By Francis M. Pottenger Jr. Summary: One of the great original thinkers of his day, Dr. Francis M. Pottenger Jr. devoted his career to the prevention of chronic illness and made lasting contributions in the field of nutrition science, particularly in his classic book Pottenger’s Cats. In this deeply researched article, Dr. Pottenger presents years of […]
Compiled by Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: One of the absurdly ignored facts of nutrition history is that preindustrialized tribal societies—eating their traditional, whole-food diets and no processed foods—experienced practically no cancer whatsoever. Here Dr. Royal Lee presents excerpts of communications by field doctors of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries reporting a virtual lack of cancer in various nonindustrialized populations, including the famed Hunza of western Asia, natives of Brazil and Ecuador, and myriad Native American tribes. Also included is a clip reflecting a telling, dirty secret of modern nutrition research: test animals to be induced with cancer are fed processed-food diets because it’s so much harder to bring the disease about in animals that are eating whole foods. While there are surely other factors involved in the development of cancer, one of the best defenses against the disease, as this article affirms, is a diet of whole, unprocessed, “uncivilized” foods. From Natural Food and Farming, 1960 and 1962. (Excerpts originally compiled by Dr. Royal Lee, 1959.) Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.
By Sir Robert McCarrison, MD
Summary: In this in-depth lecture before the Royal Society of Arts, Dr. Robert McCarrison discusses conclusions and observations of his pioneering research as Britain’s former Director of Research on Nutrition in India and its implications for the health of Britain’s population. “The greatest single factor in the acquisition and maintenance of good health,” he says, “is perfectly constituted [i.e., whole, natural] food.” 1936.
By F.E. Chidester, PhD
Summary: The interaction between the nutrients and the endocrine glands comes into sharp focus in this exceptional book, published in its entirety by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. Dr. Chidester wonderfully compiles and synergizes a wide scope of knowledge concerning cancer research and its relationship to nutrition, in particular with respect to the endocrine glands, discussing specific lesions caused by deficiencies of various vitamins, minerals, and trace minerals. His presentation on iodine alone is worth its weight in gold. While iodine and cancer research is coming into focus only now in the twenty-first century, Dr. Chidester enlightened his readers over six decades earlier. 1944.
By J.F. Edward, MD
Summary: Writing in a Canadian medical journal, this physician gives voice to his observations on the role of iodine in the prevention of viral disease and “central nervous system fevers” such as polio. From Manitoba Medical Review, 1954. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 76.
By D.T. Quigley, MD
Summary: Daniel Quigley was a physician at the Nebraska College of Medicine who rose to prominence with the 1929 publication of his book The Conquest of Cancer. Like many doctors of the time, his clinical experience led him to believe that malnutrition—due to the replacement of natural foods with industrial ones—was not only more widespread in America than the medical establishment believed, but that vitamin and mineral deficiencies, more than anything else, were responsible for the exploding rates of degenerative illness throughout the country and world. In 1943, after years of observing the successful application of whole food nutritional therapy in his practice, Dr. Quigley published the following textbook through the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. In it he warns Americans to avoid completely white flour, white sugar, and corn syrup, each of the refined products fostering disease by delivering calories but precious few of the micronutrients needed by the body for proper function and fighting infection. For optimal nutrition Dr. Quigley recommends a diet of raw milk, eggs, whole grains, seafood, organ meats, fresh vegetables, yeast, and butter—a prescription of highly nutrient dense foods that makes just as much sense today as it did then, when these substances were known to nutritionists simply as “the protective foods.” Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1943.