The Ecological Aspects of Nutrition

A simple definition of ecology “…is the relationship of man, beast, fish, fowl, vegetation and all other forms of life to each other, to the living soil, and to the total environment.” It is logical to assume that any factors which interfere with or disrupt this relationship at any stage, or stages, will produce pathological changes in the higher forms of life. Adequate nutrition is essential for mankind if life on this earth is to continue. The rise and fall of civilizations is closely related to the way mankind has handled the thin, green carpet of living soil upon which his existence depends. History suggests that a decline in soil fertility is always accompanied by a corresponding decline in vigor of the people who dwell upon it.

Important changes in the quality of our food have followed the advance of civilization. These have been most marked since the advent of the industrial revolution. The extent of these changes must be recognized and dealt with if our civilization is to survive.

Pesticides and Other Chemical Additives

About 70 percent of our food is now processed and, therefore, may be treated in various ways by the addition of chemicals which are designed to reduce spoilage or to improve the physical appearance of the food. Moreover, processing includes the addition of synthetic colors as well as anti-caking agents, anti-oxidants, synthetic odors and flavors, and many other additives which are supposed to make foods more attractive to the consumer. In addition to these, there is a host of additives which are unplanned and which include pesticide residues of various sorts used on our crops or in our food which in turn is fed to our animals. The total number of chemical additives in some food items may be numbered in the dozens. Not the least of these is the group of herbicides, including the pre- and post-emergent types which make it unnecessary for any farmer to employ help to hoe the weeds between rows. Anyone who has traveled the roads of California through any area used to produce food crops has seen the fantastic appearance of row upon row of vegetables with no weeds whatsoever between the crops. This is fine for the farmer, but the question is how much harm does it do to the consumer?

Interestingly enough, “’Agent Orange,” composed of equal amounts of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, was used as a defoliant in Vietnam for a number of years. It was finally determined that this combination was not only lethal to many crops and to brush and trees, but was completely destroying the ecology of the coastal areas and the river estuaries of Vietnam. Therefore, in 1971 the use of this combination was banned. Most people are unaware that “Agent Orange” has been used in the national forests up and down the coast of California, Oregon and Washington for the past twenty years. It has also been used in national forests in other states. This is occurring in spite of protests by those who suspect that the use of these herbicides is dangerous.

There is increasing pollution by fluorides as well as other chemicals from motorcar exhausts and emissions from factories, steel and cracking plants, as well as cement and power plants. These discharges are contaminating our air, water and food and yet the public health service is attempting to force the addition of fluorides to all community water supplies throughout the world. This may be due in part to the fact that fluorides are such a widespread contaminant that many industries have extreme difficulty in getting rid of them. If they can be monitored into and through our stomachs at one part per million, this makes them respectable and their disposal that much easier. The drive for fluoridation is probably the result of a misinterpretation of statistics back in 1950. The concentration of fluorides in air in water and food is on the increase, creating an unrecognized hazard to all living things. For example, it was discovered that the Fontana Steel Plant in the Los Angeles area was producing one ton of gaseous fluoride per day, or 365 tons per year. Engineers had previously estimated that no fluorides would be emitted by this plant. Other stationary sources must be suspected and controlled. Gladys Caldwell analyzed the pine needles at Lake Arrowhead near Los Angeles for fluoride and found them to contain seventy-nine parts per million, whereas sixty parts per million is enough to cause the death of these trees. Ponderosas and others containing smaller amounts of fluorides (and other chemicals?) are more susceptible to attack by beetles and fungi which primarily infest and destroy trees weakened by disease.

As a result of the industrial revolution, we are suffering from increasing pollution from other sources such as motorcars and factories. Many chemicals are in our air, water and food which were never there before. It is common knowledge that perhaps 40 or 50 percent of our water supply contains nitrites or nitrates resulting from the run­off of fertilizers applied to agricultural areas. Large amounts of these chemicals have been found in wells in farming areas–enough to cause illness in young children.

Soil Sterilization by Monoculture

Synthetic fertilizers have caused an increasing problem because they supply a rapid stimulus to plants growing in soil to which these have been added. The use of synthetic fertilizers has permitted the production of monoculture. This consists of the production of one crop, which after harvest is followed by another of the same crop after fertilizer has been drilled into the soil. The end result is partial sterilization of the soil via the destruction of soil bacteria and microbes which, under normal circumstances, are vital for the production of good, healthy crops. The addition of these synthetic fertilizers without replacing organic material and trace elements, plus the application of toxic pesticides, including herbicides, has completely altered the composition of our soil. We are heading for disaster unless this method of farming is changed.

Most crops are dependent for a considerable part of their nutrition on the interaction between mycorrhizae and the small rootlets of plants. Such interaction in which the mycorrhizae enter the roots of the plants and are then consumed as a source of nitrogen and minerals and enzymes cannot take place if the soil is sterile and lacking in organic material. Our present method of agriculture favors destruction of microbial life in the soil and is rapidly inducing decreased fertility.

The synthetic fertilizers usually lack trace elements and do not return any organic material to the soil. As noted above, organic compounds are essential for the production of natural antibiotics. Without them, we can only expect a continued degeneration of our topsoil and contamination of our lakes, rivers and wells by nitrates and other components of synthetic fertilizers which accompany runoff into these waters.

In addition to toxic insecticides, other chemicals including the pre- and post-emergent herbicides cause further damage to the soil and even to the plants which they are supposed to protect. There is also increasing evidence of toxicity to human beings and animals as a result of the use of various types of herbicides, particularly the phenoxy herbicides (2,4-D, 2,4,5-T and Silvex).

DDT Even in the Arctic

It is common knowledge that DDT and the polychlorinated biphenyls have now permeated our ecosystems so that these compounds are present in animal and fish life in the Arctic regions. This, of course, means that they are being spread through the air and carried tremendous distances as a result of spraying and of pick-up by winds. No part of our globe is free from contamination. Recent evidence suggests that even DDT in the air, when exposed to sunshine, may be changed to polychlorinated biphenyls. The latter are plastic substances, the use of which is being vehemently discouraged because of their indestructibility. The same is true for 2,4,6,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, one of the most toxic substances of the chlorinated hydrocarbon group known so far to man. This is an obligate contaminant of 2,4,5-T and Silvex. Other dioxins are present in 2,4-D.

The fact that our government continues to approve the use of “Agent Orange’” in our national forests, not only along the Pacific coast, but in other areas such as grazing land throughout the country for the control of brush is almost incredible. Individuals in Globe, Arizona, and in New Mexico who were subjected to direct spraying by the United States Department of Agriculture helicopters suffered severe illness. Nevertheless, our Federal Government acts as though nothing had happened.

Loss of Nutrients Through Processing

Processing of our food, either by freezing, canning, drying, pickling or other methods of preservation, brings about a loss of nutrients which varies with the type of processing, the length of shelf life, and the condition of the product when it was processed. There is a loss of vitamins, minerals and trace elements, as well as damage to the protein and perhaps the colloidal state of the minerals which has not been realized before as lowering resistance to disease. This is well illustrated by the timely studies of Henry A. Schroeder, which have pinpointed the unusually large losses which occur in canned and frozen foods, particularly in reference to the B-Complex vitamins. As much as 90 percent of vitamin B-6 may be lost in canning and substantial quantities even in freezing. Large amounts.of other vitamins are destroyed. This is much more than had been previously thought to occur in canned or frozen foods.

It has long been known that milling white flour from whole grain results in a loss of practically all the vitamin E, much of the magnesium and calcium, as well as large amounts of trace elements and much of the protein. The remainder of the wheat berry consists mainly of starch. This is what is being eaten in the form of white bread, which is advertised as being highly nutritious. The addition of iron and one or two members of the B-complex cannot possibly replace the nutritional value of the original wheat berry when baked into bread a few hours after being stone-ground into flour. Bread is no longer the staff of life and the public should know this fact.

It is obvious that the loss of nutritional factors inherent in food processing must bring about biochemical imbalances, insufficiencies and changes which may be expected to result in lowered resistance to infection. This has been shown to be true in animal experiments, illustrated by the observations of McCarrison, Price, Albrecht and others.

It bears repetition that in addition to canning, drying, freezing, smoking, pasteurization and other methods of preservation, our foods are contaminated by a remarkably large number of pesticides, as well as antifungal drugs, antioxidants, anticaking and foaming agents, extenders, blenders, bleaches, antibacterial agents and others which are used to extend the life of many present-day foods. The long-term effect of contact with these chemicals, plus those which are added inadvertently, remains to be evaluated. The author suspects that a summation effect occurs and that we may look forward to much illness in our population as a result of this multiplicity of chemicals, together with a decreasing protein and mineral content of our foods.

Positive Steps Toward Health

It is obvious that solid nutritional education is needed, beginning in the early grades and continuing throughout college and medical school. Until recently no one has known very much about practical nutrition, and physicians have received no real education in this subject while in college or medical school. Dietitians have unfortunately been taught that enriched white bread is as good as freshly ground whole wheat. This is a fallacy which can be easily demonstrated by comparing the health of white mice fed white bread as the primary source of protein with that of mice raised on bread baked from freshly ground whole wheat. The contrast is striking. Other fallacies are equally as bad, including the teaching that regardless of the soil, if the plant grows at all, its content of nutrients will be as good as any other. Re-education is essential in other areas as well.

Nature demands that what is taken out of the soil must be returned to it. This includes organic material most of all. For many years we have been disobeying nature’s laws by growing crops in monoculture, one after the other, and not replacing the organic material and trace elements which have been taken out. Instead, we have been using synthetic fertilizers which, together with our herbicides and pesticides, are destroying the billions of microscopic organisms and also the earthworms which constitute a living soil. If we are to survive, we must rebuild the soil by returning to it all organic material and trace elements which have been removed.

Farm practices must be revolutionized by stressing the ecological approach. This is not only most satisfactory from the farmer’s standpoint (including income), but produces the best type of food and preserves the soil.

Because of the increasing amount of highly processed, or even lightly processed, foods which are being used by our populace, and which has now reached about 70 percent of our food supply, very few individuals are consuming an adequate diet. In other words, in spite of plenty of calories, their cells are starving for good nutrients. It is vital that we increase the.supply and availability of raw and lightly processed foods. In view of the decreasing food supply and the rapidly increasing world population, it is essential that every individual, including apartment dwellers, begin to raise at least a few vegetables in home gardens indoors or outdoors. The amount of vegetables thus grown should be rapidly increased to a feasible maximum.

Teach Children Sound Nutrition

Sound, practical nutrition should be taught from the first grade onward. Children should be shown how to plant and raise vegetables grown in composted soil and should compare them with those from commercial markets. There is a real difference in flavor. They should be taught how to read labels and to avoid food containing chemical additives.

Food selection must be taught as well as methods of storage, preparation, cooking and serving. Everyone should realize that throwing away the water in which vegetables are cooked is like brewing coffee, throwing away the water, and eating the grounds. Vital minerals are lost in the cooking water.

Teachers should stress the vital importance of using increased amounts of raw and unprocessed foods. Since cats undergo rapid degeneration over three generations and only reproduce normally on two-thirds raw food, it is probable that we should eat at least 50 percent of our food raw. More might be better for us.