Nutrition
We were designed to live until 120 years of age. Most of us live for just over half that time or less and die from the effects of our civilised world rather than natural causes of aging. The reason for this is multifactorial, but the most significant predisposing factor is the dramatic changes which have occurred over the past 70 years to the nutritional status of most people. We used to die in the main from infection and trauma. Twentieth century medicine has scored significant victories against these causes. Today the majority of cases of illness in the West are caused by lifestyle factors such as lack of exercise, smoking and poor nutrition. We need a recipe for addressing these 21st.Century problems as conventional medicine alone cannot address the cause , only some of the symptoms. To effectively address the cause of the problem we need to improve the nutritional status of our bodies, but first we need to understand what is going wrong.
The nutritional state of our body is dependent on 4 things.
Our food choices. The nutritional content of the food we eat. The ability of our individual bodies to assimilate nutrients. Environmental influences which give rise to extra nutrients being needed, or interfere with absorption and/or uptake of certain groups of nutrients.
The Good Old Days, 1930 and Before:
Man was put on this Earth along with all the components he needed for good health.
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Water- natural source, alive and pure. A source of minerals and an energetic transport medium.
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Air - fresh, unpolluted and clean.
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Light - sunshine filtered by ozone, bright and clear.
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Food - nutrient rich whole food.
1930 and before was a time of eco balance. The earth provided what we needed and man returned the same to the earth. We need to understand how this was achieved.
Diets in the 1930`s were mainly of fresh free range meat, locally grown seasonal fruit and vegetables. Mothers were at home and took time to prepare and cook fresh meals, and these habits were passed on to their children Processed food and fast food options were not available.
The Nutritional State of the Food
Mineral-rich fruit and vegetables grown in mineral-rich soil.
Rotational farming-crops rotated with grazing animals. Crops remove minerals from the soil. Animal waste returns them.
Absence of chemical fertilisers and pesticides which upset the bacterial balance of the soil.
Most produce used locally and waste returned to local soil.
Meat high in Omega 3 essential fatty-acids. Grazing (free range) animals produce meat high in omega 3.
All the above provided a solid foundation for an eco balance of healthy, mineral-rich soil, maintained by waste and natural colonies of bacteria. Healthy plants grew rich in minerals and provided humans with the mineral nutrition they needed for health.
"Minerals in the soil control the metabolism of plants, animals and man. All of life will be either healthy or unhealthy, according to the fertility of the soil."
(Dr. Alexus Carrel, 1912 Nobel Prize Winner )
In the 1930`s our bodies were relatively unpolluted. There were limited drugs, minimal chemicals, insecticides and preservatives. Few environmental influences directly affected our ability to assimilate nutrients.
The Bad New Days 1930 and Beyond..
1992 Earth Summit Report found that mineral depletion of the soil is over 76% in Europe and 80% in the USA.
"You can trace every sickness, every disease and every ailment to a mineral deficiency" twice Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Linus Pauling.
During this period, the eco balance became disturbed and this has had significant
repercussions on the nutritional status of humans and animals.
There are more free radicals, which in turn pollute our bodies, and increase our antioxidant requirements.
Environmental influences detrimental to health.
Chemicals, environmental toxins, smoke smog and fumes all increase our antioxident needs.
"It is not the germ, it is the soil" Pasteur
All of the following have significantly and detrimentally affected the nutritional status of the food we eat.
Birth of intensive farming - fewer minerals returned to the soil than taken out.
Growing plants can use in excess of 60 minerals and trace minerals, but man returns only 3 to the soil in the form of Nitrogen (N) Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K). The reason for the NPK mixture is that scientists found that these were the three minerals which help plants grow quickly, as rapid growth was at the time considered more important than the nutritional status of the plant. But with many minerals taken out and only three returned, this inevitably gave rise to deficiencies of the rest. There is documented evidence to show that on average the same food was between 45% and 125% more nutritionally rich 60 years ago.
Pesticides and insecticides further upset the natural mycorrhiza ie: balance in soil. The natural pro- biotic (pro = for - bios = life ) bacteria are so necessary for transforming inorganic minerals into a form easily usable by plants.
Less bacteria = Less inorganic mineral transformation = less minerals in the correct form to be taken up and used by plants = lower mineral content of the plant = lower mineral intake by the animals or humans who eat the plants.
Falsely ripened produce does not have fully developed mineral potential.
Much produce is cut early and stored, storage depletes vitamin content.
The birth of fast and processed food: foods which have lost most of their freshness value in terms of vitamins minerals and enzymes. Food processing dramatically reduces the mineral content of the food. Anything from 20% to 80% depending on the processing method and food involved.
An example of this is the nutrient loss in flour refining process which sees the following:
Calcium 60% loss. Magnesium 85% loss. Chromium 98% loss.
Maganese 86% Zinc 77% loss.
"You are what you get out of what you eat."
(Mike Lambert PhD)
