Introductory Pages of Lectures of Dr. Royal Lee, Volume I

By Mark R. Anderson

Summary: The mid-twentieth century was a time of unprecedented discovery in the science of nutrition. At the head of the field was Dr. Royal Lee (1895–1967), a Milwaukee dentist who combined an uncanny grasp of the physical sciences, agriculture, physiology, biochemical manufacturing, and clinical application of nutrition to lead a revolution in our basic understanding of food and health. Dr. Lee spent much of his time—and money—disseminating the truths he unearthed to the public, his audience ranging from homemakers to healthcare practitioners of every stripe. In the book Lectures of Dr. Royal Lee, Volume I, Selene River Press presents thirty-seven of Dr. Lee’s most notable talks, the titles of which are shown here along with the prefatory pages of the the book, including Mark R. Anderson’s stirring introduction on “The Lee Philosophy”—one of the most insightful commentaries ever written on the life and work of the twentieth century’s foremost nutritionist. From Lectures of Dr. Royal Lee, Volume I (Selene River Press, 1998).

The Amazing Royal Lee

By Jerry S. Stolzoff

Summary: In 1943 The Bostonian magazine ran this tribute to the “fightinist” leader in the field of nutrition, Dr. Royal Lee. While a cabal including industrial food manufacturers, the American Medical Association, and the Food and Drug Administration conspired to suppress the inconvenient findings of nutrition science—namely that processed foods were at the root of heart disease, cancer, and most other modern diseases—Dr. Lee worked tirelessly to inform the American public of the truth. Undeterred by the powerful interests allied against him, Lee traveled the country to speak to healthcare groups, civic organizations, farmers, and “anyone within earshot” about the destruction of America’s health at the hands of “devitalized,” processed foods. While he would inspire the organic farming movement as well as a generation of holistic health practitioners, Dr. Lee’s legacy came at a profound price, as thirty years of continual legal battles and personal attacks by government and medical bureaucrats led him to an early grave. From The Bostonian, 1943. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional ResearchTo learn more about the amazing Dr. Lee, visit Dr.RoyalLee.com.

Health Food Store Advertisement for Lee Foundation Books

Author unknown

Summary: A snippet of nutrition history that bespeaks the leadership of Dr. Royal Lee in the natural-food movement. In this 1953 newspaper ad, Vic’s Health Food & Book Store in Alberta, Canada, advertises in the local paper that it carries “Books, magazines, and pamphlets by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research and other well known authorities on health foods.” From the Lethbridge Herald, 1953.

Dr. Royal Lee—A Thumbnail Sketch

By L. Jewell

Summary:  In today’s world of super specialization, it is almost impossible to fathom the breadth of Dr. Royal Lee’s accomplishments. While he is widely hailed as one of the most knowledgeable nutritionists of his day, Dr. Lee was also a wildly successful engineer, inventor, and manufacturer. From 1927 to 1962, he earned nearly seventy patents for his inventions, which included everything from electric motors to the low-temperature manufacturing equipment needed to make his revolutionary raw-food supplements. In 1944, as Dr. Lee neared his fiftieth birthday, author Lee Jewell wrote the following biographical overview detailing some of those inventions, including the famous Lee Motor Governor, which allowed silent movies to become “talkies” and was a critical piece of the famous Norden bombsight, credited with tipping the scales in World War II. Dr. Lee’s ability to not just comprehend ideas but transform them into effective application is what made him truly unique in the field of nutrition. While mainstream scientists and medical authorities argued over the value of hypothetical nutritional therapies, Dr. Lee was busy creating products that actually helped people regain their health. Reprinted by the The Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1944.

A Close-Up of Dr. Royal Lee—A Many-Sided Genius

By Jonathan Forman, MD

Summary: Dr. Jonathan Forman was an esteemed medical doctor who pioneered the field of environmental medicine and launched and edited the famous cutting-edge journal Clinical Physiology. From 1968 to the present, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has presented the prestigious Jonathan Forman Award annually to doctors and researchers who make outstanding contributions to environmental medicine. In this biography of Dr. Royal Lee, Dr. Forman writes, “in the field of ‘health through nutrition’, [Dr. Lee] stands out as the Empire State Building on the New York skyline.” High praise indeed. Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1964.

Sudden Deaths Blamed on Vitamin Lack

Author unknown

Summary: In this 1949 newspaper report, Dr. Royal Lee explains that the reason so many Americans die of heart disease is basic malnutrition. Pointing his finger directly at refined-carbohydrate foods, he says, “Most fuel-supplying foods like cereal and flour and sugar products on the market today have been depleted of vitamin B, vitamin C, and minerals vital to the rebuilding of the body tissue and muscle.” He adds that overcooking foods is also critical in destroying the vitamin power of foods. From the Evening Sentinel, Michigan. 1949.

Royal Lee, DDS: The Father of Natural Vitamins

By Dr. David Morris

Summary: “One of the intellectual giants who contributed to our contemporary high standard of living and knowledge of human nutrition was Dr. Royal Lee,” writes Dr. David Morris in this excellent biography of the twenty century’s foremost natural nutritionist. “Even though his name is known to only a small number of Americans,” Morris adds, “Dr. Lee was a researcher, inventor, scientist, scholar, statesman, businessman and philanthropist of the first order.” Indeed. From the Weston A. Price Foundation, 2000.

Protest Against Persecution of the Health Movement by the Food and Drug Administration

By Karl B. Lutz, Attorney

Summary: A landmark letter of protest to the U.S. Congress against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s blatant persecution of natural health practices in the United States. First, attorney Karl Lutz outlines some basic tenets of whole food nutrition—principles championed, ironically, by the first head of the FDA, Dr. Harvey Wiley, back in the early 1900s—such as the need to grow foods in mineral-rich soil, to process such foods as minimally as possible, and to keep them free of potentially harmful foreign substances. By 1963, when this letter was written, these principles had been thoroughly abandoned by the FDA, Lutz declares. In fact, he says, the agency had become the very opposite of what Dr. Wiley had envisioned for it. Instead of protecting natural foods and natural food therapies, the FDA had colluded with industrial food processors and institutional medicine to work against whole food nutrition by actively persecuting, prosecuting, and intimidating professionals promoting natural nutritional approaches to health. Lutz singles out the 1939 case of the FDA against Dr. Royal Lee as particularly egregious. “I have examined the records of that suit, and in my opinion as a lawyer with some knowledge of biochemistry, it was one of the greatest miscarriages of justice I have ever seen.” This document is a forerunner, by over a decade, of massive petitioning of Congress for relief from the pharma-medical cartel monopoly, whose agenda in healthcare was—and still is—preferentially enforced by the agencies of the U.S. government. National Health Federation, 1963. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 8-63.

Royal Lee—The Man

By Don C. Matchan

Summary: The Herald of Health was a popular natural foods and lifestyle magazine in the 1950s and 1960s. This biographical sketch, published by the magazine in 1959, recounts events of Dr. Lee’s life from the earliest days of his childhood through the time the story was published, about a decade before his death. 1959.

New Sugar-Making Method Claimed By Milwaukee Dentist

Author unknown

Summary: A grave error of conventional nutrition is the failure to distinguish sources of a nutrient. By this way of thinking, all “sugar” becomes the same thing, whether the term refers to isolated molecules derived from the chemical breakdown of cornstarch or to molecules of the same constitution but surrounded by a group of vitamins and minerals that happen to perfectly assist their metabolism in the body. And so modern nutrition sees no difference between the raw juice of sugarcane and the white purified crystals it becomes after industrial processing. Yet there is a difference, a profound one, as renowned nutritionist and inventor Dr. Royal Lee points out in this 1943 article. Raw sugarcane juice is actually a great source of many vitamins, Dr. Lee explains, and while these micronutrients are lost in the process of refining, the body still needs them to properly metabolize sugar molecules. Thus overconsumption of refined sugar must necessarily dysregulate our metabolism, manifesting as conditions such as diabetes and obesity. In the early 1940s, in an effort to help bring “healthy sugar” to the public, Dr. Lee invented a cold-evaporation technique that retained and preserved all the micronutrients naturally found in sugarcane. That process, described here, might have helped prevent the decay of our national health, had our officials had the sense to realize that not all sources of a nutrient are equal. From the Portsmouth Herald, 1943.

Humanitarian Award to Dr. Royal Lee

By the National Health Federation

Summary: He was called “the Einstein of nutrition,” “father of holistic health,” and, simply, “genius.” He was Dr. Royal Lee, lauded in the 1972 book A New Breed of Doctor as “the best informed person on nutrition in America and perhaps even the world.” Yet Dr. Lee was much more than a nutritionist. He was also a highly successful engineer, businessman, farmer, educator, author, and researcher. But perhaps most of all, he was a humanitarian. Dr. Lee genuinely cared about the health and welfare of humanity, earning him legions of devoted admirers. In 1962 the National Health Federation [NHF] awarded Dr. Lee its highest honor, the Humanitarian Award, in “appreciation of his outstanding contribution to the health of America by fearlessly proclaiming and publishing nutritional truth.” The federations’ words were not chosen lightly. The truth that Dr. Lee spoke—about the corruption of the food supply in America at the hands of industrial food manufacturers and their lackeys in both the federal government and the medical profession—put him in the crosshairs of some of the most powerful institutions in the country. Yet Dr. Lee never wavered from his mission to inform the public of what was happening behind the “iron curtain” of America’s food and health, for which he was “loved and respected by thousands of seekers for the truth,” as the NHF declares in this 1962 excerpt from its national newsletter. From The National Health Federation Bulletin, 1962. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.