Historical Archives

Excerpts from “The Science of Eating”

By Alfred McCann, MD

Summary: In these selections from Dr. Alfred McCann’s seminal 1918 book The Science of Eating, the author first outlines an animal-feeding experiment for schoolchildren to conduct in order to observe firsthand the effects of nutrient-deficient foods on the health and resistance to disease of animals (and, by implication, of humans). Then, in the section titled “Famine Due to Artificial Sugar,” McCann, who saw clearly that modern methods of food production were leading to the destruction of the nation’s health, precociously asserts that many of what were formerly thought of as infectious diseases were actually the result of vitamin deficiency. In presenting a nutrition-based hypothesis explaining the cause of infantile paralysis (polio), he also offers some keen insight into the origins of the disease. “These briefly stated scientific facts lead me to believe,” he concludes, “that close scrutiny of the food of the children afflicted may lead to the discovery of a dietetic cause of infantile paralysis.” From The Science of Eating, 1918. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 108A. 

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Historical Archives

Dr. Brady’s Health Talk

By William Brady, MD

Summary: Dr. William Brady was a medical doctor with a popular syndicated newspaper column in the 1940s and ’50s. Here he discusses the link between physical degeneration and nutritional deficiencies resulting from the consumption of refined and processed foods. While we tend to think of the poor as most prone to malnutrition, Brady points out, in his characteristically biting manner, that it is actually the wealthy in America who are most susceptible. “Most Americans, particularly the well-to-do class, suffer from poor nutritional condition and are too dumb to realize what ails them,” he writes. For “anyone who purports to be informed,” Brady recommends as required reading the books Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Dr. Weston Price, Studies in Deficiency Disease, by Sir Robert McCarrison, MD, and The National Malnutrition, by Dr. D.T. Quigley. Sound advice still. From the Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star, 1950. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

Do You Want to Lose the Hair on Your Chest?

By Dr. Royal Lee and unknown author

Summary: Two articles featuring quotes and commentary by Dr. Royal Lee that contrast the incredible nutritional value of butter with the equally incredible lack of nutritional value of “oleomargarine” (what we call simply margarine today). In particular, the relationship between vitamin E and pubescent development is discussed, with Dr. Lee reminding readers that “sex development demands vitamin E, and butter is our main source in the American diet.” Dr. Lee presents photos of boys and girls demonstrating the failure of sexual differentiation to occur as a result of nutrient starvation. He also discusses the vital roles of the vitamin F and D complexes—both found naturally and in their entirety in butter but not in margarine—in assimilating and distributing calcium in the body. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 59, 1948. Multiple original sources. 

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Historical Archives

Diet Frights—Sign of the Times

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: “How long will it be before we realize the simple truth that the health of every individual depends upon his nutritional status?” So writes Dr. Royal Lee in making the obvious—yet still criminally ignored—correlation between the emergence of heart disease, cancer, and other “modern” diseases and the introduction of industrial food processing and refining, which turned white sugar, white flour, and hydrogenated fats into the foundation of our food supply. “Is any satellite, atomic bomb or guided missile so likely to jeopardize our health as the certainty that insidious food tampering assuredly sucks away, like greedy quicksand, at the very foundation of our health?” Dr. Lee asks ominously. From Let’s Live magazine, 1958.

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Historical Archives

Carbohydrate Not Essential

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: “What is refined sugar?” Dr. Royal Lee asks in this provocative excerpt and then answers, “It is pure carbohydrate. [And] is carbohydrate an essential food, a food component without which we could not live? It certainly is not.” Today people are picking up on the fact that while there are essential fats and there are essential amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), there is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate. The content here is excerpted from the 1952 article “This Molasses War—Who Is Prevaricating,” in which Dr. Lee expounds on the critical difference between whole-food sweeteners and refined ones. From Let’s Live magazine, 1952. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

What Is Wrong with White Bread!

By Philip Harris and Paul Dunbar

Summary: A portfolio of four articles—two scientific studies and two commentaries—on the effects of deficiency diseases caused by white bread and other foods that have had the vitamin E complex refined out of their structure. A poignant example of how industrial-scale food refinement led to an industrial-scale deficiency in the diet of modern humankind. Articles published between 1949 to 1961 from various sources. Reprint 137A.

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Historical Archives

Tragedy and Hype: The Third International Soy Symposium

By Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD

Summary: Reflections on the Third International Soy Symposium by two of the most outspoken critics of processed soy products. “Far from being the perfect food,” Fallon and Enig write, “modern soy products contain antinutrients and toxins, and they interfere with the absorption of vitamins and minerals.” The authors also cite the infamous letter of Drs. Dan Sheehan and Daniel Doerge, two members of the FDA’s toxicology department who tried in vain to stop their agency from awarding soy an official health claim. From Nexus Magazine, 2000.

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Historical Archives

This Molasses War—Who Is Prevaricating? and
Bone Meal—Nutritional Source of Calcium

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: Two articles that appeared in Let’s Live magazine in 1952 and 1953. In “This Molasses War—Who is Prevaricating?,” Dr. Lee compares natural and refined sugars. He posits that carbohydrates are not essential in the human diet and offers proof by way of certain traditional peoples who eat no carbs and yet experience perfect health. He also discusses the virtues of molasses, which is rich in minerals and is protective against tooth decay, whereas white sugar promotes cavities. Lee also describes the famous experiments of Dr. Rosalind Wulzen of Oregon State College that led to the discovery of the “anti-arthritic factor” in molasses and raw cream that was later named after her. In “Bone Meal—Nutritional Source of Calcium,” Dr. Lee describes the virtues of finely powdered bone flour as a source of protein and minerals, particularly calcium. He states that for the teeth, cold-processed bone meal is unexcelled. He also discusses the role of trace minerals also found in bone meal. 1953.

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Historical Archives

Synthetic Foods and Race Suicide

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: “The civilized fraction of the human race is committing suicide by its acceptance of synthetic food products.” Perhaps no sentence better sums up the work and life of Dr. Royal Lee, who fought tirelessly to alert the American people that processed, imitation foods such as corn syrup, hydrogenated fats, and bleached flour truly were killing them (and still are), in spite of assurances to the contrary by the country’s food manufacturers and their partners in crime, the FDA. A must read for anyone who wants to see where and how our country’s health went off the rails. Original source and publication date unknown.

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Historical Archives

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.

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Historical Archives

Nutrition and National Health: The Cantor Lectures

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.

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Historical Archives

Nutrition and Health

By Sir Robert McCarrison, MD

Summary: Dr. Robert McCarrison, the famed British nutrition researcher knighted for his work in India (which culminated in the classic reference Studies in Deficiency Disease), gives a lecture to London schoolchildren about diet and nutrition. He recounts his famous rat-feeding studies mimicking the diets of differing populations in India and, based on the results of his studies, gives his prescription for a basic healthful diet: freshly milled grains, raw milk and milk products, legumes, fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs, and meat. Reprint 43, 1937.

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Historical Archives

Biography: Sir Robert McCarrison

Author unknown

Summary: Before there was Weston A. Price, there was Sir Robert McCarrison. In the first decades of the twentieth century, this British doctor and officer conducted some of the greatest initial investigations into the effect of diet on health. Studying different subpopulations in India, McCarrison showed that most of the diseases incurred by each population were a result of diet, specifically a diet of processed foods—a result that would later be echoed by Dr. Price’s famous worldwide investigation into traditional versus processed-food diets. Like Dr. Price, Dr. McCarrison bemoaned the disease-causing effects of foods such as refined sugar and flour, and he emphasized the extreme importance of choosing natural foods, including natural fats, over processed ones. In this short biographical sketch, he is quoted, “I know of nothing so potent in maintaining good health in laboratory animals as perfectly constituted food [and] I know of nothing so potent in producing ill health as improperly constituted food. This too is the experience of stockbreeders. Is man an exception to a rule so universally applied to the higher animals?” You can read McCarrison’s landmark 1921 book, Studies in Deficiency Disease—reprinted in its entirety by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research in 1945—in these archives. Multiple original sources.

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Historical Archives

Letter to the Directors of the American Academy of Nutrition

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: Dr. Royal Lee, writing on behalf of the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, urges the directors of the American Academy of Nutrition to adopt an official code of principles. Among the principles he suggests are addressing head on controversial subjects such as the pasteurization of milk and fluoridation of water as well as actively countering the trend toward “counterfeit foods” such as corn syrup (glucose), hydrogenated foods, and artificial colors. This is Dr. Lee’s public policy in a nutshell. The Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1957.

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Historical Archives

Vitamins in Our Food

By Prof. A.E. Murneek

Summary: In this article from Science magazine, Professor Murneek laments the various factors that have resulted in the “devitaminization” of the modern food supply. “Improper selection of food-producing plants, modern methods of handling the crop, and faulty preparation by cooking and other means has resulted in a diet of subnormal vitamin content for many people,” he writes, adding that refining and processing of foods have “devitaminized our foods still further.” If consumers truly want good health, Murneek says, they must learn to choose quality over looks or convenience when it comes to food. “By catering to the ‘eye-appeal’ we have, in our choice, often lost ‘food value,’ including undoubtedly a large amount of vitamins, both known and unknown.” He reminds readers that the food manufacturers do not have their health in mind. “Profit has been often the motivating force in present food technology, the dollar sign the guiding star, setting styles, fostering sales and creating eating ‘habits’ for the use, in volume, of certain products….Thus economics and style, not nutrition and health…have guided most parties concerned in food production and distribution.” Reprint 36, 1944.

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Historical Archives

The Role of Some Nutritional Elements in the Health of the Teeth and Their Supporting Structures

By John A. Myers

Summary: A remarkable overview of some of the great, ignored research in nutrition history. First, author John Myers details the pioneering works of Dr. Weston A. Price and Dr. Francis Pottenger Jr., who in the 1930s showed clearly that tooth decay is but one symptom in an overall debilitation of human health brought on by the consumption of processed foods—a degeneration that includes diminished resistance to bacterial infection, onset of any number of degenerative diseases, and the alarming introduction of birth defects and mental illness in offspring of people who eat “modern” foods. Myers then touches on the famous studies of residents of Deaf Smith, Texas, the “county without a dentist,” and shows how these studies were used to justify the mass fluoridation of water in America despite their evidence suggesting something quite to the contrary. Finally, Myers draws form his own twenty-five years of clinical experience to illustrate the obvious practical effectiveness in preventing and reversing tooth decay and other dental disease by supplementing the diet with essential nutrients such as vitamins A, B6, D, and E, the minerals zinc, iodine, and magnesium, and the essential fatty acids. A true classic on alternative health. From Annals of Dentistry. Reprint 107, 1958.

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Historical Archives

Which to Follow—Food Facts or Theories?

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: Dr. Royal Lee illustrates the nutritional dangers of a diet of processed foods through the famous example of New York Senator W.P. Richardson’s hog farm. Richardson, after shifting the diet of his pigs from whole corn and whole wheat to stale white bread and rolls, found the health of the hogs’ offspring to suffer tremendously. “The young pigs developed at only half the usual rate of growth and were subject to many diseases normally foreign to the pig species, particularly pneumonia,” Dr. Lee writes. In addition, the sows “had small liters or aborted.” Dr. Lee notes the similarity between the symptoms of these malnourished pigs and those of the disease-ridden crew of a German warship who’d been reduced to a diet of primarily white flour and sugar. “You do not need to be a professor of biochemistry and medicine,” Dr. Lee opines, to figure out that “lowered resistance caused by a deficient diet is apparently the real cause of most disease.” From Let’s Live Magazine, 1958.

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Historical Archives

The Significance of Nutrition for Preventive Medicine

By Karl Kottschau, MD

Summary: Translated by the Lee Foundation from the German original. In this powerful essay, Dr. Kottschau spells out the principles of whole-food nutrition and calls on German authorities to put the country’s public health before its commercial interests when it comes to the food supply. “From a standpoint of preventive medicine,” he writes, “it must be demanded without the shadow of doubt that the matter of nutrition is discussed in full view of the public and uninfluenced by commercial considerations.” Kottschau then proposes criteria and priorities necessary for the production of truly nutritious food capable of sustaining human health, as opposed to the deficient processed foods responsible for so much of modern illness. “Everybody knows that among civilized peoples nutrition is not what it should be [and] nutrition plays a decisive part in people becoming ill,” he says. Yet “although we know this, and thus it would be our duty to pay maximum attention to this fact, nothing of importance is being done in order to enlighten the masses about the dangers of present-day-civilization diets and to reduce such dangers.” Sadly, Dr. Kottschau’s lament still rings true today. From Research and Science. Reprint 83, 1953.

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Historical Archives

Studies of Vitamin Deficiency

By M.K. Horwitt, et al.

Summary: Report of a controlled study conducted in a state hospital testing the effects of diets deficient in thiamine and riboflavin. Of course this kind of test could never be conducted under today’s ethical standards. Nevertheless, as expected, those who were starved of various vitamins suffered noticeable effects and recovered when they were restored to a proper diet. From Science. Reprint 26, 1946.

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Historical Archives

Various Oils and Fats as Substitutes for Butterfat in the Ration of Young Calves

By T.W. Gullickson, F.C. Fountaine, and J.B. Fitch

Summary: Cream, which is used to make butter, is a much more valuable product than a refined vegetable oil. As a result, farmers of the mid-twentieth century got in the bad habit of skimming the cream off their milk to make butter for consumers and then combining the skimmed milk with a vegetable oil to feed to their calves. Gullickson and his colleagues report on an experiment in which they fed calves skim milk homogenized with butter, lard, corn oil, cottonseed oil, and soybean oil. Their findings were what one would expect in replacing a natural, whole food with a refined, processed one: “The results as measured in terms of rate of gain in weight, physical appearance and general well-being of calves indicated clearly the superior nutritive value of butterfat over all the other fats and oils tested.” Practices like the one described here, so longstanding in American food manufacturing that they’re taken as “normal,” go a long way to explain the rampant rates of degenerative disease in the United States. From the Journal of Dairy Science. Reprint 138, 1942.

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