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Should Vitamins and Minerals Be Used Routinely?
Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.
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The need for vitamin and mineral supplements is the subject of considerable controversy. This has led to a great deal of confusion, which would be unnecessary if certain pertinent factors were examined.
Top level government and medical agencies say such supplements are not needed when an individual in reasonably good health consumes a so-called well balanced meal of ordinarily available foods, such as those obtainable at regular grocery stores. Also they contend that one not well may need supplements during recovery but only under medical supervision.
The first part of the above contention is true only as long as the health of the individual can withstand the deficiency of health factors resulting from the consumption of such ordinary deficient grocery store foods. The latter part of the above contention regarding medical supervision and the use of supplements only until recovery is advisable if the minerals and vitamins are of the kind prepared by the drug houses, such as are available at drug stores. The reason is given later.
Some men of prominence and prestige among natural food champions have also been guilty of adding to the confusion by saying they do not use supplements. They do not emphasize the conditions under which they can go without them. Such men are the exception, not the commonplace.
Most students of nutrition for health insist that natural organic supplements are needed by most individuals or at least that individual health would be improved and maintained better with the aid of both vitamins and minerals in organic complete complex form.
From the foregoing it must be apparent to a well informed thinker that there must be many widely differing factors influencing these decisions.
For example, there are great differences in the standard of health acceptable to the opposing factions. There is also a wide difference between diagnosing and treating symptoms and being satisfied with the control of symptoms as an indication of a cure instead of setting permanent buoyant health as a goal and an indication of a cure. In the latter case the treatment of causes, not symptoms, becomes necessary. Prevention of disease and permanency of health are the real goals.
Secondly, there is a tremendous difference in the standard of foods acceptable to both groups.
The government, medical, and the food and chemical interests contend that the food, as produced today and readily available at grocery stores, is entirely satisfactory. They do not object to the production of enriched white bread, cakes, cookies, etc.; to packaged breakfast cereals and other foods; to the chemical treatment of oils and fats and the production of butter substitutes; to the refinement of sugars and substitution of chemically produced sugars, such as glucose, dextrose, corn syrup, etc. They apparently accept and use vitamins highly refined or synthetic and therefore completely devoid of the complex factors and the natural catalysts and synergists with which they are associated in certain natural foods and food concentrates.
They accept as satisfactory a meal containing so much protein, so much carbohydrate and so much fat if it is obtained from each of the food groups: meat, fish, or fowl; eggs & cheese; milk; enriched white flour foods; vegetables and fruit and either butter or butter substitutes; and contains adequate calory levels.
The nutrition-for-health group contends most of these foods are not only inadequate but many are detrimental to health.
These same agencies seem to accept, as inevitable, a certain amount of deficiency produced defects or departures from buoyant health. They also seem to accept a definite decline in vitality and vigor and a certain amount of discomfort and even pain as age advances past middle life.
They also seem to look upon a great many of what the nutritionist classes in one group as manifestations of nutritional deficiency (one disease malnutrition with many different manifestations) as instead a large number of individual disease entities. Widely varying examples are: arthritis, bursitis, slipped vertebral discs and other joint complications, cataracts, tooth decay, pyorrhea, cancer, polio, muscular dystrophy, diabetes, anaemias, heart trouble, insanity, etc. They seek a single specific control for each, such as fluorine for tooth decay; anticoagulants and anti-cholesterol for coronary occlusion; shock treatments for insanity. All such are treatments of the symptoms of disease and not the cause. They seek a specific germ or virus as causes when the real underlying cause is usually food deficiencies. The nutritionist claims the infection is incident to the deficiency. A really healthy body is usually immune to infection.
They do not seem to worry much about the preservatives in food or the poisonous fungicides and insecticides in fruits and vegetables. Nor do they seem to be concerned about the use of canned milk, canned vegetables and other canned foods, degermed cereals and grain products, butter substitutes, chemically treated oils and fats, beef and poultry raised off the ground and both raised with the help of antibiotics and hormones.
The destruction of health essential vitamins, and the loss of valuable minerals and trace minerals in all of the above processing is ignored.
Dr. Stare, a vociferous champion of things as they are, is even credited with saying there is nothing wrong with our farming methods. We raise more food per acre than ever. Our foods, as grown and prepared, are better than ever. They do not spoil. They have longer shelf life. They are more palatable and easier to prepare. He also says enriched white flour bread is as good as stone ground whole No. 1 hard wheat bread and that refined white sugar is a satisfactory low cost carbohydrate energy food. All such foods, according to the nutritionist, are quantity foods, not quality foods, which they claim Dr. Stare does not appreciate.
The position of the opposition, who hold that adequate natural nutrition is the key to real, buoyant health and that all so-called deficiency diseases are simply manifestations of one thing, namely dietary deficiency, is as follows:
- They hold that since our bodies are chemical units functioning according to the laws of physiology’s chemistry, its ability to develop and function at top health is dependent on a supply of all the chemical elements and other organic factors that chemistry needs; and that deleterious factors, such as chemical poisons, are damaging to its health. They are not willing to accept anything short of perfect health and perfect food as goals.
- They hold that the needed health factors must come from the food we eat and that this food must be organically grown or be grown on practically virgin soil.
- They also insist it should not be contaminated by poison sprays or dusts or obnoxious chemicals used in its preparation or preservation, or that it shall not be spoiled by heat treatment or shelf spoilage or otherwise spoiled.
- They recommend as much food be eaten raw as possible, especially proteins and vegetables and fruit.
- They insist good food starts with good soil, so that gardeners and farmers should learn all the rules of good organic growing as expounded by Dr. Wm. Albrecht. Too many growers think the addition of any kind of compost and the withholding of poisonous sprays is all that is needed.
Dr. Albrecht says the humus must be of a quality to adequately support beneficial soil life necessary to convert soil minerals and trace minerals into organic forms the roots can absorb. Soil temperatures and soil pH and soil texture must be controlled as closely as possible. He also says the quantity and timing of sprinkling or irrigating must be watched as extremes either way, especially an excess, interferes with good soil chemistry. The ratio between calcium and potassium is important. An excess of potassium is conducive to carbohydrate production at the expense of protein. The chemical form of nitrogen is important. Then only will the produce grown measure up to health standards. Too much of the “organically grown” fruits and vegetables are deficient or defective in taste, and faulty in form and texture. Such food will not deliver the chemical factors needed to sustain good health.
The nutritionist believes that taste and hunger are not the sole reasons for food choice. He believes that food should be intelligently chosen and carefully prepared to supply the health essentials we need. It can also be appealing in appearance and taste. The nutritionist realizes that health can mean anything from the mesotrophy of Kollath to the very high level of mental and physical and spiritual health envisioned by some students of organic nutrition. The students of nutrition accept only this last as a standard for attainment.
The mesotrophy of Kollath was a term given to the health condition of animals he grew on purified food-stuffs which were devoid of all vitamins except a little bone and devoid of all mineral salts except zinc and potassium phosphate. They showed no signs of disease except chronic constipation, unfavorable intestinal flora, poor bone mineralization and decay of molar teeth. At death autopsy showed serious disorders of several organs similar to the degenerative diseases of Mankind. Many people are considered to similarly suffer in varying degrees and not realize it or they accept it as inevitable, as fate. The only other factor these animals needed was a little streptogenin found in milk and meat.
According to a report, chronic illness affects some members of nearly every family, 50% of whom are below 45 years old and 16% are under 25.
The Peckham Biologists, in two reports in 1938 and 1943 published in England, reported the examination of a normal healthy group of people in Peckham near London. They were chosen because they were considered representative. They found, by careful medical examination, that only 9% were free of serious illness. They judged that 91% were more or less seriously ill. Less than 10% of these had sought medical aid. 66% of these sick people thought they were healthy and were astonished to learn of their real condition. Such an unrecognized state of illness is the incubation period. Much more could be told of such conditions.
The above is given to show the general complacency people show toward illness or poor health. People hate to make changes to rearrange their lives and ways of eating. They prefer to wait until forced to by serious trouble. They prefer to be careless in early life and pay for it in later life.
We have here presented two entirely different approaches to the whole health problem. These two widely differing viewpoints explain the completely opposing stands taken by the government and healing professions and the food and chemical interests as one group, opposed to that taken by the so-called nutrition-for-health group.
If, then, you are so complacent as to be satisfied with a state of health somewhere between mesotrophy and that of the 66% in the Peckham group who thought they were healthy, and if you do not feel your full responsibility to contribute your full share toward the betterment of Mankind and do not have a desire to leave this world a better place for your having lived in it, then you could quite probably get along with the foods you buy at the grocery store, prepared and eaten in your habitual manner. You could quite conceivably get by without any vitamins or minerals as supplements; or if you did take any, you might find the drug store supplements good enough.
If you became ill and had to take drug store-type vitamins, especially in high doses, you should quite probably take them under medical supervision, as the fact that they are highly refined and synthetic takes them out of the food class and toward the drug classification. When such vitamins have been given to test animals for some length of time in high dosage, they have caused premature senility, kidney damage, etc. Similar results are suspected in Mankind.
If, on the other hand, you fully appreciate the mind and body you have inherited and are determined to develop both to the fullest, so that you can not only enjoy work and play, but can expect to take your full responsibility as a member of society and enjoy its privileges and responsibilities to a ripe old age, then you will probably become an ardent nutritionist.
This will involve the eating of food, organically grown if possible, but at any rate, of the highest quality, having it prepared properly and eating it slowly with the benefit of thorough mastication so as to mix it thoroughly with saliva as the necessary first stage in protein digestion. No liquid should be taken with a mouthful of food until after it is thoroughly masticated, otherwise such liquid would soften the food too quickly. It will involve eating one-half of all food raw, if possible, or at least to eat as much of it raw as you can, because heat destroys valuable enzymes and amino acids.
Quality food means food very high in protein value, including meats, grains, vegetables and fruits. Potatoes, for example, if grown and eaten right, are a very fine source of protein. Quality means rich in enzymes and rich in minerals and trace minerals and, of course, vitamins.
There are also unknown factors in quality, organically-grown foods, some of which, eaten raw, are the only thing which will start a mesotrophic animal on the road to recovery when its condition has not progressed too far.
Such food, properly prepared and eaten, should conceivably keep a healthy person in good health without supplements. However, stop and think, how many people are in good health and how many can get such high quality food? For example, there is a very limited amount of 17% or 18% hard wheat still being grown because of soil exhaustion. Most wheat is below 10%. There is a very small per cent of well-grown, organically produced vegetables and fruit. Such food, when available, costs more to buy than is proper because it costs more to produce. How many people have the time to hunt for such food or the money to pay for it? Too many people say they can’t afford to make the change but a great many people could do it if they had a real appreciation of what buoyant, perfect health meant in terms of freedom from discomforts, greater enjoyment of work and play, and better earning power over a much longer period. There is no greater or better paying investment than good health.
Since it is evident that very few people could or would qualify as ideal organic nutritionists, then for most people it should be evident that good organic natural vitamins and minerals would most certainly help compensate for the very many hazards in food and living habits. Also, it should be evident that properly prepared natural vitamins will make up for food discrepancies better than highly refined and synthetic ones because they are richer in all the health essentials. They are safer, in fact very safe to take, because they are in food form. They must be purchased from a producer with a very high responsibility and a very keen realization of what their products are supposed to do, who will think first of quality instead of price. Far from being a needless waste of money, as the first group we have discussed claim, they are a very valuable investment which will pay big dividends in health. It is worth a trial. Try the organic way for two or three months and decide for yourselves.
The author has presented a discussion of the opposing views of the healing professions and the government and commercial food interests on the one hand and the nutrition-for-health group on the other and tried to bring out their reasons for their wide divergence. It is hoped that this presentation, although it will not reconcile those differences, will at least help the general public to decide how it wishes to carry on its nutritional program.