Our Lost Integrity
Contents in this issue:
- “Our Lost Integrity.”
The following is a transcription of the Fourth Quarter 1974 issue of Dr. Royal Lee’s Applied Trophology newsletter, originally published by Standard Process Laboratories.
Our Lost Integrity
Then and Now
Understandably, we are and should be concerned about the energy shortage and its possible repercussions. We may face a difficult time and worldwide reorientation. For us it must be a time of sensible retrenchment and evaluation of the individual independence that made our country great. We must about-face from the degradation of our society through greediness, untruthfulness, immorality, extravagant living and the idea that big means right.
We seem to have forgotten that our country achieved greatness because of the initiative and ingenuity of the small farmer, the small businessman, the country doctor, their families, friends and neighbors. In this greedy dog-eat-dog era, we seem to have lost our attitude toward our country, nature, religion, and the other attributes that made life worthwhile.
It seems that we have forgotten that our Creator has only loaned these natural resources to us in our capacity of caretakers of the earth. In less than 200 years of existence we have squandered most of our natural resources. Perhaps we had better call a halt and start over. Or must we be reminded of the “rise and fall of the Roman Empire.”
Presently, we are a prime example of the technological amnesia that afflicts highly developed civilizations. We have a tendency to forget the simple ways of doing things in our engrossment with the complex ways of doing them. From history we learn that we dare not forget the experiences and knowledge acquired by our forebears. We presently find ourselves in the position where nothing is so certain as uncertainty. It has been stated, and we quote, “Civilization may be what will finally eliminate the human race.”
Hunza Life
Presently man’s lifespan varies according to the part of the world from which he came, the naturalness or unnaturalness of his food supply, and the presence or absence of toxic chemicals in the air he breathes or the water he drinks. We have often heard of the “healthy Hunzas,” living in an isolated mountain valley where they learned to live on simple foods that they raised organically. They did not have doctors or dentists yet maintained their eyesight and teeth for their entire life. This is quite remarkable as many of them have been active over 100 years, with some of them living for 103 or 104 years. More remarkable is the fact that they worked every day, most of them traveling anywhere from 5 to 20 miles a day. They functioned normally and raised healthy children to continue the race.
Now we understand that within the last few years a road has been bulldozed over the mountain and these people have been exposed to modern civilization. It has been reported that in less than one generation imported foods have fostered dental caries and poor eyesight and an earlier death rate for the elderly. We are sure no one wants to be isolated like the Hunza people, but their longevity and health surely must be considered as an example of the benefits to be secured from natural food, the drinking of pure mountain spring water, and the breathing of unpolluted air.
The Contrast
It has recently been stated that if you are a typical American you have at least one of the following complaints: allergy, fatigue, headaches, constipation, loss of teeth, eye trouble, skin and hair problems, stomach disorders, and weight problems. Generally speaking, fatigue and tiredness are the most common complaints. Many of the “best-fed people on earth,” previous to 1920, are now suffering from malnutrition. An early nutritionist advised, “I know of nothing so potent in maintaining good health, in laboratory animals, as perfectly constituted food. I know of nothing so potent in producing ill health as improperly constituted food.”
Many of the nutrients we humans need for good health are lost through modern food raising, chemicalized food processing, unbalanced enrichment, coal tar dyeing, etc. Surely this must be the cause of some of our lost integrity.
Mary T. Goodwin, author of Better Living Through Better Eating, says the “Basic Four” nutritional guideline should be changed to the “Basic 4Fs”: “formulated, fabricated, fake foods that fail in their purpose.” Perhaps the energy crisis will bring us back to healthier days by reminding us to do something about our individual lost energy, doubtless due to an overstuffed, supposedly well-fed body.
Failure to Nourish
Our personal involvement in the energy crisis and in the continued inflationary trend has monopolized our thinking to such an extent that we have failed to really consider the food crisis that affects over half of the people in the world. This crisis seems so far away and our backlog of food so great that we personally could not be affected. Actually, that is only the way it seems. As we recently stated in “Land and Food”:
“Many nations have in the past relied on our reserves of grain and other commodities, but now this surplus has been dissipated. Then too, our run-down soil has failed to furnish the proper nutrients necessary for good health, which is no doubt partially responsible for our poor rating for life expectancy.”
Anthony Lewis makes some interesting observations in an article in the Dallas Morning News, April 19, 1974, entitled “America Must Diet to Help Others.” He quotes Professor Jean Mayer, PhD, of Harvard as follows: “The same amount of food that is feeding 210 million Americans would feed 1.5 billion Chinese on an average Chinese diet.”
The inference is that if Americans became less extravagant in their eating habits, and changed them accordingly, we could share with the nations facing mass starvation. Perhaps the fact that 80 percent of our population may be overweight contributes to this thought. However, excess fat may be due to causes other than overeating, such as foodless foods and lack of exercise. Also, obesity is now considered a form of malnutrition.
The article also makes the point, as we previously predicted, that crops were inhibited due to the worldwide fertilizer shortage resulting from the petroleum crisis. The highly nitrogenous portion of the synthetic chemical fertilizers is made from bituminous matter. Through the aid of so-called agricultural “experts,” our chemical industries have taught people around the world to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides. In some areas these agrochemicals have forced production of the arable land beyond its capacity, further adding to the plight of these poor people. Now that our type of civilization (greediness) may cause suffering and death, the average American should tighten his belt to provide food so we do not lose face! It seems that when trouble arises it’s always the little guy who is left holding the bag.
Dr. Jean Mayer, former nutritional consultant to the president (the Harvard professor with whom we can usually agree), further suggests: “It’s time we changed our approach and focused our agriculture and nutritional policy on foods and the good nutrition of the American people.” He also states: “All medical advances in the U.S. in the past 25 years have been wiped out by the decline in the American diet.” He then cites World Health Organization findings that the U.S. has dropped from 11th place 25 years ago to 37th place now. Apparently, his interest in the consumer signifies that big business hasn’t taken Harvard over altogether.
Various other surveys indicate that despite the superabundance of food in this country in past years, many of our citizens are now malnourished. This does not apply only to poor people, as these surveys reveal that many middle-class and rich people are also undernourished. Besides soil poverty, much of the fault is attributed to overcooking, pasteurizing, other processing and high-pressure advertising of non-nutritional snacks. Only recently the Center for Science in the Public Interest advised that soft drinks were in a class by themselves: “the worst class.” They contribute 10 percent sugar and contain no minerals, protein, or vitamins. The diet drinks may even be more hazardous, as some tests have found some of the sweetening agents to be detrimental to health. Soft drinks temporarily satisfy the appetite, thereby lessening the amount of better foods in the diet, and rank first as contributors to tooth decay and obesity.
In this regard nutritionist Mary Goodwin advises, “Since the end of World War II…consumption of dairy products has gone down 21 percent, of vegetables 23 percent, and of fruits 25 percent.” On the other hand, consumption of soft drinks is up about 80 percent, of pies, cookies, and desserts about 70 percent, and of things to munch on, like potato chips, about 85 percent. So our children gorge themselves on candy, cake, ice cream and soda pop of all kinds, have teeth full of cavities, colds much of the winter, and usually may be half sick the rest of the time.
Degraded Food
Modern day ice cream (with little if any cream) has been called a good-tasting chemistry set. A few of the chemicals included are gums, diglycerides to emulsify it, sodium carboxymethylcellulose to stabilize it, coal tar dye to color it, and artificial flavoring to make all the chemicals taste good. Like soft drinks, it contains little if any nutrition.
Recently foreign investigators reported that some of the red and orange coal tar dyes are harmful and not acceptable in food. Apparently as a result, Red Dye #2, has been placed in a limited use status by our FDA. It is used to imitate cherry and strawberry in soft drinks and ice cream and also as a dye for pink pills, gelatin, colas, maraschino cherries, chewing gum, and baked goods. The International Committee of the World Health Organization has stressed the fact that these chemical dyes are frequently changed within the body to “degradation products” that are possibly more toxic than the original substances. From this we must infer that nonnutritive chemical additives do not always become waste matter to be readily expelled. Not too long ago, Dr. Ben F. Feingold of the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Center discovered that processed food-dye additives may be a major unsuspected cause of allergy, hyperactivity, and learning problems in children.
Chemically preserved foods may be a bonanza for industry but also may end up as a pain somewhere in the body for the consumer. In spite of the great risk involved, millions of Americans are knowingly or unknowingly subjecting themselves to physical peril through the industrial abuse of the natural food chain. Before overwise industrial interference, health was maintained through the natural chain, from earth, to plant, to animal, to man, and usually through a natural death, back to earth.
If nutrients are not in the topsoil of the earth, processing may further aggravate a bad situation. Lack of proteins, minerals, vitamins, dietary fiber, saturated and unsaturated fatty acid balance—all are known to contribute to ill health. All these substances, from which we are made, come from the earth through our beneficent Creator. Obstruction of His life plan leads to an earlier death. The human body cannot function on a diet deprived of any of these substances if incomplete or unbalanced.
Maximum growth of healthy body cells requires the simultaneous presence of all the nutrients. Nutrition and health are inseparable, yet it has not been adequately recognized that well-fed individuals are less subject to almost every type of pathology than malnourished ones. Sound nutrition in the elderly person differs little from that in the younger adult. Obesity, undernutrition or any other improper balance of nutrients in the diet, all have a detrimental effect regardless of age.
