http://www.sharingsustainablesolutions.org/?p=637
Cheap ‘N Easy Wine
Cheap ‘N Easy Wine
In the DEAR MOTHER section of TMEN NO. 3, Gary Dunford asked if it’s possible to make wine at home without buying $40 worth of equipment. The answer is yes.
I started making wine with stuff I could scrounge while living in a one room apartment in the city. Following are my own Super Simple directions. They’re guaranteed to drive dedicated winemakers up a wall but they do produce results. Anyway, they’re a beginning and beginnings are the most important part.
You can make wine out of almost any fruit. In fact, you can make it from just about anything that grows. I have used grapes, pears, peaches, plums, blackberries, strawberries, cherries and—my favorite—honey. Honey wine is called Mead. The so-called wine of the gods. It’s cheap, easy and good. Here’s how:
Get a gallon jug, preferably glass but plastic will do. Clean it out good. Smell it. Someone may have kept gasoline in it. Wash the jug with soap (NOT detergent), rinse with baking soda in water and—finally—rinse with clear water.
Put a pint and a half to two pints of honey in the jug (the more honey, the stronger the wine), fill with warm water and shake.
Add a pack or cake of yeast—the same stuff you use for bread—and leave the jug uncapped and sitting in a sink overnight. It will foam at the mouth and the whole thing gets pretty sticky at this point.
After the mess quiets down a bit, you’re ready to put a top on it. NOT, I say NOT, a solid top. That would make you a bomb maker instead of a wine maker.
What you have to do is come up with a device that will allow gas to escape from the jug without letting air get in. Air getting in is what turns wine mixtures into vinegar.
One way to do the job is to run a plastic or rubber hose from the otherwise-sealed mouth of the jug, thread the free end through a hole in a cork and let the hose hang in a glass or bowl of water. Or you can make a loop in the hose, pour in a little water and trap the water in the loop to act as a seal.
Now put your jug of brew away about two weeks until it’s finished doing its thing. It’s ready to bottle when the bubbles stop coming to the top.
Old wine bottles are best. You must use corks (not too tight!) to seal the wine as they will allow small amounts of gas to escape. The wine is ready to drink just about any time.
You can use the same process with fruits or whatever, except that you’ll have to extract the juice and, maybe, add some sugar. You’ll also find that most natural fruit will start to ferment without the yeast and will be better that way.
Once you’ve made and enjoyed your first glass of wine, no matter how crude, you’ll be hooked.
http://www.optimalhealthnetwork.com/Does-Food-Heal-s/406.htm
Does Food Heal?
(This article is an excerpt from Kristina Amelong’s book, Ten Days to Optimal Health.)
“You’ve heard it before, but it bears repeating: nothing in life is more precious than your health. If you take care of your body, not only do you prevent disease and illness and prolong your life, but you also vastly improve the quality of your life.”
— Dr. Joseph Mercola
It is human nature to want to be healthy, vibrant, and energetic. It is human nature to love life from the moment we are born until the moment we die. This innate desire to live well doesn’t change as we age. It is clear that people do not want to lose their health, ever. Why, then, are so many people struggling with illness?
The Role of Genetics
To begin our exploration of what influences our health, let us look at what role our genes play. Many people think that our genes fully determine our health, or at least determine the risk of such diseases as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. What we are certain of is that our genes do have an effect on our aging process. However, the extent to which our health status is inherited is not fully determined.
Certainly genetics play a role in how we age, as well as the diseases that we struggle with. However, our focus on hereditary as the reason for our health woes needs to be examined in the light of our environment.
Linus PaulingLinus Pauling’s Thoughts on Genetics
In 1949, Linus Pauling, the founding father of molecular biology and author of Vitamin C and the Common Cold, Cancer and Vitamin C, and How to Live Longer and Feel Better, made public his theory that the origin of disease is based on specific changes in genetic materials due to environmental influences, which in turn modify physiological function. In other words, Pauling’s theory states that disease is not solely caused by genetics, but rather due to the interaction between an individual’s genes and his/her surroundings. Bishop and Waldolz point out in their book, Genome, that “aberrant genes do not, in and of themselves, cause disease. By and large their impact on an individual’s health is minimal until the person is plunged into a harmful environment” (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1990). To clarify, it seems that each person’s gene pool has the flexibility to express itself with health and longevity, or with illness and degenerative disease, depending on environmental conditions. Unfortunately, we take for granted that when a person’s genes do express sickness, or even early death, these diseases are genetic, or destined to occur.
Environmental and Political Factors
It is oppressive the way in which all people are systematically hurt by the belief structures and behaviors of their society. People are forced into decisions that cause their bodies to express disease. We are lied to and made to believe that things that are harmful to health are actually good for us. Why? Because our culture is fixated on profits. In his book, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You To Know About, Kevin Trudeau explains why the United States government, the major food companies, and the drug companies systematically promote ideas that may cause people harm.
Our current societal structure prioritizes profit above health. Health is created or destroyed by the way we set up our lives. If we eat well, we tend to be healthier. If we rest deeply and daily, we tend to be healthier. If we are close to other people, we tend to be healthier. If we exercise and spend time outdoors, we tend to be healthier. If we have a rich spiritual life, we tend to be healthier. If we nourish our emotional selves, we tend to be healthier. When all of these activities are combined, most people are going to express health genetically and not disease. Unfortunately, most of us aren’t able to pull all of those elements together.
Profitability Before Health
For example, most people don’t eat foods that support their optimal health. Most of us don’t even know what it means to eat well. Foods and all other ingestible products are produced to have long shelf lives, be conveniently transported, and to be produced with the lowest overhead and the highest profitability. Very few producers of foods, supplements, pharmaceuticals, and other bodily products place health above profitability. Most foods are available primarily for the purpose of the suppliers to make a profit and not for their high nutrient content. Diet ought never be based primarily on the needs of the economy and the way in which the economy encourages people to eat. For example, one in four people in the developed world eat at McDonald’s every day.
Limited Access to Quality Food
The average person has very little incentive or education that would lead them to seek out and to choose optimally nutritious food. Most people have limited opportunities to choose the best possible nutrition for their body. How many people have access to organically grown food, high-quality meats, and raw milk from pasture-raised animals? Not many. In our family, we have had to go to great expense to obtain the foods that have assisted my healing, like raw milk and butter and grass-fed meats, even though we live in one of the finest metropolitan areas for organically grown and local food. By understanding how environmental and political factors influence our lives and our cultures, and by healing those scars of oppression, we will be more fully able to eradicate degenerative disease and be optimally healthy.
Nutritional Content of Food
What are the nutritional resources that your body needs in order to be optimally healthy? What is optimal nutrition? Is it possible to practice an optimal diet within a culture that values food for profit over food for health? Through my experiences with healing and working with clients, I have come to believe that we can identify nutritional resources and head ourselves toward optimal nutrition.
Nutritional researchers have studied cultures whose entire population was much healthier than ours is today. Dr. Weston A. Price analyzed the nutritional content of the diets of our healthiest ancestors to decisively identify foods that create environmental conditions for their bodies to genetically express health and not illness. Looking at our healthiest ancestor’s food to determine what foods are therapeutic is turning out to be enormously successful. Well-known nutritional experts Sally Fallon, Dr. Robert Atkins, Donna Gates, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Dr. Andrew Weil, and Dr. Jordan Rubin all share a common theoretical premise: many of the foods our healthiest ancestors ate are now so vital to the wellbeing of our bodies due to their nutrient content, that they can be considered healing to the body, or medicines.
Weston A. PricePrinciples of Healthy Diets and the Work of Dr. Weston A. Price
What scientific evidence supports the argument that the diets of our ancestors were therapeutic and could assist us to optimal health? To answer this question, I will cite the work of Dr. Weston A. Price. Dr. Price was a prominent dentist and researcher who conducted studies during the 1930s and the 1940s regarding the prevention of tooth decay, gum disease, and orthodontic troubles. Within this context, he sought to understand what makes humans healthy and what allows humans to have perfect teeth — not what pushes people toward illness. His determination to study what makes humans healthy and not what makes humans ill makes his works an excellent source of insight. He details his research methods in his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:
“Primitive man* did not have the same disease pattern as modern man. Primitive man suffered from infectious disease but was almost free of degenerative diseases. Modern man has almost eliminated infectious disease but is suffering from an epidemic of degenerative diseases.”
* Weston A. Price first published Nutrition and Physical Degeneration in 1939. At that time in history, European writers commonly used the term “primitive racial stocks” to denote indigenous peoples, which I see as offensive and dated. Price uses the term “primitive racial stocks” to mean people, whether European or indigenous, whose diets were untouched by the “foods of commerce.” Foods of commerce are foods whose value is seen in terms of profit and not health.
“In my search for the cause of degeneration of the human face and the dental organs I have been unable to find an approach to the problem through the study of affected individuals and diseased tissues. In my two volume work, Dental Infections, Oral and Systemic and Dental Infection, and the Degenerative Diseases, I reviewed at length the researches that I had conducted to throw light on this problem. The evidence seemed to indicate clearly that the forces that were at work were not to be found in the diseased tissues, but that the undesirable conditions were the result of the absence of something. This strongly indicated the need for finding groups of individuals so physically perfect that they could be used as controls. In order to discover them, I determined to search out primitive racial stocks that were free from the degenerative processes with which we are concerned.”
He continued, “To accomplish this it became necessary to locate immune groups which were found readily as isolated remnants of primitive racial stock in different parts of the world. A critical examination of theses groups revealed a high immunity to many of our serious affections so long as they were sufficiently isolated from our modern civilization and living in accordance with the nutritional programs which were directed by the accumulated wisdom of the group.”
The Traditional Diet
Once Dr. Price determined that he needed to study isolated people who appeared to be the healthiest of the peoples on this planet, he spent several years conducting research in his Iowa laboratory before he went into the field. He analyzed the nutrient content of different foods to communicate to the world what nutrients gave health to whole populations of people. As soon as he established his laboratory support, he and his wife set off to learn from the diets of these isolated groups. Every summer, they traveled to remote places and in the end, visited over fourteen tribes, clans, and villages whose members all displayed remarkable freedom from mental, physical, and emotional imbalances. Whether they were investigating the Maori of New Zealand, Irish fishermen, Native Eskimos, the Swiss, Australian Aborigines, African tribes, or Pacific Islanders, they came upon vibrantly healthy people, as long as they were eating traditional diets. This most important discovery was duplicated in all cultures: If the people were eating their traditional foods, they had very little or no tooth decay or physical degeneration elsewhere in the body. Through his continuous research, Dr. Price concluded that tooth decay and degenerative diseases were irretrievably linked and stemmed from the same cause — one’s diet. When people cease to eat the traditional, nutrient- rich diet of their native culture and choose instead the “displacing diets of commerce”*, there is a high correlation with illness and disease. It is by eating the simple, basic, nourishing foods indigenous to native culture that individual populations thrive and live long, disease-free lives.
* The “displacing diets of commerce” are diets that are driven by commerce. These foods are available primarily for the purposes of the suppliers to make a profit and not for their high nutrient content. Diet ought never to be based primarily on the needs of the economy. The fact that this has happened is a flaw in our current capitalistic social structure. Dr. Price had the wisdom to strengthen his argument that the body does indeed have requirements for certain nutrients by examining the health status of the same races of people who had changed their dietary ways away from the traditional foods to the foods offered by modern commerce. This gives his work the true gauge of scientific validity. He writes, “In every instance where individuals of the same racial stocks who had lost this isolation and who had adopted the foods and food habits of our modern civilizations were examined, there was an early loss of the high immunity characteristic of the isolated group.”
Price’s Dietary Principles
Fortunately for us, Dr. Price left detailed records of his research in his landmark work, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. From these records, health professionals and scientists have identified particular foods and particular methods of preparation that are common to each culture. The dietary principles of the fourteen cultures that Weston A. Price studied serve as a guide today in whatever diet we choose. Listed below are eight universal dietary principles that Dr. Price witnessed in every society that he studied. Some aspects of the following principles may not be familiar to you; please know that I will go into further detail on each principle later in the book. The principles that each culture followed are:
1) Ate up to ten times the amount of natural, non-synthetic, vitamin A, vitamin D, and Activator X in the diet as did most people of Dr. Price’s day.
2) Never consumed refined or denatured foods including: protein powders, high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, white flour, or fruit juice.
3) Used both cooked and raw foods in their meals, especially animal foods.
4) Ate raw foods high in enzyme content: dairy, meat, honey, cultured vegetables and tropical fruits like papaya. Furthermore, consumed lacto-fermented foods and drinks such as kvass, yogurt, and kefir.
5) Always fermented, soaked, sprouted, or naturally leavened their seeds, grains, and nuts.
6) Ate significant quantities (30%-80%) of their total diet in fat. In every case, polyunsaturated fats comprised only 4% or less of the fat in the diet. Omega 6 and omega 3 fats were in a ratio of 1:1, and generous amounts of saturated fats were also eaten.
7) Included unrefined salt in their diets.
8) Used bones for broth.
Now, with the principles of traditional diets in mind, let’s explore my basic program, the Optimal Health Center (OHC) plan. The OHC plan is an easy-to-follow, clinically proven, traditionally based, and solidly researched dietary program. Enjoy. And feel free to contact me if you need support. I want you to be successful! And, most importantly, I want you to be able to intelligently choose a healthy diet for yourself.
You ask, “What if I descended from people with very different cultures and eating habits? Do I eat the foods indigenous to where I live now or where my ancestors lived?” I propose that instead of thinking rigidly about the foods your ancestors ate, you take the common dietary factors from each of the healthy cultures that Dr. Price studied to determine your optimal foods. The foremost point to keep in mind is that no matter what ‘diet’ you choose, you need to eat foods that are rich in specific nutrients in order to be optimally healthy. I will highlight these nutrients as I explain my OHC plan.
Kristina Amelong
(This article is an excerpt from Kristina Amelong’s book, Ten Days to Optimal Health.)
*NOTE: Any statements contained within on this website are for informational purposes only and have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. If pregnant or lactating, consult your physician before taking any products or using any procedure.
http://www.drbass.com/sequential.html
Sequential eating and food combining
Excerpts from “Ideal Health through Sequential Eating”
INTRODUCTION
..... In my opinion and experience as a nutritional consultant in Natural Hygiene (I began studying nutrition in 1936), sequential eating represents the most advanced approach to understanding proper food combining.
After testing and retesting the concept on myself thousands of times, as well as on others, including the experience of Dr. Cursio, his family, his patients, as well as other Hygienic doctors - Dr. John Mega, Dr. Marvin Telmar, Dr. Anthony Penepent, etc.
......
Continued.
and articles on food and how they affect the body....
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/medtest/medtest_howard.html
‘Medical Testament’
Food and Health
Soil Fertility and Health
by Sir Albert Howard, C.I.E.
— From “Feeding the Family in War-time, Based on the New Knowledge of Nutrition” by Doris Grant, Harrap, London, 1942.
THE earth is the mother of all living things — plants, animals, and man. All natural processes, which include growth and decay, are consummated in her. She is the beginning and the end of every cell in existence.
The earth produces most of the food of mankind, and this food to be nutritious must come from a healthy and fertile soil — one rich in humus.
Soil-sickness, however, afflicts the land in many countries, and almost everywhere soil fertility is declining. The ‘medicine cupboard’ of poison sprays and dope of all kinds which are now necessary to produce a saleable potato, an attractive tomato, and a bunch of grapes without blemish tells its own tale, which finds confirmation in the frequent and unaccountable epidemics of foot-and-mouth disease which sweep across Europe, in the many and fantastic sicknesses of poultry, and in the complexity of present-day veterinary work. That man also (who feeds upon such unnatural plants and animals) does not escape is proved by the widespread and alarming occurrence of malnutrition, of little-understood mental and physical ailments and of increasing susceptibility to disease.
On the other hand, evidence for the view that a fertile soil means healthy crops, healthy animals, and healthy human beings is rapidly accumulating. At least half of the millions spent every year in trying to protect all three from disease in every form would be unnecessary the moment our soils are restored and our population is fed on the fresh produce of fertile land.
Once the first principle in Nature’s farming is recognized and applied, all goes well. This principle can be stated in a few words — the processes of growth and the processes of decay must always balance one another. If we speed up growth we must accelerate decay, otherwise farming becomes unbalanced and unstable, as does the population nourished, as it is today, on its products. One of the outward and visible signs of this instability is malnutrition followed by disease.
The fundamental cause of the many maladies which now afflict the people of Great Britain is beginning to be recognized by the medical profession. The local Medical and Panel Committee of Cheshire, who are in touch with some six hundred family doctors of the county, affirmed in their “ Medical Testament,” which was accepted at a public meeting held at Crewe in March 1939, that most of the ills they were called upon to attend were the result not only of wrong nutrition, but also of inferior foods grown on exhausted land.
It follows, therefore, that there can be no satisfactory response to the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign unless we first restore soil fertility. Obviously there is nothing to be got out of worn-out land beyond disappointment and the inevitable onslaught of disease in plant, animal, and mankind.
Until such time as the governments of tomorrow assume their chief duty — the restoration and maintenance of the fertility of the soil — it is incumbent on the holder of every garden and every allotment to grow not only more food but more and better food.
There is only one way to accomplish this — to use natural methods of manuring instead of artificial ones. This brings us back again to humus, which is the material necessary for creating and maintaining a fertile soil and which alone can cure soil-sickness once it has occurred. Humus, by the agency of food, is the key to health and fitness.
What is this humus, how is it prepared, and what is it for?
If we watch how Nature — the supreme farmer and gardener — prepares humus we shall learn much about its nature, its manufacture for the garden, and its purpose in the soil.
With her usual thoroughness Nature provides us with examples to copy (in our woods and forests) and also to avoid (in the peat bog) in the correct treatment of wastes. Let us consider what we must copy when preparing humus. If we examine the floor of any piece of mixed woodland we can see for ourselves how to make humus. All kinds of vegetable and animal wastes form a loose litter under the trees, but this litter does not accumulate beyond a certain point. It is constantly undergoing transformation, first becoming mouldy, then rotten, and finally passing into dark-coloured leaf mould. The mixed carpet has been changed into humus. The agents which bring this about are alive — fungi and bacteria. These organisms live on the mixed vegetable and animal matter, rapidly multiply in number, and in the process reduce the total carbon content of the mass, releasing this carbon as carbon dioxide. Besides the wastes these organisms need air and water, both of which are supplied from the atmosphere. Soon the intense activity of these fungi and bacteria slows down, when their dead bodies and the undecomposed portions of the wastes amalgamate to form leaf mould or humus. Humus is therefore a residue. But it is only a temporary residue as it were. When mixed with the soil it undergoes a further slow but complete oxidation by micro-organisms into carbon dioxide, water, and the chemical salts needed in the green leaf.
If we examine the ground under the trees still further we shall find that the humus layer under the loose litter is constantly being mingled with the upper soil by means of earthworms and other animals. In this rich soil we shall discover how the roots of the trees and undergrowth make use of the humus. The upper soil layers are permeated by a network of fine roots which are provided with root hairs and a structure known as the mycorrhizal association. It is by means of these two agencies that the soil and the roots of the trees come into gear. Let us first consider the root hairs which are merely prolongations of the epidermis of the young roots. These absorb water and dilute salts (obtained as we have seen by the complete oxidation of some of the humus) which are carried up to the green leaves by the sap current. The mycorrhizal association is a composite structure made up of threads of fungous tissue (mycelium) which feed on the soil humus and surround or invade the young cells of the root, where fungus and plant cell live together in partnership (symbiosis). Eventually the fungous threads, which are rich in protein, are digested, the products of digestion passing up to the leaves in the sap current. The roots of the trees and undergrowth therefore feed in two ways simultaneously — by means of the chemical salts absorbed by the root hairs and by means of the proteins of the mycorrhizal association.
Such a double contact between soil and plant is practically universal — in our gardens, in our arable land, and in our meadows and pastures. It has a profound significance. The quality and nutritive value of our food depend to a very large extent on the efficiency of the mycorrhizal association and therefore on humus. This explains why soil fertility is so important. We can provide a substitute in the shape of artificial manures for the chemical salts absorbed by the root hairs, but there is no substitute for the mycorrhizal association and for the proteins supplied by humus; crops so raised are, therefore, deficient in real food value — they are artificial crops. Unfortunately much of our food is grown by the help of chemical manures, which partly explains why malnutrition and ill-health are so common in this country.
Most of these troubles can be avoided by making the soils of our gardens and allotments fertile. This involves regular applications of freshly prepared humus. How is this to be obtained? By converting all available vegetable and animal wastes into leaf mould.
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/medtest/medtest_mccarrison2.html
Studies in Deficiency Disease
By Sir Robert McCarrison
Oxford Medical Publications, Henry Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1921
Introduction
CUSTOM has sanctioned the application of the term ‘deficiency disease’ to a group of maladies the chief causal factor of which is deficiency in the food of certain substances, named ‘accessory food factors’ by Gowland Hopkins, their discoverer. These substances are also spoken of as ‘growth determinants’, ‘food hormones’, ‘exogenous hormones’, ‘advitants’, or more commonly ‘vitamines’: the last term was applied to them by Casimir Funk (1910).
Neither the term ‘deficiency disease’ nor ‘vitamine’ is free from objection. The former is too restricted in its application, and should embrace disorders due to faulty and ill-balanced food deficient, either in quantity or quality, in any essential food requisite; the term is here used in this sense. ‘Vitamine’ is a misnomer, since there is no evidence that accessory food factors are amines. Following a suggestion made by Drummond (1920), that ‘the final “e” of “vitamine” be dropped, so that the resulting word “Vitamin” may conform with the standard scheme of nomenclature adopted by the Chemical Society, which permits a neutral substance of undefined chemical composition to bear a name ending in “in”’, accessory food factors will here be referred to as ‘vitamins’; the word meaning ‘substances essential to life’.
The object of my studies has been twofold: first, to find out how the animal body goes sick in consequence of deficient and ill-balanced food; and, secondly, to deduce therefrom what forms of sickness in the human subject may reasonably be attributed to, or connected in their origin with, such foods. It was recognized early in the course of these studies that deficient foods are in practice usually ill-balanced foods, and that the effects of avitaminosis are bound up with maladjustments both in quality and quantity of other essential requisites of the food. The method of investigation adopted was, therefore, to study the effects of vitamin-deficiency in association with other food faults which may accompany it.
It is rare that the food of human beings is totally devoid of any one vitamin; it is more usual for the deficiency to be partial, and for more than one vitamin to be partially deficient; it is more usual still for partial deficiency of vitamins to be associated with deficiency of suitable protein and inorganic salts and with an excessive richness of the food in carbohydrates. Consequently, the manifestations of disease resulting from the faulty food are compounded of the several effects of varying degrees of avitaminosis on the one hand, and of ill-balance of the food on the other.
Nor is this all, for pathogenic organisms present in the body, during the period of its subjection to the faulty food, contribute their share to the general morbid result. For instance, a diet deficient in vitamins and disproportionately rich in starch leads to depression of digestive and gastro-intestinal function. If, then, these organs are exposed at the same time to the action of pathogenic micro-organisms, their depression, which is at first functional, may become accentuated or fixed by organic changes due to the pathogenic agent. Further, under conditions of food deficiency, the presence in the bowel — let us say — of such agents may determine the character of the morbid states initiated by the food deficiency, and even impart to them endemic or epidemic characters. In these circumstances the etiological significance of the underlying food defects, which have permitted the unhampered action of the pathogenic agent, may be obscured.
Experiences illustrating these points are given in succeeding pages, but it can not be too strongly emphasized that many of the infectious scourges to which human beings are subject — such, for example, as infantile diarrhoea and tuberculosis — require consideration as much from this point of view as from that of the pathogenic organism to which they are due.
Other factors also, such as age, sex, individual idiosyncrasy, rate of metabolism, fatigue, cold, insanitary surroundings, overcrowding, the varying susceptibilities of different individuals, of different organs and of the same organs in different individuals, all play a determining part in the production of the morbid result of food deficiency.
So it is that in practice the manifestations of deficiency disease are influenced by a number of factors apart from the actual food-fault. It may be expected, therefore, that wide variations in the incidence, the time of onset, and the character of the symptoms will occur in human beings in whom the dietetic fault has been to all appearances the same.
My investigations have so far been concerned with this wider aspect of food deficiency. For I have thought it well to make a general survey of this largely unexplored territory of disease before attempting more detailed studies. Indeed, however important it is to be in a position to compare the effects of different food deficiencies in order to learn what is peculiar to any one, it is, in the present state of knowledge, of still greater importance to be aware of the extent and variety of the morbid change to which food deficiency in general may give rise, since this knowledge can at once be applied in practice. For whether these changes are the result of a single deficiency or of several, they are amenable to the same remedy: the provision of a well-balanced diet of good biological value and rich in vitamins of every class.
It is to this variety of morbid change that I desire to draw attention, since it seems to me to impart to the term ‘deficiency disease’ a wider significance than has been attached to it hitherto. It is a curious fact that the nomenclature of vitamins has been responsible, in considerable measure, for the narrowness of outlook with regard to diseases which are either favoured in their origin or initiated by an insufficient supply of these substances. We speak, for instance, of ‘anti-neuritic’ or ‘anti-beri-beri’ vitamin, thus directing attention to one system of the body and to one disease syndrome while ignoring others. The effects on the nervous system of a dietary deficient in anti-neuritic vitamin and disproportionately rich in starch, as observed in animals, have thus often been emphasized to the almost complete exclusion of other equally important, if less prominent, symptoms.
Long before nervous symptoms supervene, others, such as loss of appetite, impaired digestion, diarrhoea, colitis, unhealthy skin, low temperature, slow respiration, cardio-vascular depression, progressive anaemia, and asthenia result from the deficient and ill-balanced food. Do not these form a disease syndrome which is, in children especially, as familiar as its cause is unrecognized? It is to my mind with these earlier evidences of disease — with these beginnings of morbidity — that we as physicians are mainly concerned in practice.
It will be shown in the course of this book that such evidences of disease as those I have just recounted manifest themselves as certainly when partial deficiency is protracted over long periods as when more extreme deficiency is experienced over shorter periods. It is no doubt of great importance to be aware that food deficient in certain vitamins will ultimately cause nervous symptoms of a definite order. But since these are end-results, it is of still greater importance to realize that the same faulty food will give rise more early to gastrointestinal disturbance and other forms of vague ill health, and that these, like the nervous symptoms, can be prevented by supplying the necessary vitamins and adjusting the balance of the food.
Another matter of importance concerns us here: it is often stated that vitamins are so widely distributed amongst naturally occurring foodstuffs that the variety of foods consumed by European peoples — in times of peace — protects them from risk of any deficiency in these essential substances. If vitamins be considered solely from the point of view of the grosser manifestations of disease — beri-beri, keratomalacia, scurvy, etc. — to which their want gives rise, then this statement is to a great extent true.
But is it wholly true? Is not scurvy a common disorder of infants, and is it always recognized as such (Comby, 1918)? Is rickets rare? Are the forms of peripheral neuritis of undetermined cause so uncommon that without their study the food factor can be excluded as a possible cause of some of them? May it not be that, because we do not seek for alimentary neuritis, we do not find it? Pellagra has seemed to spread rapidly in America since 1902 (Roberts, 1920). But is this due to comparatively sudden alterations in the dietetic habits of the people, or to more accurate diagnosis and the recognition of minor manifestations of this malady consequent on increasing knowledge of the nutritional factor in its production? Is this disease, in its varying manifestations, as uncommon in the British Isles as is generally assumed? We know nothing of its true incidence, since the health of the people has not been considered in regard to it. But, apart from the incompleteness of knowledge as to the prevalence of the grosser evidences of deficiency disease in this country, are there no lesser manifestations due to the supply of vitamins and of suitable protein and salts in quantities insufficient for the needs of the body?
The statement above referred to might be true, also, were it a fact that Europeans invariably used naturally occurring foodstuffs in quantities sufficient for their needs. But do they? Is it not common knowledge that, disregarding nature’s plan, the modern tendency is to rear infants artificially on boiled or pasteurized milk and proprietary foods, which are all of them inferior to mother’s milk in substances essential to the well-being of the child; inferior not only in vitamins, but in thyroid derivatives and other essentials?
Again, is not cow’s milk — an important dietary constituent for young and old alike — gradually becoming a luxury reserved for the few? Vegetable margarines are replacing butter even among the richer classes. Fresh fruit is a comparative rarity, even on the tables of the rich. Green vegetables are scanty, and such as there are are often cooked to the point of almost complete extraction of their vitamin-content and salts. White bread has largely replaced wholemeal bread, and it is notorious that bread form’s a high proportion of the dietaries of persons of limited means.
It is notable that, despite the food restrictions imposed upon the people of Belgium during the late war (1914-18), the infant mortality and infantile diarrhoea decreased greatly — a circumstance which was due to the organized propaganda encouraging mothers to nurse their infants, and to the establishment of national canteens which provided prospective mothers from the fifth month of pregnancy onwards with eggs, meat, milk, and vegetables (Demoor and Slosse, 1920).
Again, fresh eggs are so expensive as to debar the struggling masses from their use. Meat is at best but poor in vitamins, and its value in these essentials is not enhanced by freezing and thawing. Sugar is consumed in quantities unheard of a century ago, and sugar is devoid of vitamins which the cane juice originally contained (Osborne, 1920). The use of stale foods, involving the introduction of factors incidental to oxidation and putrefaction, is the rule, that of fresh foods the exception.
Can it, then, truly be said that the variety of natural foodstuffs consumed by Europeans protects them from any deficiency of vitamins? My own clinical experience justifies no such belief; rather does it point in the contrary direction. Nor does it appear to be the experience of the compiler of the 38th Report of the Medical Research Council (1919), who writes: ‘From a consideration of dietaries consumed by the poorer classes in the towns of this country, one is led to suggest that no inconsiderable proportion of the population is existing on a food supply more or less deficient in fat-soluble factor’ — deficient, that is to say, in a vitamin one of whose cardinal functions is to maintain the natural resistance of the subject against infections. Neither is it the experience of Osborne (1920), who asserts that a large part of the food eaten by civilized people has been deprived of vitamin B by ‘improvements’ in manufacture; nor of Hess (1920), who emphasizes that latent and sub-acute forms of scurvy are common disorders of infancy.
But the frequency with which deficient and ill-balanced foods are used is most apparent when the dietetic habits of persons in subnormal health are considered. It will surprise those who study them to find how many there are, of capricious appetite, who habitually make use of foods sometimes deficient in calories — for it is not the food presented to the subject that counts, but the food eaten and assimilated — and often dangerously deficient in one or more vitamins, in protein of good biological value, and disproportionately rich in starch or sugar or fats, or in all three. Infants fed on many of the proprietary foods in common use come within the category of the deficiently-fed, unless deficiencies are made good. The food of young children is commonly low in vitamin-content, in salts, and suitable protein, while it is frequently disproportionately rich in starch and sugar — a circumstance which enhances the danger of vitamin-deficiency. It may, indeed, be accepted as an axiom that the vitamin-value of a child’s food is reduced in proportion to its excessive richness in carbohydrates.
But the ranks of the deficiently-fed do not include only infants and young children; they include also those whose food is composed mainly of white bread, margarine, tea, sugar and jam, with a minimum of meat, milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables. Even amongst those whose diet is more perfectly balanced, the commoner articles of food, as they are prepared for the table, are so low in vitamin-value that, unless they are enriched with a sufficiency of natural foods in the raw state, they are prone to cause ill health, and especially gastro-intestinal ill health. Such is my experience in India, where this European patient ‘cannot digest vegetables or fruit’, and never touches them ‘as they carry infection’, or that one ‘suffers so from indigestion’ that he or she lives chiefly on custards and milk-puddings; where milk is, of necessity, boiled and reboiled until as a carrier of vitamins it is almost useless; where meat is made tender by the simple device of boiling it first and roasting it afterwards; where every third or fourth European child has mucous disease, the direct outcome of bad feeding. So it is that the forms of food which such as these so commonly adopt are those most calculated to promote the very disorder from which they seek relief.
Access to abundance of food does not necessarily protect from the effect of food deficiency, since a number of factors — prejudice, penury, ignorance, habit — often prevent the proper use and choice of health-giving foods. Who in the ranks of practising physicians is not familiar, among the well-to-do classes, with the spoilt child of pale, pasty complexion and unhealthy appetite, of sluggish bowel, and often with mucous stools or enuresis, who, deprived of the wholesome ingredients of a well-balanced natural food, craves for sweetmeats, chocolates, pastries and other dainties as devoid of natural health-giving properties as their excessive use is common? Constantly one encounters the anxious mother of the ‘highly-strung’, ‘nervous’ child ‘of delicate digestion’, whose ignorance of essential principles of feeding is only excelled by her desire to do what is best for her offspring; who, guided by the child’s preferences, supplies the means to convert it into a static, constipated, unhealthy-skinned adolescent, equipped with digestive and endocrine systems wholly unfitted to sustain the continued exercise of healthy function. Here it is that overfeeding joins with underfeeding and vitamin-insufficiency in swelling the C3 ranks of the nation.
Or, again, who is not familiar with the overworked anaemic girl, static and with visceroptosis, acne or seborrhoea, and oftentimes with vague psychoses, who ekes out a paltry wage for teaching, sewing, or selling, satisfying the cravings of her tissues principally with white bread, margarine, and tea? Or with the languid lady, devoid of healthful occupation, who, living in the midst of plenty, deprives herself, for some imaginary reason, of substances essential to her well-being? Or with the harassed mother of children, oppressed with the constant struggle to make ends meet, stinting herself that others may not want, exhausted by childbearing and suckling, worry, and too little of the right food? What wonder that such a woman is dyspeptic, and that ‘every bite’ she eats ‘turns on her stomach’. Some there are, living in luxury, whom ignorance or fancy debars from choosing their food aright; others for whom poverty combines with ignorance to place an impassable barrier in the way of discriminating choice. It is for us so to instruct ourselves that we may instruct such as these, and use our newer knowledge to the end that customs and prejudices may be broken and a more adequate dietary secured for those under our care. I do not doubt that, if the practice I now follow of estimating the vitamin-value and qualitative balance of the food in every case that comes before me is followed by others, they will be impressed as I am with the vast importance of the food factor in the causation of disease.
In this connection reference may be made to the experiences of the Danes during the late war, as narrated by Hindhede (1920). When, as was the lot of other countries, the food supply of Denmark had to be conserved, and rationing was strict, it was considered that to feed cattle and swine with cereals and potatoes that might be used for human consumption was wasteful, since it meant a loss of approximately 80 per cent in the nutritional value of the foods as compared with the yield in the flesh of animals. For this reason the potatoes and grain were reserved for the use of the people, and the stock of cattle and swine was reduced. The cereals and potatoes were taken ‘from the distillers, so that they could not make brandy, and one-half of the cereals from the brewers, so that the beer output was reduced one-half.’ The people received a sufficiency of potatoes, whole rye bread — containing wheat bran and 24 per cent of barleymeal — barley porridge, grains, milk, abundance of green vegetables, and some butter.
In consequence of this enforced alteration in the dietetic habits of the Danish people, the death-rate dropped as much as 34 per cent, being as low as 10.4 per cent when the regime had been in force for one year. Hindhede, therefore, concludes that ‘the principal cause of death lies in food and drink’; and few will be disposed to doubt the justice of his contention in the face of an experiment so unequivocal.
My own experience provides an example of a race, unsurpassed in perfection of physique and in freedom from disease in general, whose sole food consists to this day of grains, vegetables, and fruits, with a certain amount of milk and butter, and meat only on feast days. I refer to the people of the State of Hunza, situated in the extreme northernmost point of India. So limited is the land available for cultivation that they can keep little livestock other than goats, which browse on the hills, while the food supply is so restricted that the people, as a rule, do not keep dogs. They have, in addition to grains — wheat, barley, and maize — an abundant crop of apricots. These they dry in the sun and use very largely in their food.
Amongst these people the span of life is extraordinarily long; and such service as I was able to render them during some seven years spent in their midst was confined chiefly to the treatment of accidental lesions, the removal of senile cataract, plastic operations for granular eyelids, or the treatment of maladies wholly unconnected with food supply. Appendicitis, so common in Europe, was unknown. When the severe nature of the winter in that part of the Himalayas is considered, and the fact that their housing accommodation and conservancy arrangements are of the most primitive, it becomes obvious that the enforced restriction to the unsophisticated foodstuffs of nature is compatible with long life, continued vigour, and perfect physique.
Although no statistics are available in this country as to the precise influence of malnutrition in contributing to the low standard of physique revealed during the later years of the war, there can be no doubt that the food factor is connected with it. In America, during the year 1917-18, Manny (1918) estimated that about 30 per cent of the schoolchildren were suffering from malnutrition. This condition was not always limited to the poor, but was found to a certain extent among all classes. Chapin (1920) remarks with regard to it that ‘the malnutrition was due to a failure in the proper selection and preparation of food materials in addition to poverty’.
With increasing knowledge of nutritional problems, it has become apparent that our dietetic habits need remodelling, and that education of the people as to what to eat and why they eat it is urgently necessary. It is clear that green vegetables, milk and eggs should form a far higher proportion of the food of the nation than is now customary. So far from curtailing the beneficent scheme whereby portions of land were made available to town-dwellers during the war for cultivation by allotment-holders, this scheme should be extended and facilities given to allotment-holders for the keeping of fowls. Municipalities and other public bodies should concentrate on the provision of an abundance of milk, eggs, and vegetables, for there is no measure that could be devised for improving the health and well-being of the people at the present time that surpasses this either in excellence or in urgency.
The results revealed in the course of these studies provide the pathological basis for attaching to food deficiencies a prominent etiological significance in regard to that great mass of ill-defined gastro-intestinal disorder and vague ill-health which throngs clinics at the present day, and concerning which we have hitherto known little or nothing.
It is necessary to emphasize that the problems of nutrition must not be viewed from a too ‘vitaminic’ outlook. Vitamins have their place in nutrition; it is that of one link in a chain of essential substances requisite for the harmonious regulation of the chemical processes of healthy cellular action.
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/medtest/medtest_mccarrison3.html
Diseases of Faulty Nutrition
By Sir Robert McCarrison
Transactions of the Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine, 1927
MORE than 2,000 years ago Hippocrates wrote as follows:
‘... it appears to me necessary to every physician to be skilled in nature, and to strive to know, if he would wish to perform his duties, what man is in relation to the articles of food and drink, and to his other occupations, and what are the effects of each of them to every one.
‘Whoever does not know what effect these things produce upon a man, cannot know the consequences which result from them.
‘Whoever pays no attention to these things, or paying attention, does not comprehend them, how can he understand the diseases which befall a man? For, by every one of these things a man is affected and changed this way and that, and the whole of his life is subjected to them, whether in health, convalescence, or disease. Nothing else, then, can be more important or more necessary to know than these things.’
It is strange that, although these words were written so long ago, it is only within the last quarter of a century that we have begun to pay attention to ‘what man is in relation to the articles of food and drink’, to ‘know what effect these things produce upon a man’, and, ‘to understand the diseases which befall a man’ in consequence of them.
In the time at my disposal I can do no more than give a very brief outline of the present state of knowledge of the nutritional or, as I prefer to call them, the malnutritional diseases. I shall not, therefore, concern myself with morbid states which result from the ingestion of food in insufficient quantity, nor with those which may be associated with over-eating, but will confine myself to ailments whose genesis is directly or indirectly dependent upon the improper quality and or the improper balance of food ingested in sufficient quantity.
Since the functions of food are to rebuild the living tissues, to supply energy and to preserve a proper medium in which the biochemical processes of the body can take place, it follows that derangements of nutrition — and, therefore, of health — must result if the food ingested fails adequately to subserve these functions. Then the architecture of the living tissues becomes imperfect; transformation of energy in the body becomes deranged; and, metabolic processes become disordered, with the consequent production of abnormal or, it may be, of toxic metabolites. The failure of food to subserve these functions may be brought about in a number of ways; but the one which chiefly concerns us here is the insufficient provision in the diet of one or other or all of three of its essential constituents: suitable protein, inorganic salts and vitamins. Foods which are unsatisfactory in these regards give rise to sub-optimal, or to subnormal states of health, or even to actual disease, the character and the severity of which depend upon the nature and degree of the food faults and the length of time the organism has been subjected to their influence.
The first effect of such unsatisfactory foods to which reference must be made is the low standard of physical efficiency which they induce both in man and his domestic animals. In no country in the world is this more clearly manifested than in India where malnutrition is so widespread and where food habits are so much controlled by custom and prejudice. No one who has travelled far in India can have failed to notice the great differences in physique of different Indian races. The poor physique, the lack of vigour and of powers of endurance of certain southern and eastern races provide a remarkable contrast to the fine physique and hardiness of certain stalwart races of the north: these differences are in the main attributable to differences in biological value of their national diets. The low standard of physical efficiency of man’s domestic animals in certain parts of India is common knowledge: it has the same malnutritional basis, and the gravity of its influence on the well-being of the people can hardly be over-estimated.
In addition to lowering the standard of physical efficiency (a matter of vast economic importance to India) food which is faulty with respect either to suitable protein, to mineral elements, to vitamins or to all three gives rise to many minor manifestations of ill health, without, it may be, the production of any morbid state to which we can attach a diagnostic label. It inevitably leads to some deviation from the normal histological structure, and to a corresponding reduction in functional efficiency, of one or other of the various organs and tissues of the body: the nervous, the osseous, the muscular, the endocrine, the gastro-intestinal, the respiratory and the circulatory systems. It leads also to some deviation of the body fluids from their normal constitution; the blood, the lymph, the digestive juices, the secretions, the excretions, even the tears, are all altered in one way or another, each alteration contributing to, or being indicative of, impaired well-being.
It is to be recognized, whether we be dealing with animals under experimental conditions or with man in his free state, that it is the gross evidences of malnutrition which force themselves upon our attention, which are recognized clinically, and for which alone our system of nomenclature provides appropriate labels. The lesser manifestations of malnutrition often escape our observation altogether, although they ‘affect the health of individuals to a degree most important to themselves’ (Hopkins, 1906).
If we closely observe animals subsisting on faulty food — even though the fault be not so great as to cause such wreckages of health as scurvy, beri-beri, pellagra, rickets or keratomalacia — we notice many signs of impaired well-being which have their counterpart in human subjects similarly situated with respect to the quality and balance of their food. Thus, we may notice sub-normal or, as I prefer to say, sub-optimal states of growth or of unbalanced growth; or we may find that the animals’ ‘condition’ is not so good as it might be, that their coats lack lustre, or that they are dull-eyed and devoid of the beauty of the well-nourished animal; we may notice, also, that their excreta are not wholly normal, that they age prematurely, that their fertility is impaired, that they have but poor success in rearing their young, that their offspring when reared are very prone to disease and that the mortality amongst them is high. We may find, too, that they are apprehensive and timid, peevish, or it may be ill-natured, and that they resent handling which the well-nourished animal rarely does: all of which is unmistakable evidence of an unstable nervous system. Yet such animals may be suffering from no nameable disease though they are obviously not well.
Similar symptoms of sub-normal health are common enough in human beings; but since they may conform to no stereotyped disease, have no ‘microbe’ nor any ‘toxin’ associated with them, nor be accounted for by any laboratory tests which we apply to them, we are apt to find nothing wrong with sufferers from them and to mistake their malnutritional meaning. Obsessed by the idea of the microbe, the protozoa, or the invisible virus as all-important excitants of disease, subservient to laboratory methods of diagnosis, and hidebound by our system of nomenclature, we often forget the most fundamental of all rules for the physician, that the right kind of food is the most important single factor in the promotion of health and the wrong kind of food the most important single factor in the promotion of disease. I emphasize these minor manifestations of malnutrition because they represent the beginnings of disease, and their recognition is, to my way of thinking, vastly more important than that of the wreckages of health, which even the man in the street can see, though his name for them may be less sonorous than our own.
Next in importance to the physical inefficiency and the minor manifestations of ill health induced by faulty food come those gross states of morbidity that are due to specific food faults: the list of these increases year by year. I shall do no more than mention them, leaving you to link each with its own food fault. They are: keratomalacia, night blindness, dental caries, polyneuritis, beri-beri, pellagra, scurvy, rickets, osteoporosis, slow healing of fractures, sterility, stone-in-the-bladder, anaemias, some types of goitre, alimentary dystrophy, gastric atony and dilatation, diarrhoea, constipation, intestinal stasis, colitis, unhealthy skin, disordered action of the adrenal glands, and vesical irritability. The results of animal experimentation have been generally accepted as demonstrating the aetiological relation of specific food faults to some of these maladies in man, while their prevention in human beings by correction of the food faults has afforded incontrovertible evidence of the truth of this relationship. But in regard to others the knowledge that they have a similar aetiology has been slow to diffuse, and, therefore, slow to be put in practice, though it has been arrived at by the same means. Nevertheless, it will ultimately be made clear in man himself that certain disorders of the gastro-intestinal tract are as readily preventable by a perfectly constituted diet as are scurvy, rickets or beri-beri.
The morbid states which are known to result from faulty nutrition in man’s domestic animals are: imperfect growth; slow development; tendency for stock to decrease in size; deterioration of imported stock and of their offspring; high mortality; low birth-rate, sterility; reduced carrying capacity; poor physique as draught animals; low milk yield; poor quality of milk; poor coats; non-parasitic skin diseases; abnormal craving for bones, earth or faeces; emaciation; pernicious anaemia; one type of goitre; cretinism; ‘hairless disease’; lamziekte; rickets; osteomalacia; ‘poor bone’; fragile bones; swelling of joints, stiffness of hind quarters and lameness (styfsickete); pining in sheep; poor egg-production in fowls and infertility of eggs.
These manifestations of malnutrition in man’s domestic animals are attributed by veterinary scientists to deficiency in the food of essential mineral elements, and with good reason. But some of them, such as low birth-rate, sterility, rickets, non-parasitic skin diseases, some types of goitre, cretinism and pernicious anaemia, can be produced by other means in laboratory animals: deficiency of certain vitamins causing some, and infectious agencies others. It would seem, therefore, that a deficiency either of certain vitamins or of certain salts may bring about the same or, apparently the same, morbid result, and that in regard to these and other essential constituents of food we have still much to learn, as Hippocrates puts it, of ‘the effects of each of them to every one’. However this may be, it is clear that the relation of malnutrition to disease-production has many aspects, and that progress in its comprehension depends on the closest co-operation between students of human, of animal, and of plant nutrition.
The mention of lamziekte in cattle, introduces us to a novel sequence of events in disease-production. This condition is due to a pathogenic agent — the Parabotulinus bovis — which has its habitat in decaying bones. The primary cause of the disease is, however, a deficiency of phosphorus in the food of cattle which induces in them so great a craving for this element that, to satisfy it, they eat the bones in which the pathogenic agent resides, thereby becoming infected. It may be that in this observation there lies a general principle which has an application to mankind.
This brings me to one of the most important means by which disease is brought about both in man and animals by faulty nutrition: namely, by increasing their susceptibility to infectious agents. During the past two-and-a-half years (1925-7) 2,463 rats, living in my laboratories under conditions of perfect hygiene, have been fed on various faulty foods, while the daily average of control or well-fed stock rats was 865. The mortality in the ill-fed animals (excluding those that were killed on the conclusion of experiments) was 31.4 per cent, while in the well-fed animals it was less than 1 per cent; the chief causes of death being lung diseases, pneumonia or broncho-pneumonia and acute gastrointestinal disease.
In the course of my own work I have seen dysentery arise in ill-fed monkeys while well-fed monkeys living in the same animal room escaped; and I have seen ill-fed pigeons become infected with Bacillus suipestifer and with the invisible virus of epithelioma contagiosum, while well-fed birds living in their immediate vicinity escaped these infections. Other workers have had like experiences; the bacillus of mouse typhoid kills, on injection, over 90 per cent of ill-fed mice while it kills less than 10 per cent of well-fed mice; the ill-fed mice are likewise less resistant to B. pestis cavide and to botulinus toxins. Birds are rendered susceptible to infection by anthrax when fed on food deficient in vitamin B and rats to septic broncho-pneumonia when fed on food deficient in vitamin A; guinea-pigs, when fed on food deficient in vitamin C, die more readily from tuberculosis, new-born calves deprived of colostrum develop interstitial nephritis due to B. coli infection; swine suffer from tuberculosis, which can be eradicated from the herds by well-balanced vitamin-rich food; stock animals develop sarcosporidia from the same malnutritional cause.
Man himself provides many examples of a like kind: I need but mention two: In Northern Melanesia, the native diet has been shown to be deficient in suitable protein, mineral elements and vitamins and the poor physique of the natives and their high death-rate from respiratory and intestinal diseases has been correlated with these deficiencies in the food; outbreaks of broncho-pneumonia in children have been definitely traced to the inadequate ingestion of fat-soluble A, and have been caused to disappear by the adequate provision of this vitamin. This list of infectious diseases, to which animals and man are rendered highly susceptible by faulty food, is comprehensive enough including, as it does, infections by such diverse organisms as protozoa, bacilli and invisible viruses. There is good reason, therefore, for the assumption that such death-dealing diseases as tuberculosis, leprosy, cholera, dysentery, plague and malaria have often in this country (India) a malnutritional element in their genesis and course.
Within recent years ‘the spectacular results which have attended the experimental study of vitamins have overshadowed much else in nutrition both in the minds of the profession and the public’ (Mendel, 1923). It may not be inappropriate, therefore, to refer to a class of disease which results under experimental conditions in animals from the lack of balance of various components of the food, each component in itself good. One example of the kind is afforded by the hyperplastic goitre which may result from an excess in the food of so homely a substance as butter. The excess of butter, or of unsaturated fatty acid, causes thyroid hyperplasia by reason of the relative deficiency of iodine brought about by this excess; similarly, enlargements of the thyroid gland of the colloid type may be induced by an excess of lime; they are preventable by increasing the iodine ingested proportionately to this excess.
Another example of much the same sort is that of stone-in-the-bladder which is brought about in rats by ill-balanced diets containing much oatmeal, or whole-wheat flour. To avoid ‘stone’ the excess of these cereals must be compensated for by the consumption of appropriate amounts of milk. Those most excellent foods, oatmeal and whole-wheat flour — the staple articles of diet of such vigorous races as the Scots and the Sikhs — may likewise prove harmful, by causing disturbance in the normal processes of calcification, when, but only when, the diets containing them are poor in vitamin D.
These cereals are not in themselves complete foods; a fact of which the races using them as staple articles of diet are not wholly in ignorance: the Sikh does not attempt to subsist on atta (whole-wheat flour) alone, nor the Scot on oatmeal. Any ill effect which these two foods may exercise is due to the failure suitably to combine them with other food materials which compensate for their defects. They are not to be condemned nor to be displaced from their prominent place in the dietaries of mankind for this reason. As well might we condemn the perfectly good fuel, petrol, for the over-heating of the engines of our cars when we fail to supply them with sufficient oil, as condemn the excellent wheat and oats when we fail to consume with them sufficient quantities of milk or other vitamin-rich foods, which are required by the human machine for its smooth and efficient running.
The same kind of misunderstanding surrounds the controversy which periodically rages over the relative values of white bread and bread made from whole-wheat flour. Both are excellent foods though neither is a complete food; and since man requires a certain amount of suitable protein, of mineral salts and of vitamins as well as of carbohydrates, the superiority of the one bread over the other, as the staple article of diet, lies in the extent to which it excels as a source of these essentials. Seeing, therefore, that white bread is notably more deficient in suitable protein, in vitamins (A, B and E) and in certain essential salts than bread made from whole-wheat flour or, indeed, than any other single food entering into the dietaries of western peoples (with the exception of sugars, starches, and fats which are marketed in the pure state) (McCollum), it is by this much the poorer foundation upon which to build a well-balanced diet. Those who can afford to build upon it, and who possess the requisite knowledge to build wisely, have little need to fear nutritional ailments, though their building is improvident, while those who cannot — and there are millions of such — are in grave danger of disease. Next, then, in importance to the quality of the various ingredients of our food is their right combination.
Of all the constituents of food on which normal health is dependent, vitamins are the most remarkable. We know neither what they are nor yet how much of them we need, though knowing that normal metabolism is impossible without them. We are accustomed to think of them in such infinitesimal terms that we have come to believe that the amounts we need of them are almost imponderable. I do not know whether they are ponderable or not, nor whether science will ultimately succeed in encompassing them all within chemical formulae; but I do know that for optimum well-being we need much more of them than is generally supposed.
At all events, races like the Sikhs, whose physical development and vigour are equal to those of any race of mankind, and superior to many, consume these substances in large quantities as compared with races whose physique is poor. I find that for rats the well-balanced, vitamin-rich diet of the Sikhs is superior to any synthetic diet I can devise and to which vitamins in the form of yeast and cod-liver oil are added. I do not believe that human beings can have too much vitamins when they are taken in the form in which Nature provides them in well-balanced combinations of unsophisticated food materials. Some individuals appear to require more vitamins than others, size being an important factor in determining their requirements; some species of animals require more of a particular kind of vitamin than do others; more are required by the lactating than by the non-lactating animal and more for longevity than for a shorter life. The amount needed varies with the composition of the food, with its balance in other essentials and with its digestibility; more of one vitamin is required when the food is very rich in another as, for instance, more vitamin C when the food is rich in vitamin D; there is for optimum nutrition an ordered balance even amongst the vitamins themselves. In short, the amount of vitamins needed varies with the metabolic requirements of the individual; the attainment and maintenance of physical perfection, reproduction, lactation, heavy work, exposure to cold, infectious and debilitating diseases are all indications for their liberal supply.
Before bringing this brief survey to an end I may, perhaps, refer to another aspect of the matter: the effect of vitamin-deficiency in increasing the susceptibility to certain poisons, which the work of Smith, McClosky and Hendrick has recently brought into prominence. It has been mentioned that deficiency of vitamin A increases the susceptibility of mice to botulinus toxin; it also increases their susceptibility to mercuric chloride. The same deficiency induces in rats an enormously increased susceptibility to morphine, to ergotoxine and, in lesser degree, to histamine. Deficiency of vitamin B likewise increases greatly the susceptibility of rats to ergotoxine and to pilocarpine. Stimulants of the central nervous system are all more toxic to rats receiving too little vitamin A than to well-fed animals.
Observations of this kind suggest forcibly that the ability of the tissues to detoxify certain poisons — both bacterial and other — is reduced by diets deficient in vitamins; while indicating that such diets increase the sensitivity of the nervous system and of its autonomic division to toxic agents. Not only may this be so, but the disturbances of metabolism which result from vitamin-insufficiency may themselves give rise to toxic metabolites which exercise specific effects on certain organs and tissues of the body. This I believe to be the case in beri-beri, about which malady we shall presently engage in argument. Most of us will probably agree that there is such a thing as a specific beri-beri-producing poison; though disagreeing as to whether it be produced in rice before this food is ingested, or in the intestine by some bacterial agent introduced with rice, or in the course of a disordered metabolism arising out of vitamin-insufficiency. Our disagreements will not greatly matter so long as we recognize the prime importance of a sufficiency of the anti-neuritic fraction of vitamin B in preventing beri-beri.
In looking through the pages I have just written, I find mention of a host of diseases and departures from health which make up an imposing array. But amongst them there are none that I have not myself seen to arise as the direct or the indirect result of faulty nutrition or which are not vouched for by investigators of repute. I know of no disease-producing agency which reaps so rich a harvest of ill health as this: though like others it has its limitations. Perfectly constituted food is not a panacea for all diseases, but it is an agent as potent in preventing a host of them as is the mosquito-net in preventing one or inoculation in preventing another; while it is no mean coadjutor even to these.
The newer knowledge of nutrition is, I am convinced, the greatest advance in medical science since the days of Lister, and the sustained success of our profession in its conquest of disease depends, in no small measure, on the extended study of this vitally important subject and on the application in practice of the results reached by that study. When physicians, medical officers of health and the lay public learn to apply the principles which the newer knowledge of nutrition has to impart, when they know what malnutrition means, when they look upon it as they now look upon sepsis and learn to avoid the one as much as they now avoid the other, then will this knowledge do for Medicine what asepsis has done for Surgery.
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CDC continues to take aggressive action to respond to an expanding outbreak caused by novel H1N1 flu.
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U.S. Human Cases of H1N1 Flu Infection
As of 11:00 AM ET on May 4, 2009, CDC has confirmed 279 human cases and 1 death in 36 states:
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* Ohio: 3
* Oregon: 3
* Pennsylvania: 1
* Rhode Island: 1
* South Carolina: 15
* Tennessee: 1
* Texas: 41 (and 1 death)
* Utah: 1
* Virginia: 3
* Wisconsin: 3
For more information, see the CDC H1N1 Flu website.
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/
International Human Cases of H1N1 Flu Infection
http://www.who.int/en/
For information about the global situation, see the World Health Organization website.
What You Can Do to Stay Healthy
* Stay informed. This website will be updated regularly as information becomes available.
* Influenza is thought to spread mainly person-to-person through coughing or sneezing of infected people.
* Take everyday actions to stay healthy.
o Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
o Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hands cleaners are also effective.
o Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.
o Stay home if you get sick. CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.
* Follow public health advice regarding school closures, avoiding crowds and other social distancing measures.
* Call 1-800-CDC-INFO for more information.
For more information on what you can to stay safe and healthy, check the CDC H1N1 Flu website.
Additional Updates on the CDC H1N1 Flu Website
To learn about other updates made to the CDC H1N1 Flu Website in the past 24 hours, please check the “What’s New” page on the CDC H1N1 Flu website.
Jerry Kaufman pays tribute to Jac Smit at the American Planning Association Conference
Remarks about Jac Smit by Jerry Kaufman at the Minneapolis APA conference session,
April 27, 2009, on Urban Agriculture’s Future.
Jac Smit was one of the founders of the urban agriculture movement; some even consider
him to be the father of the urban agriculture movement. In his absence from this
panel today, I would like to honor him by telling you a bit about him and sharing
with you some of his thoughts about the future of urban agriculture. When I learned
he was terminally ill a few weeks ago, I spoke to him by phone. I said I wanted
to bring some of his views about the future of urban agriculture to the APA conference
audience at this session. He was pleased to have me do so.
Display tray: World War I home gardens 1914 - 1918
A collection of items related to World War One home gardens. Including a Toronto
Horticultural Society medal (1915), Farm Service Corps lapel pins, Canadian Food
Board pin, Ontario School fair prize ribbons, and Ontario Department of Education
special regulation (1917). Tray is marked with small square labels #21 in black
ink and “WWI Home Gardens” in blue ink.
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All stories here:
City Farmer News [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102570745945&s=1304&e=001IXEBTL9-r3iQSEOvzQIAcgv_jU2-JmHy1Tus5KQz-oOkWruFsG8IW_TpZOi8VuydRQbN4tIPE5A_l_6yhLBEgtTUI0y3mieSppllylFJA9rOiuxJHJ1Low==]
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Michael Levenston
City Farmer - Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture
Gardening for the Million / Pink, Alfred
Author: Pink, Alfred
http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/1/8/9/11892/11892.htm
WHO Updates International H1N1 Situation Including Global Number of Laboratory Confirmed Cases
Influenza A(H1N1) - update 16
5 May 2009 — As of 16:00 GMT, 5 May 2009, 23 countries have officially reported 1490 cases of influenza A (H1N1) infection.
Mexico has reported 822 laboratory confirmed human cases of infection, including 29 deaths. The United States has reported 403 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death.
The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths - Austria (1), Canada (140), China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1), Colombia (1), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (1), El Salvador (2), France (4), Germany (9), Ireland (1), Israel (4), Italy (5), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (6), Portugal (1), Republic of Korea (2), Spain (57), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (27).
Read full article>>
For more information on H1N1 situation, please visit www.PandemicFlu.gov
Antiepileptic Drugs
Audience: Neuropsychiatric healthcare professionals, other healthcare professionals, patients
FDA notified healthcare professionals that it approved updated labeling for antiepileptic drugs used to treat epilepsy, psychiatric disorders, and other conditions (e.g., migraine and neuropathic pain syndromes). FDA also required development of a medication guide, to be issued to patients each time the product is dispensed. Since issuing safety alerts on December 16, 2008 and January 31, 2008, FDA has been working with the manufacturers of drugs in this class to better understand the suicidality risk. Eleven antiepileptic drugs were included in a pooled analysis of placebo-controlled clinical studies in which these drugs were used to treat epilepsy as well as psychiatric disorders and other conditions. The increased risk of suicidal thoughts or behavior was generally consistent among the eleven drugs, with varying mechanisms of action and across a range of indications. This observation suggests that the risk applies to all antiepileptic drugs used for any indication.
Read the complete MedWatch 2009 Safety summary, including a link to the updated Healthcare Professional sheet, at:
http://www.fda.gov/medwatch/safety/2008/safety08.htm#Antiepileptic
You are encouraged to report all serious adverse events and product quality problems to FDA MedWatch at www.fda.gov/medwatch/report.htm
http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/azhydroponic05_09.html
AZ Hydroponic Farming Recalls 4oz Alfalfa Sprout Cup Because of Possible Health Risk
Contact:
Ting Hsiao
520-466-7287
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — May 4, 2009 — Arizona Hydroponic Farming LLC. of Eloy, Arizona, is voluntarily recalling its “4oz Alfalfa Sprout Cup” as a preventive measure because of a positive test result in California for Salmonella. The potential for contamination was noted after routine testing by the USDA revealed the presence of Salmonella in some 4 ounce packages collected from a customer in California. The affected AZ Hydroponic Farming shipments are questionable since they were grown from the same batch of seeds as the sprouts sent to California.
Salmonella, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Consumers with the above symptoms should consult their physicians.
No illnesses have been reported to date in relation to this issue.
The product in question was distributed throughout Arizona and to one customer in California. The product comes in a 4 ounce, clear plastic package labeled with either AZ Hydroponic Farming expiration date 4/18/2009 or with LA CALCO expiration date 4/23/2009. The packaging is a 4 x 4 x 4 inch cubed plastic container with a perforated bottom.
Consumers who have purchased Arizona Hydroponic Farming 4 ounce Alfalfa cups, expiration date 4/18/2009 or LA CALCO expiration date 4/23/2009 are urged to return them to the place of purchase for a full refund. Consumers with questions may contact the company at (520) 466-7287 between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM Monday through Friday, Pacific Daylight Time.”
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Photo: Product Label
1. Ambler Mountain Works Recalls Children’s Knitted Hats Due to Choking Hazard
NEWS from CPSC
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Office of Information and Public Affairs
Washington, DC 20207
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 5, 2009
Release #09-209
Firm’s Recall Hotline: (888) 267-6968
CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908
Ambler Mountain Works Recalls Children’s Knitted Hats Due to Choking Hazard
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
Name of Product: Erwin Beanie and Poseidon Beanie Children’s Knitted Hats
Units: About 370
Manufacturer: Ambler Mountain Works, of Canmore, Alberta, Canada
Hazard: The eyeballs on the Erwin Beanie and the octopus legs on the Poseidon Beanie can come loose, posing a potential choking hazard.
Incidents/Injuries: The firm is aware of one incident involving the detachment of the legs of the octopus. No injuries have been reported.
Description: The Erwin Beanie is primarily green and white yarn knitted to configure a frog with white eyeballs and a red smile. The Poseidon Beanie comes in several colors of yarn and has hand sewn turtles, whales and octopus attached to the beanie. The beanies have the firm’s logos “Ambler” or “A” printed on a fabric tag.
Sold at: Specialty sports and ski shops nationwide from September 2008 through November 2008 for about $30.
Manufactured in: Nepal
Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop using the beanies and return them to Ambler Mountain for a free product replacement or cut off the frog’s eyes and the octopus legs and permanently dispose of them.
Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Ambler at (888) 267-6968 between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. MT Monday to Friday or by email Ambler at returns@amblermw.com
To see this recall on CPSC’s web site, including pictures of the recall product, please go to: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09209.html
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2. Wagner Spray Tech Recalls Paint Sprayers Due to Electrical Shock Hazard
NEWS from CPSC
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Office of Information and Public Affairs
Washington, DC 20207
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 5, 2009
Release #09-210
Firm’s Recall Hotline: (888) 925-6244
CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908
Wagner Spray Tech Recalls Paint Sprayers Due to Electrical Shock Hazard
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.
Name of Product: Wagner Paint Sprayers
Units: About 35,000
Importer: Wagner Spray Tech Corp., of Plymouth, Minn.
Hazard: The on-off switch can be dislodged from the casing, resulting in exposure of electrical connections. This can pose an electrical shock hazard to the consumer.
Incidents/Injuries: There have been no reported incidents or injuries.
Description: This recall includes the Wagner Control Spray Plus Model 0414248. This model number can be found on a white label located on the side of the motor housing. The following date codes are affected by this recall and can be found stamped on the bottom of the motor housing near the air hose connection:
Control Spray Plus (Model Number 0414248):
Manufactured Date Code:
Y182R thru Y365R
Z001R thru Z366R
A001R thru A021R
Sold by: Major chain home centers and hardware stores nationwide from August 2007 through April 2009 for about $99.
Manufactured in: China
Remedy: Consumers should immediately unplug and stop using the sprayers, and contact Wagner for a free repair.
Consumer Contact: For additional information, please contact Wagner toll-free at (888) 925-6244 between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. CT Monday through Friday or visit the firm’s web site at www.wagnerspraytech.com
To see this recall on CPSC’s web site, including pictures of the recall product, please go to: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09210.html
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