II. Nutrition

This already indicates that it has much more to do with inner sensation than with what is putrid about eggs. The human thoracic body is physically connected to all that is sensation in consciousness, but the astral body is spiritually connected to it. And you know that what is air-like is in the thorax. We breathe in the air. We process the air. In the chest, the air is in the right place. In the other part of the human body, only a small amount of gases and air types may be produced. If too much gas is produced in the intestines, it causes bloating, and that is not healthy. The middle body of the human being is there for the actual gas production. And the higher supersensible spiritual link that intervenes there — that intervenes in the gaseous — is the human astral body. This human astral body now fights the rancidity of fats within itself; just as the etheric body fights the putrefaction of proteins, so the astral body fights the rancidity of fats. Man would constantly have a rancid belching of his own fats, would taste rancid inside, if his astral body did not constantly fight this rancidity. So that we have this astral body within us to fight the rancidity of fats.