Results of Deficient Food?
Malnutrition over a long period results in the starvation of some vital organ and eventually results in the starvation of the entire body. The old proverb, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” certainly applies in regard to the cellular structure of our body. If any one of the necessary food elements or substances is deficient, an oversupply of any of the others cannot make up for this deficiency. Depending on the individual, this oversupply of useless nutrients may be eliminated as waste or be stored in the body as fat. They are unbalanced nutrients that at best can only contribute to obesity, atherosclerosis, heart conditions and possibly cancer. So we find that a stomach full of quantity-produced and processed food does not necessarily mean a well-fed individual. It is the quality of our food that prevents malnutrition and starvation. It is only reasonable to presume that if the food supply to each individual body cell is sufficient to maintain normal metabolism the whole body will function normally. If not, the malnourished part will gradually starve. Except for our bad health record statistically, in this country our malnutrition is less evident than in other parts of the world. No doubt this is due to the fact that it is an individual unrecognized starvation, rather than mass starvation.
This brings to mind the words of our pioneer in scientific nutrition, Dr. Royal Lee. He stated: “Our tragedy is that many physicians do not recognize a starving patient when they see one. Too often drugs are prescribed when health breaks down from lack of nutriments.”
In this regard, Hippocrates, the founder of orthodox medicine, had this to say: “Foods must be in the condition in which they are found in nature, or, at least, in a condition as close as possible to that found in nature. Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.”
Scientists now find that many present-day illnesses can be caused by our food deficiencies, including conditions such as the present rash of antisocial behavior, mild or chronic debility, anemia, nervous diseases and particularly those degenerative diseases which have stealthily crept out of old age and are attacking at a steadily increasing younger age. We also have a steadily declining deterioration of private and social morality and ethical standards that is surfacing through juvenile delinquency, muggings, rape and general violence and destructiveness. Many of our young people are bored with our polluted standards and generally confess to hopelessness, frustration or futility and find little in life other than an endeavor to satisfy the appetite. These frustrations may just be an outgrowth or concomitant of malnutrition, which has been cited as a cause of juvenile delinquency. It would seem that U.S. industry-medico researchers have missed the boat by ignoring genuine nutritional research.
Cancer Research
In this regard Dr. Robert A. Good, a pathologist at the University of Minnesota, has stated: “Medical research might fight cancer more effectively if more attention was paid to what is missing from patients’ systems rather than to the excess tissues characteristic of the disease.” And on cell structure he advised: “Chronic lymphatic leukemia and myeloma are associated with flaws in the cells from bone marrow.”
Much less promising is the report to Congress by Director Frank J. Rauscher of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), that cancer continues to be the nation’s second leading killer after heart disease. He advises that slow progress is being made against cancer and cautions readers not to expect any dramatic advances in cancer research. He also notes that unless present trends are changed cancer will strike 25 percent of all Americans. He estimated 655,000 new cases will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year and that 355,000 persons will die of some type of cancer.
Usually, the annual report of the American Heart Association (AHA) is less encouraging on the nation’s leading killer, heart and vascular disease. Apparently, we are just marking time—precious time that is running out for nearly one and one-half million people a year.
Nutrients Lacking
It seems that what is missing from a patient’s system, is also of more importance to any physician than just the end results of the disease. We believe Dr. Good has cited the chief fault of present-day medical research in this country. In some foreign countries, any feasible research project receives authoritative backing. However, in our “land of the free,” research projects are prearranged through the medium of the “consensus of medical opinion.” As they are not authorities on “preventive medicine,” it would seem their immature knowledge of food should rule out such authority. Several years ago, their representative “food expert” was asked in court, “What is your definition of food, Dr. Stare?” He admitted he didn’t know but guessed it was in the dictionary.
Preventive medicine is entirely dependent on the nutritive material taken into the body for repair, growth and maintaining the vital processes. The general complaint of acute or chronic fatigue has generally been proved to be due to too little food, empty-calorie, poor quality foods, foods that have lost substance through our modern agricultural methods, staleness, refining, and chemical and/or dye treatment. The body’s vital processes can be maintained only by good wholesome food. “The balance of nature” is a very definite reality.
Nutrient Research
According to James P. Isaacs, MD, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, half the people who die yearly from heart attacks could be saved with a combination vitamin-mineral-hormone food regimen. He advises that the minerals copper, manganese, and zinc provide needed oxygen to the heart. Vitamins E and C control blood flow by “energizing” the heart beats. The hormones, estrogen and thyroid, according to Dr. Isaacs, balance the whole system. He claims that this combination together with a sensible diet, avoidance of stress situations and moderation in all things allows heart patients to live a regular home life at a nominal yearly cost. Of the 25 patients Dr. Isaacs started treating ten years ago, only two of the group have died, just 8 percent. He says that “ordinarily, half or more of the original group would have died.” The other 23 did not have another heart attack or have to reenter the hospital. He is presently following the progress of 100 coronary patients using this therapy. The reportable data on this group will be available in about two years. Dr. Isaacs says:
“This study has cost me a lot of money but I loved doing it, I just don’t want my results to be lost. I would like to see somebody, either the federal government or a private foundation, begin a larger study on this treatment, ideally with perhaps 300 to 400 males at age 40, when the incidence of cardiac trouble rises dramatically.”
Dr. Warfield M. Firor, past president of the American Surgical Association, believes Dr. Isaacs’ experiment is “the most significant new lead I have seen in fighting coronary heart disease.” Dr. Theodore Cooper, director of the National Heart and Lung Institute, remarked: “I have read reports of Dr. Isaacs’ nutritional therapy at Johns Hopkins and find them most encouraging.”
We sincerely hope Dr. lsaacs’ ambition to have his clinical research continued through outside financing, as he suggested, is fulfilled. However, food for health research seems to be a no! no! for the medico-drug combine that apparently controls the purse strings. As this money comes from both taxes and begged-for donations by the public, it should be used to benefit the public health and not to promote some selfish interest.
In this regard, Dr. James Greenwood of the neurosurgery clinic at Baylor University College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, advises:
“Without increasing knowledge, the understanding of the intricacies of the chemistry of the body becomes more hopeless. This does not mean that present knowledge should not be used to its greatest extent, but it does indicate that one should not be forced to wait for complete scientific knowledge before using methods of treatment which are not harmful and which show hope of success.”
Plus and Minus Equals Unbalance
The nutritional failures of white flour, refined white sugar, and white rice are now almost universally known. The old theory that white means pure seems to have been abandoned by many nutritional writers. It is not unusual to see or hear of bleached white flour being referred to as lily white or dead white. The so-called enrichment of this product in 1942 when synthetic vitamins B1, B2, B3 and inorganic iron were added certainly did not enrich a product that had lost upward of some twenty parts in processing.
Dr. Abram Hoffer advises:
“The problem remains in that enrichment with the addition of vitamin concentrates cannot ever fully duplicate the food value of the original wheat. Once the natural nutrients are taken out of the cereal, it is not always fully effective to add vitamins. This is because the vitamins are concentrated and do not have the timed-release benefits of the natural product. Thus, the vitamins added may be released into the body ahead of the natural nutrients remaining in the cereal. All body nutrients need to be working together, at the same time, to be fully effective. No single vitamin can ever do the whole job by itself. Theoretically, the addition of a specific nutrient will bring it up to a compound standard. But this is only theoretical. Researchers have found, for instance, that the amount of B1 in brown unpolished rice drops from 0.40 mg per 100 gm of brown rice to 0.07 mg when it is completely polished.”
Other investigations have determined that rice polishings contain important B vitamins as do the bran siftings. An early Cornell University Bulletin stated:
“It is advisable to include in the daily dietary a certain amount of cellulose frequently called indigestible plant fiber or roughage. A chemical analysis of this bran and germ, which take up large quantities of water and hold it in the intestines for lubricating purposes, shows they contain the mineral salts, colloids and vitamins. Both bran and germ are rich in silicon, sulphur, nitrogen, iron, iodine, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, phosphorized albumins or phosphorized fats, lecithins and nucleoproteins as well as the simple phytin compounds and phosphates without which no animal can be properly nourished.”
Apparently, the minerals in our body are small in quantity but large in importance.
Recently a reporter interviewed Dr. Alexander Schmidt, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and posed a question regarding impurities in manufactured food. Dr. Schmidt answered, in part:
“The problem is not really with impurities, but with what is left out. We really don’t know all we need to know about nutrition in manufactured foods. When you tear down a soybean into its constituent amino acids and then put it back together again, what do you put in? How does one reconstitute something so that it matches what nature produces?”
We believe this latter question is answered best by Texas University scientists Dr. Roger J. Williams and Dr. James D. Heffley. “When humans are fortunate enough to maintain health by consuming wholesome food,” they assert, “this is because they consume regularly every one of some forty nutrient essentials.”
Under normal conditions the human body is self-repairing. In fact, it is the only self-repairing machine in existence. However, playing “put and take” with Nature’s foodstuffs can only lead to degeneration of some part. For, as previously stated and as we are learning daily through ecology, “The balance of nature may not be disturbed with impunity.”
