Everyone knows he needs food, but few know what foods are needed. Man has lived on a great variety of foods and survived. But because he survived does not mean that he enjoyed good health while he lived. Our goal is not merely to survive !

 

John wrote to Gaius that he wished that he would prosper and be in health (III John 2). Without health it is doubtful that prosperity would bring much joy.

 

Abundance Hasn't Brought Health

Abundance has been the key word in the history of our nation, yet national health is not ours. The scourges of heart disease, cancer, polio and other diseases are a constant threat. Certainly it is not because we do not have enough medicines or doctors. Indeed, people have to be sick before these are necessary. But doctors and medicines have not solved the problem and disease goes unconquered.

We need to look for the cause, the ounce of prevention that will keep us from becoming sick. And whatever the evidence demands, we should be willing to do it-or suffer the consequences.

Our forefathers died, but not from the diseases that are rampant today. They suffered from the infectious diseases. Rules of sanitation were often ignored or unknown, and their winter diet often did not include enough fresh vegetables. We practice these rules of sanitation today and eat more fresh vegetables. We are not plagued by pneumonia, diphtheria, smallpox and the like.

 

But the people of our nation are dying of what are called "degenerative diseases" - diseases which result from unhealthy changes within the body itself. Do we have any clues to what may be causing all this?

 

The Industrial Revolution of the past century opened to man the potentials of mass production. Things from pots to plows could be made more cheaply and made available to more people than ever before.

The food industry today follows this same pattern. Now each little town no longer has its flour mill, nor are its vegetables and fruits provided only by the gardens in the local area. Foodstuffs produced in various areas are shipped to large central processing plants. From there they are sent to all parts of the nation.

But foods are not like machinery, furniture or clothing. Foods spoil, get weevily, become rancid or rot. If these were allowed to take their toll, it would mean much loss to the buyer and distributor. Methods of preservation have therefore been devised. Refrigeration, chemical and antibiotic treatment and refinement all help to prevent such loss.

But what is the effect of these treatments and this refinement on you and me, the consumers? Is the food as good for health as it was before all this tampering? What do we find? Let's take, for instance, bread, the "staff of life."

 

The Staff of Life?

Bread made from wheat, rye or barley has been called "the staff of life" since time immemorial. And indeed it was. Any whole unrefined grain is a storehouse of many elements that have been found necessary to good health. The chief natural supply of the B-complex vitamins is in the seeds of plants.

But the "staff of life" is no longer what it used to be. Let's see why.

With the introduction in the late 1800's of the roller mill system for refining wheat, it became possible to produce white flour cheaply on a large scale. People liked the appearance and the baking qualities of this flour. Millers and grocery men liked the way it kept. Claims were deliberately made that the parts of the wheat which had been discarded had "no nutritive value" (article "Flour and Flour Manufacture," Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. X, 11th edition, p. 550) and were very likely injurious to health.

 

Claims Disproved

Today we can charitably assign such claims to ignorance. The knowledge of nutrition that has developed since about 1900 has proved these claims to be false. Now we know that the outer coverings of grains and the germ - the very parts that were once said to be valueless and unnecessary - contain elements that are absolutely necessary for good health. These are the vitamins of the B-complex, and minerals such as magnesium, potassium, copper, iron and calcium. Not only is it true that these parts of grain contain these elements, but it is also true that the starchy white part does not. Our bodies must have these vitamins and minerals in order to use the starch and protein of the grain for energy and for building cells and tissues.

Despite the evidence that the body needs everything in the grain, for years nothing was done to remedy this lack. In fact, another destructive process - bleaching - was devised to artificially age the flour and make it whiter than ever. Certainly no weevil could live in it.

Now it would have been harder than ever to reintroduce the bread of our great-grandparents. People were used to eating the white flour products and, besides, there was the investment in multitudinous machinery to think about. However, evidence kept piling up that average diets lacked some things.  Finally, in 1941 governments came concerned about national health in connection with the war effort. A Committee on Food and Nutrition was established to determine what could be done to improve the national diet. They had to take into account what people would accept. If the parts of the wheat that contained these vitamins and minerals were left in the flour, people would not like it and the committee certainly could not risk any dissatisfaction, particularly during a war. Besides that, the flour would breed weevils and become rancid under the present setup of large mills located in a few centralized areas. There would have to have been a radical change.

 

Having considered these angles, the Committee decided that people did not have to get all of these substances from flour. If they ate enough fruits, vegetables, milk, and so forth, they should get enough of most of the vitamins and minerals.

Still the people failed to get enough vitamin B-1, B-2 (riboflavin), niacin and iron. If the millers would add just these four things, reasoned the Government Committee, everybody's needs should be taken care of.

Chemists had already learned how to manufacture these vitamins artificially, so it would be simple to add a certain amount of these artificial vitamins to the flour. These would not change its color nor cause spoilage. This seemed the solution to the problem.

 

Was This the Answer?

The question is: Does the average person eat enough vegetables, milk, fruit and so forth to make up for what has been taken out of the flour and other grain products? Can one food make up for the deficiencies of another? Were the artificial vitamins of any lasting value?

Today, the lament that most people lack calcium is admitted in nearly every work about nutrition. Yet calcium was not put back into this flour.

Anemia is a frequent complaint among our population, especially pregnant women. Is the iron that is put into the flour doing any good? Iron will not help unless there is also copper present.

Where is the replacement for the copper that was milled out?

Constipation is a national ailment. Ads advocating this or that preparation to add "bulk" to the diet are seen in every magazine. These preparations would not be necessary if flour with the bran in it were being used.

The mineral magnesium, a natural antacid and nerve tonic, is also missing from the white flour. Perhaps that is one reason why so many complain of "acid stomach."

These facts become important when we realize how much denatured flour and cereal products are eaten every day.

 

 

What Some Authorities Admit

An American nutrition authority, Prof. George R. Cowgill, said in 1953, twelve years after the inception of the flour and cereal enrichment program, "If the people continue to use [refined] wheat and sugar in amounts currently consumed, one would have to consume tremendous and impossible quantities of the protective foods - milk, green vegetables, fruits - in order to secure the amount of Vitamin B-1 which has been lost in the past century as a result of refinement in the milling of wheat." (Los Angeles Times. Wed., Nov. 25, 1953, part III).

In the book Foods for Life, published by the University of Chicago Press, Ralph W. Gerard gives examples of symptoms of vitamin deficiencies as "weakness, easy fatigability, constipation, loss of appetite, headache, disturbances of sleep, excessive irritability, depression, inability to concentrate, queer feelings in the fingers and toes, burning tongue, `gas,' and many other odd bodily sensations. These symptoms are generally classified as nervousness, neurasthenia, or just plain imagination." How many of these symptoms have troubled you? Have you excused yourself by saying, "Well, I'm just the nervous type"? The truth is that your diet hasn't been providing everything that you need !

This is not to say that these symptoms are always due to a deficiency, but the likelihood is great when the nature of our food supply is considered.

 

What You Can Do

We may as well admit it. There is no substitute for the original. The alternative is plain.  Instead of the impoverished flour, begin using or buying flours made of whole grain for your baked goods.

Certain magazines interested in health and gardening carry advertisements of farms and companies which sell good flour and other products. Good flours and cereals can also be bought at "health food" stores.

 

Breakfast Cereals Are Fooling the People

Breakfast cereal grains have been soaked, cooked, puffed and toasted to within an inch of their lives. Then synthetic vitamins, malt flavor and refined sugar have been added to the pitiful product so that it will have taste appeal and a semblance of nutritive value. And you don't get all this processing for nothing. You pay for it.

A breakfast of rolled oats (porridge) or a whole grain cereal low in fat and sugar content will provide more nutrients than many of the products festooning the super market shelves.  

 

A Word of Caution

One word of caution about serving breakfast cereals: Don't smother the cereal that you serve your children under a layer of sugar! And for that matter, don't do it yourself. The children will learn to follow your example, whatever it is. They will enjoy cereal with nothing more than a little honey on it. Some have taught their children to eat their cereal without anything at all added and they like it. Heaping sugar on a dish of cereal is due to nothing more than habit, not a real need.