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How Proper Food Selection Can Build Health
Excerpts from a talk presented at the Pasadena Chapter of the American Nutrition Society, date unknown.
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“We need to know more about the foodless foods that are being offered to us,” said Dr. Lee. “People are easier to fool than animals,” and he went on to describe how his pet monkey would get very angry if offered refined white bread. A wild monkey will not immediately eat a whole slice of whole-wheat bread either, but will sniff and nibble at it at first. By the third day, he will eat a whole slice.
Animal Instinct
Animals seem to have the ability to detect the counterfeit food and that which is spoiled. A monkey will immediately detect rancid wheat-germ oil or added oils in bread, and reject it. A skilled miller can detect changes in flour which is only six days old. These rancid oils have lost their valuable E complex.
Poisons, even in small doses, will ultimately have a harmful effect on the body. In many cases, lupus erythematosus (a chronic disease of the skin) will be greatly helped by taking patients off white flour. Inorganic fluorides were shown by Dr. Clive McCay in rat experiments to cause disease in the last 20% of their life span.
Rancid Oils
Dr. Lee maintained that most oleo oil is rancid, but is made edible (but not nutritious) through a complicated process, including hydrogenation, which leaves it almost without food value, except for the vitamins which are added. Coconut oil is delivered on the west coast almost free, thus the only cost involved in making margarine is the manufacturing and packaging.
It has been found that rancid oil can cause cancer. In one study a group of rats were kept in an aseptic environment (free from germs) and were fed sterilized foods. Gradually they became sterile. When fed wheat germ oil that was rancid, they developed cancer. However, fresh wheat germ oil may prevent cancer. The highest rate of cancer is in the United States, England and Denmark—countries where there is a high consumption of stale cereal products. In 1950, Dr. D. T. Quigley, a cancer specialist, reported at the annual convention of the American Nutrition Society, that he advised his patients to eat no cereals or bread that was not made from freshly ground grain.
Natural vs. Refined Diet
Dr. Lee cited the experience of a gastrointestinal specialist, none of whose 5000 patients developed cancer. His instructions to them included avoiding stale bread and cereal. Animal tests have shown that animals on natural foods did not develop cancer even when implanted with cancer-inciting materials, but 90% of animals who were on a refined diet did develop cancer when similarly implanted.
People and animals on good diets develop a natural immunity to many diseases, thru higher levels of anti-bodies.
It is still claimed that the causes of tooth decay are unknown, in spite of the work of Weston A. Price, D.D.S., and the research of Harold F. Hawkins, D.D.S., founder of the American Academy of Applied Nutrition.
When you cook protein, you destroy some of the amino acids, because they are heat labile. Steamed bone-meal is far less desirable than uncooked bone-meal. The latter, combined with manganese will help to relieve pain in joints and ligaments.
Nature of Glucose
Another food element we should know more about is glucose. It is a synthetic sugar, and will cause diabetes, whereas honey will not.
Hazard of Dyes
The use of dyes in food is another hazard. At one time a company was found to be coloring mineral oil to resemble butter for use on pop-corn. Their defense was that pop-corn was eaten for fun, not for food. Dyed oranges are dangerous because children often eat them skin and all as they do apples, and also because the rinds are used in making marmalade. The sale of sweetened, colored, flavored gelatine dropped almost in half. when the label had to state that artificial dye and flavor had been used.
Raw potato juice contains tyrosinase which will check streptococcemia. People do not die from infection, but rather from a depletion of vitamin C. Flu likewise depletes vitamin C and the only hope for many suffering from the flu was glandular support for the adrenal glands, which required vitamin C.
Thus it is evident that an adequate amount of fresh natural foods is necessary to build and maintain health.