Our Affluent Nutrition — A Real Problem (draft)

Dear Dr. Meinig:

In this day of plenty I am confused and concerned as to why so many of our elderly end up in hospitals and rest homes. You seem to blame it on sweets and junk foods but with so much good food available, it doesn’t seem possible that all the illness around can be related to food. If we like sweets so much, isn’t this a sign that we need sweets? – H. D.

 

Dear H. D.:

Your last question about our love affair with sweets is one that has been argued by all levels of society for hundreds of years. The vast array of diseases that are associated with the high use of sweets has occurred mostly during the last century and its authenticity is well documented in the medical literature. The most plausible reason that has been developed for our attraction to them is that it occurred as an evolutionary change early in our 3 million year history. Our hunter gatherer ancestors are thought to have slowly evolved a liking for sweet-tasting carbohydrates and of fats because finding foods containing these substances would have greatly aided their energy needs. The number of edibles having sugar or fats that were available during the ice age was indeed small. Hunger, for most of man’s existence, was his most pressing problem. Most days were spent in the search for food. Starvation periods were common. The development of a liking for items having a sweet taste would have helped in their discovery.

The planting of vegetables began 10,000 years ago and grains, 8,000. The agricultural revolution that followed reduced the problems of hunger as food could be grown in excess and stored for future needs. The advent of the industrial revolution spilled over to the food industry. Rice was polished and wheat and other grains were milled, causing a loss of two-thirds of their food value. Sugar cane and beets were reduced to a fine white powder that no longer contained anything except calories. All vitamins, minerals and other nutrients were lost in the processing. Cereals such as corn flakes, puffed rice and Wheaties suffered even more drastic manufacturing adulteration and are further deteriorated by the use of coloring chemicals and preservatives, but their taste is made alluring by a generous addition of sugar. Vegetables have been processed into light colored, bland-tasting oils that are excessively used and in themselves, have been found to be harmful.

Most information taught in universities about nutrition and agriculture these past 50 years is highly prejudiced by conflicts of interest as the research that produced the data they teach grew from grants of funds from the very industries that adulterated our food supplies. Medical schools ignored nutrition because more and more treatment curriculums were based on drugs and chemicals. The research moneys that supported and encouraged this direction of medical therapy has come mostly from the drug industry. By the same token, most of the funds for agricultural research has been derived from the chemical and pesticide industries. The 3 million dollar Harvard University nutrition-building moneys came from the refined, box cereal companies and soft drink concerns, as do much of their project funds. Does anyone think that those seeking money for research would dare suggest or submit projects that would be critical of the sponsoring agency?

A few dedicated men in the past did carry out nutritional research programs, often without subsidies. It was these immortal pioneers who discovered the first classical vitamin deficiency diseases of beriberi, pellagra, rickets and scurvy. These illnesses were found to be caused by the milling of rice and other grains. Instead of the political powers directing effort to stop the processing that was depleting food of its vitamins and minerals, these sicknesses were cured with supplements. The ever-increasing loss of food nutrients by new processing techniques and the vast increase in the number of these foods have now created a host of subtle and more severe deficiency diseases. Not only are vitamins and minerals involved but adulterated protein has become a risk factor. Essential fatty acids and fiber are in short supply to a high percentage of our population. Hunger is no longer a problem in advanced societies; now it is chronic disease from affluent malnutrition.

Today, our people, for the most part, are consuming diets overly rich in calories from highly refined but nutrient-deficient carbohydrates and fats. This has led to a nutritional problem that never before existed–that is, over-consumption and under-nutrition. Modern food technology has produced a magnitude of products which are copiously supplied with calories but are devoid of the 40 to 50 known nutrients so necessary for our tissues. Somehow, we tend to forget the purpose of eating food is not to satisfy taste but to supply our cells with all the nutrients they need to function properly.

For example, a recent study reported in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition in October 1985 confirmed that the chronically sick and elderly had low blood concentrations of vitamin C that were due to insufficient dietary intake. Supplementation of only 100 mg. of C raised blood levels 7 times. Your question implies that people have so many good foods available that adequate nutrition is the rule. For more than 30 years physicians and dentists have had available computerized diet surveys. Over a three-day or weekly period, patients record, after each meal, on prepared forms, a list of all the foods and beverages they consumed. Computers analyze and return to the doctor a report of the total amount of vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates present in the patient’s diet and how each of these compare to the minimum daily requirements recommended by the government. This type of survey has an admitted 15% error, the reasons for which should be obvious and understandable. That error does not begin to account for the fact that it is rare to find a single patient who is not deficient in one or more food essentials. Most have several critical deficiencies and some excesses. In my practice, I ran numbers of these nutritional studies over the years and did not find a single patient who met minimum daily requirements. Keep in mind that these tabulations are “minimum” requirements, not optimum.

Everywhere we go there is so much of that junk food put before us that even those who try to follow sound nutrition practice face extreme difficulty in coping with the social interchanges that might ensue. Although the stigma of being a nutrition nut lost its sting long ago, there still seems to be a fear and reluctance that makes it difficult for people to face others when they refuse to imbibe in those prevalent “not so good” goodies.

All of the data presented above, regarding the adulteration of our foods by modern food fabricators, has been known, published and presented for over 50 years. None of it is new. What is new and is being provided by everyday current research is the interpretation of the chemistry of these matters. With each such report, a few more individuals, at last, become aware of the responsibility they have to their own bodies. The food technologists will keep right on producing more and more of their shoddy and dangerous products until our enlightened public stops purchasing these foods.

On the other hand, for those of you who would like to at least have the minimum daily food requirements and are striving for optimum health, good things are happening. Interest in nutrition by the public is growing by leaps and bounds. It has stimulated food markets to stock fresh, natural vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, poultry and 100% whole grains, brown rice, nuts and seeds. In most places in the United States they can be obtained all year long. This was not possible 50 years ago.

Preventive nutrition is not an exact science but each day clinical nutritionists are performing new miracles. Each of you can also witness and experience these astonishing changes if you refuse the over-consumption/under-nutrition diets.