By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: The “Rockefeller Diet” was one of the most ridiculous weight loss prescriptions in the history of nutrition. It was published by the Lee Foundation simply to serve as a terrible example of conventional nutrition. Dr. Royal Lee adds some rich commentary, including what the diet would look like if natural foods were used instead of the processed imitations called for. Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, publication date unknown.
The Rockefeller Reducing Diet[spacer height=”20px”]
Of all the funny fads that people fall for, this is one “for the book.” It is supposed to originate at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, but I cannot imagine any institution or man that has any scientific knowledge at all being responsible for such a concoction.
And this is it:
“This is the reducing diet. It can be taken one, two, or there times a day in lieu of meals. This diet contains 20 ounces of [the following] formula and 900 calories.
6 tablespoons dextrose
10 oz. evaporated milk
1 oz. corn oil
8 oz. water
Combine milk and water. Stir in dextrose until it is dissolved. Add corn oil and beat until oil is thoroughly mixed.”
If you wanted to copy this formula using natural, vital foods instead of the “death foods” suggested above, here is the way to do it. Use natural, raw honey in place of the synthetic dextrose, certified raw milk in place of the evaporated stuff, and cream in place of the refined oil. But it would be far more logical to go on a diet of bananas, almonds, water, and coffee or tea than to use only “death foods” when you cut the quantity in reducing.
Why are we so easy to fatten, anyway? The answer is refined foods, synthetic foods such as dextrose, hydrogenated fats, white flour, refined sugar—all capable of doing nothing to us except put on fat. And worse, they cheat us out of the vitamins that maintain our glands, which must be properly functioning to keep us thin. Do you know how the cattleman fattens up his steers? He first removes certain glands that otherwise make the fattening job impossible. We fatten up because we starve those glands into atrophic inactivity and then wonder why we have to starve our bodies to keep our weight down.
What are the missing food factors needed to keep our glands active? One of the most important is a part of the vitamin E complex (the whole wheat vitamin) now known as the “sex hormone precursor.” Without this vitamin our sex glands dry up and we fatten up, like any castrated animal. To reduce the food intake to the point that the weight drops to normal often then means real starvation, [since] the rest of the body cannot survive on such a meager level of nutrition. The situation is aggravated by a lack of vitamins and minerals, which are needed by the tissues and organs in far greater amounts than supplied by the refined food (death food) diet that is being used.
We get this vitamin E complex in the main from our cereal foods, but only if they are fresh and unrefined. [This is] because the greater part of the vitamin is in the germ of the seed or nut [and] must [be eaten] before the oils of the germ become rancid, since rancidity destroys the vitamin. Given that all grains become rancid in a week or two after they are ground into meal or flour, you can see just why this vitamin is so scarce in modern foods of civilization.
The doctor finds all such victims of “civilization” to have a lowered metabolic rate—a direct consequence of the sex gland atrophy. He used to try to bring this up with thyroid pills but soon found that the remedy was far worse than the “disease.” Synthetic sex hormones—known to predispose to cancer and upset the general balance of health—are no remedy either, unless specifically needed for some purpose other than reducing. At this moment there is no magic way to relieve this end result of “death food,” so it behooves us all to see that we get nutrition, not [just] calories, in our diet.
We must avoid all food components that give us calories alone (without the normally accompanying vitamins supplied by natural foods, unrefined and unprocessed). These “foods” may be listed as dextrose, glucose, refined sugar, hydrogenated fats, and all packaged cereal products, from white flour to cornflakes. Most canned goods are in the main loaded with glucose as filler. Even most peanut butter is now “filled” with glucose (“sugar” on some labels). (Glucose is a synthetic sugar that is not overly sweet, so its presence is not obvious to the taste.) In most foods it is no more legitimate than added water in milk; it is so cheap that its weight always adds to the profit.
Once you taste pancakes or muffins made from whole wheat flour, fresh ground within hours, you will appreciate what I mean by a “health food,” as distinguished from “death foods.” Our creator gave us a sense of taste to guide us. Why not follow it to health?
By Dr. Royal Lee. The Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. Publication date unknown.
