8.
Diminishing Nutrition
And Denaturing of Foods
By denatured foods we mean foods that have been so altered and impaired in the processes of manufacturing, bleaching, canning, cooking, preserving, pickling, etc., that they are no longer as well fitted to meet the needs of the body as they were in the state nature prepared them.
Such denatured and chemically altered foods are acid forming and yet, the vitamin faddist will tell us only that it is lacking vitamin C or D. Our vitamin knowledge, where it is permitted to obscure all else, usually blinds the so-called dietitians to some of the most important facts and principles of food science.
A nation whose diet is made up almost wholly of such ‘foodless’ foods cannot possibly be well nourished. Why go to great lengths and much trouble to build up our soils and then take everything out of the foods that the ‘improved’ soils have put into them?
Such denatured and chemically altered foods are acid forming and yet, the vitamin faddist will tell us only that it is lacking vitamin C or D. Our vitamin knowledge, where it is permitted to obscure all else, usually blinds the so-called dietitians to some of the most important facts and principles of food science.
A nation whose diet is made up almost wholly of such ‘foodless’ foods cannot possibly be well nourished. Why go to great lengths and much trouble to build up our soils and then take everything out of the foods that the ‘improved’ soils have put into them?
“Government regulation is an imperfect substitute for the accountability, and trust, built into a market in which food producers meet the gaze of eaters and vice versa.”
~ John Robbins
Over eighty years ago, Dr. Magendie of Paris, starved one full pen of dogs to death by feeding them a diet of white flour and water, while another pen thrived on whole wheat flour and water. He fed another pen of dogs all the beef tea they could consume, and gave the dogs of another pen only water. The beef tea fed dogs all starved to death. The water fed dogs had lost considerable weight and would have starved also if the experiment had been continued; however,
they were alive after those fed on beef tea were all dead. They were fed and all recovered.
Dogs fed on oil, gum or sugar died in four to five weeks. Dogs fed on fine (white) flour bread lived but fifty days. A goose fed on sugar in twenty-one days; two fed on starch died in twenty-fourand twenty-seven days.
they were alive after those fed on beef tea were all dead. They were fed and all recovered.
Dogs fed on oil, gum or sugar died in four to five weeks. Dogs fed on fine (white) flour bread lived but fifty days. A goose fed on sugar in twenty-one days; two fed on starch died in twenty-fourand twenty-seven days.
“Eating is an agricultural act,' as Wendell Berry famously said. It is also an ecological act, and a political act, too. Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world - and what is to become of it. To eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice few things in life can afford quite as much satisfaction. By comparison, the pleasures of eating industrially, which is to say eating in ignorance, are fleeting. Many people today seem perfectly content eating at the end of an industrial food chain, without a thought in the world.”
~Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Learn To Distinguish Between Real Foods And Fake Foods
One of the paths to vibrant health is to choose healthy foods that are rich in as many natural vitamins and minerals as possible, while avoiding processed foods.
That means consistently choosing to eat real foods over fake foods. Real food is what our great-grandparents ate, and it was what we should be eating. Don’t eat something your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
What are real foods? Real food is food that comes from a clean, living source like a plant. Real food ages, and unless fermented for specific results, should be eaten while fresh. Real food has its natural flavors, colors and texture intact. It is minimally processed before it reaches your kitchen, and no chemicals have been added to change its natural state.
Healthy foods can not be stored for a very long time. In contrast, processed foods have a very long shelf life.
The main goal of switching to traditional and healthy foods is to avoid as many toxic chemicals, additives, colors, and preservatives as possible. By themselves, these chemicals may be generally recognized as safe (GRAF) by the FDA, but no studies have ever been done on the effects that combinations of these chemicals have on human health. And we are not so sure about the FDA’s commitment to keeping us safe either.
It appears that the general headaches, joint pains, stomach ailments, fatigue, and other “non-specific” health issues that many people experience are related to the chemicals found in our food supply. Many people who substitute real foods for processed, chemical laden foods, stop having these non-specific symptoms.
Modern commerce has robbed these foods of their body-building material while retaining the hunger satisfying energy factors. For example, in the production of refined white flour approximately eighty per cent or four-fifths of the phosphorus and calcium content are usually removed, together with the vitamins and minerals provided in the embryo or germ. The evidence indicates that a very important factor in the lowering of reproductive efficiency of womanhood is directly related to the removal of vitamin E in the processing of wheat.
The germ of wheat is our most readily available source of that vitamin. Its role as a nutritive factor for the pituitary gland in the base of the brain, which largely controls growth and organ function, apparently is important in determining the production of mental types. Similarly the removal of vitamin B with the embryo of the wheat, together with its oxidation after processing, results in depletion of body-building activators.
That means consistently choosing to eat real foods over fake foods. Real food is what our great-grandparents ate, and it was what we should be eating. Don’t eat something your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
What are real foods? Real food is food that comes from a clean, living source like a plant. Real food ages, and unless fermented for specific results, should be eaten while fresh. Real food has its natural flavors, colors and texture intact. It is minimally processed before it reaches your kitchen, and no chemicals have been added to change its natural state.
Healthy foods can not be stored for a very long time. In contrast, processed foods have a very long shelf life.
The main goal of switching to traditional and healthy foods is to avoid as many toxic chemicals, additives, colors, and preservatives as possible. By themselves, these chemicals may be generally recognized as safe (GRAF) by the FDA, but no studies have ever been done on the effects that combinations of these chemicals have on human health. And we are not so sure about the FDA’s commitment to keeping us safe either.
It appears that the general headaches, joint pains, stomach ailments, fatigue, and other “non-specific” health issues that many people experience are related to the chemicals found in our food supply. Many people who substitute real foods for processed, chemical laden foods, stop having these non-specific symptoms.
Modern commerce has robbed these foods of their body-building material while retaining the hunger satisfying energy factors. For example, in the production of refined white flour approximately eighty per cent or four-fifths of the phosphorus and calcium content are usually removed, together with the vitamins and minerals provided in the embryo or germ. The evidence indicates that a very important factor in the lowering of reproductive efficiency of womanhood is directly related to the removal of vitamin E in the processing of wheat.
The germ of wheat is our most readily available source of that vitamin. Its role as a nutritive factor for the pituitary gland in the base of the brain, which largely controls growth and organ function, apparently is important in determining the production of mental types. Similarly the removal of vitamin B with the embryo of the wheat, together with its oxidation after processing, results in depletion of body-building activators.
“For a product to carry a health claim on its package, it must first have a package, so right off the bat it's more likely to be processed rather than a whole food.”
~Michael Pollan, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual