’s following drawing (see also I-47):

blossom fruit		lower body
leaf		chest
root		head

Generally speaking, for nutrition and healing the pertinent part of a plant is that which corresponds with the part of the human body in the above drawing. The human head in particular needs minerals, and these are basically provided by the part of the plant that corresponds to the human head, namely, the root, which is in the Earth, the locus of minerals. In like manner, fruits from the top of the plant are good for the intestines, corresponding with the lower body of the human. The following chart indicates how the different types of food substances work on the body: