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There’s Connection Between Rancid Oils and Disease: Royal Lee says there’s connection between spoiled oil and illness
Published in Herald of Health, February 1962.
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The adverse effects of rancid oil, devitalized food and sugar on the body, and the beneficíal effects of Vitamin C, sea salt, protein, sesame seed were explained by Dr. Royal Lee during the eastern, convention of National Health Federatíon. He was introduced by Harold Edwards as, “America’s best known nutritional leader and pioneer in the natural health movement, writer, manufacturer and inventor.”
“It’s a basic principle,” Dr. Lee asserted, “that we should eat natural foods. There has been tremendous opposition to use of natural products; millions are spent telling us there’s nothing wrong with our díets. Dr. Frederick Stare, head of the nutrition department at Harvard, is a spokesman for those interested in making us believe processed foods are nutritious. That department received a million-dollar grant for research recently from General Foods. One would think a great university would be above that sort of thing.
“We hear a lot about chemicals. A very fine book on this subject is Dr. Bicknell’s Chemicals in Food. Another good book, recommended by the AMA Journal for doctors, is Vitamins in Medicine.
“A chemical is a substance which has been isolated, identified and purífied. White sugar is chemically pure sugar. It provides only calories. It destroys critical amino acids. Don’t forget the difference between food and chemicals. Once reduced to chemicals, it has lost its food value.
“Most of us must develop a deficiency disease before we’re interested in leamíng about nutrition. The human body will stand a lot of punishment. But every newspaper tells of someone dropping dead of heart disease. The death rate is 700,000 to 800,000 annually. And 90 per cent of these cases are curable.
People who develop heart disease think they’ve had hard luck. It’s Nature’s penalty for what we ate. There are a lot of preventable diseases. Heart attacks are almost unknown in India and China. Yet, during the Korean War, 76 per cent of the American soldiers autopsied were revealed to have had coronary disease. Infectious diseases have been greatly reduced, but degenerative disease is on the increase. Those making and selling refined foods are fighting for their life, and that is the reason for the propaganda that today’s foods are nutritious.
“Refined, synthetic foods, grown on poor soil with a lack of cobalt, are causing disease and this is fact. People eating imitation foods start having imitation bodies. They call it cancer, heart disease. Cooking proteins destroys parts of the amino acids and the body cannot use that protein. Tissues start disintegrating.
“Rancid oil is cooked oil. Why the common cold? It is a result of rancid oíl in food. The major source is packaged and processed cereals from corn to rice. Rancid oíl causes cancer. Much cream is rancid and moldy before it arrives at the creamery. And by homogenizing, stale milk can be mixed in with fresh milk and “new” milk can be produced. Rancid oil is the most potent liver poison I know.
“In laboratory experiments rats developed cancer from rancíd wheat germ oil. lf you buy bulk oil, don’t get over a month’s supply, and keep it under refrigeration. Cold-pressed oil does not get rancid until the top is removed the first time. When moist air reaches the oil, rancidity starts. Wheat germ oil in a gelatine capsule is protected from moist air and does not go rancid for at least 10 years. But look out for oleo and sour cream butter–they can be rancid and you won’t detect it by taste. When sweet cream butter gets rancid you can taste it.
“If you grind feed for pigs and let it stand a month before feeding, hogs will start dying of pneumonia. Senator Robinson of New York 20 years ago learned about the effect of white bread. He was getting stale bread from a bakery, and subsequently his hogs started dying of pneumonia. They set up test lots, one group being fed the white bread, the other not. Those not eating white bread did not develop pneumonia.
“If we eat the right kind of foods, viruses won’t bother us. Vitamin C is important in building resistance. How is Vitamin C destroyed? Solomon’s Manual of Pharmacology, in a paragraph titled “Fluorosis and Scurvy,” reports that P. H. Phillips in 1933 ‘found that guinea pigs receiving fluoride develop a scurvy-like condition on diets containing several times the amount of ascorbic acid whích protects normal anímals, and the adrenal glands hypertrophy. Fluoride probably inactivates the enzyme reaction that involves ascorbic acid. Bone marrow hyperplasia and atrophy and severe hypochromic anemia have been reported for long-continued administration to dogs.’
“Dr. Wiley wrote that foods and poisons are opposite. We can’t live without food and we can’t live with poison. Poison should not be added to food. Propionates in bread should not be permitted.
“Another thing not good for the body is corn syrup. Dr. Wiley pointed out it is likely to cause diabetes. The University of Pennsylvania proved it does. Wiley tríed to stop the use of corn syrup. It’s a breakdown of the molecular structure of com starch, or glucose. It is as easy to make glucose from saw dust as from corn. Hepatitis is caused by glucose.
“Cereals are damaged by time after they’re processed. A test for the wholesomeness of bread is to grind some whole grain, make bread and offer it to a dog. If you offer the dog baker’s bread at the same time, he won’t touch the baker’s bread. Back in 1926 the sales manager of a large flour mill told me flour loses 10 per cent of its vitality per day after the wheat is ground. The only answer to wholesome bread is to grind the wheat and bake it yourself.
“When Napoleon was defeated by the British army, the British soldiers’ mess amounted to only one pound of wheat a day. In the Hunza country there is no arthrítís. In India, where people live on cereals, there is zero arthritis.
“People say it costs too much to go to the trouble of getting honest foods. Well, you won’t live without ’em! It costs more to make honest foods. Like hybríd corn, which is refined before you take it off the stalk. It’s as if you bought an automobile and pushed it home without an engine–an ornament, but no power plant.
Dr. Lee said he believes milk, “líke citrus juices, is over-promoted. It may have a place, but not an indispensable place.”
“What to do for protein? Soybeans are a wonderful source. In China they make soybean curd. There’s a trick about legumes. They have varying amounts of an enzyme-inhibiting factor making them hard to digest unless properly prepared.
“Soak the soy beans and refrigerate. After four hours change water, soak and refrigerate again, going through this process at four-hour intervals, four different times. To make Chinese curd, blend beans, and strain the hulls that dídn’t get chopped up. Add a little potassium carbonate–enough to curdle it, drain off the whey and wash with tap water. With Chinese bean curd you can make cheese cake instead of using cottage cheese. Or ít can be molded into patties and fried. Fried foods, using fresh oil, won’t cause indigestion. We have a leaflet telling about soy and Chinese curd, available by writing us (Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 2023 West Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee 3, Wis.).
“Other good protein sources are raw nuts, (make nut butter with liquefier), sesame seed, flax, but it gets rancid if it stands overnight, after grinding. Sesame seed has a unique place in diet. It’s a stamina-builder, preferably in the form of butter. The Romans used sesame seed and honey as emergency rations for soldiers. The Turks always have used sesame seeds. Extracts of sesame seed are valuable in treatment of some diseases, possibly even leukemia. (Ed. note: Dr. Lee’s Vítamin Products Co. imports sesame seeds from South Ameríca where wood ashes are used in drying. The seeds are brown and somewhat bitter.)
“Flax is good, but gets rancid quickly. lt is high in Vitamin F, helps blood pressure conditions and is useful in treating prostate trouble, a form of vitamin deficiency. I have seen the vitamins in wheat germ bring back a patient’s second heart sound in 10 minutes. These vitamins will stop fibrillation or murmur. It takes a week for the murmur to return and if you eat wholegrain bread it’ll never come back.
“If you have a deficiency condition, it’s a good idea to search for a food pattern, and correct the deficiency permanently. Keep a diary of what you eat for a week.
Natural sea salt was recommended by Dr. Lee, who said an experiment with pigs revealed an eight per cent faster growth than animals fed regular salt.
“Tests on humans showed the same type of results,” he said. “Arthritís has been helped with sea salt. We need manganese, and sea salt is a source of trace minerals containing about everything. I have seen the protein content of wheat doubled by adding sea salt to the land, 200 pounds to the acre.”
Dr. Lee descríbed processed cheese as “another abomination. Today’s processing methods make it possible for manufacturers to buy spoiled cheese, mix it with gum, and repackage.”
“It doesn’t cost to get good foods, it pays,” he reiterated. “India has virtually no tooth decay. In this country it is rampant. In 1933 Merck’s Index saíd of dental caries: “Can be prevented by diet.” Now those words are deleted and these words have been substituted: “Caries are caused by unknown microorganísms.”
In reply to a question from the audience, he said he sees “no place in nutrition for steamed bone meal.”
Carcinogens in wax are water-soluble and milk companies are no longer using it in their cartons, he said.