The Western-style Diet vs
Supercharged Nutrition
Lyle Loughry,
Copyrighted, March 2008

By any standard, the average Western diet is woefully inadequate for the purpose of supplying sufficient nutrients to provide for optimum health in today's world. The health of those who consume the average Western diet is being destroyed, but this is nothing new. At times it seems that everyone is sick, ailing, losing their teeth, failing in eyesight, or is "tired and stressed out." Degenerative diseases are rampant, and we have an epidemic in adult-onset diabetes, sometimes affecting children age ten, and under, and we have life-threatening infectious diseases for which there are no treatments.

In the 1930s, Dr. Clive McCay, a well-known and sometimes controversial Cornell University Professor of Nutrition, and researcher, made a momentous discovery — he found that by feeding laboratory animals a low-calorie diet rich in minerals, vitamins and protein, he could retard the onset of old age and dramatically increase the animals’ longevity. His research attracted the attention of New York State officials, who asked him to help improve the diets of the state's mental patients. McCay developed a highly nutritious bread made with soy flour, wheat germ, wheat flour and dry milk. He offered the recipe to bakeries in a low-income section of Brooklyn in hopes of improving the health of the area’s impoverished residents. Acclaimed by The New York Times as the “Do-good Loaf,” Cornell Bread attracted a wide following among bakers who praised the recipe for its delicious taste and extraordinary nutritional qualities. Dr. McCay was quoted as warning, "the overeating of refined foods is the only form of suicide tolerated by our customs, even though it is painful and torturous. There is mounting evidence that civilization has tricked us. Man has so tampered with our foods, either by food-robbery or adulteration, that the eating of these deficient foods may bring us many health problems."

Between 1932 and 1942, an experiment was conducted by Dr. Francis M. Pottenger,Jr., MD. Dr. Pottenger was dedicated to the cause of preventing chronic illness, and was interested in the relationship between diet and health. His study involved some 900 healthy cats and he chose to study the effects of a raw diet Vs a cooked diet. In this classical experiment, Dr. Pottenger found that only diets containing raw milk and raw meat produced optimal health: good bone structure and density, wide palates with plenty of space for teeth, shiny fur, no parasites or disease, reproductive ease and gentle natured cats. Cooking the meat or substituting heat processed milk for raw resulted in heterogeneous reproduction and physical degeneration, increasing with each generation. This early study made significant contributions to the understanding of the day of the role of nutrition in maintaining good health. The changes Pottenger observed in cats on the deficient diets paralleled the human degeneration found in tribes that had abandoned traditional diets. What Pottenger's research clearly demonstrated was that even one generation of processed food had powerful effects on following generations.

Since the post World War II discovery that nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, left over in large quantities from the wartime explosives industry, could be used as fertilizer to produce enormous crop yields, agriculture has departed radically from traditional, natural farming practices, and we have been "guinea pigs" in a vast experiment on the effects of highly industrialized living. Since then, our soils have become progressively depleted of minerals which we now know are vital to human metabolism, and the need for hybrid strains of plants that could adapt to the chemicals, leaving us with constitutionally weaker strains that became more susceptible to insects, fungus and weed overgrowth, which in turn, required powerful insecticides, fungicides and herbicides, most of which are synthesized from petroleum, and are toxic to both animal and human life.

One of the first warnings about modern agri business came in the early 50's from Rachel Carlson's book, Silent Spring, yet, to this very day, the destructive practices of agribusiness continue to wreck havoc with the health of nearly every American, and others living in Western societies.

Dwight McKee, a medical doctor and research consultant, has noted, "The ancient Egyptians perfected the embalming of the body; modern corporate scientists have perfected the embalming of human food." It's accurate to say that most of the food consumed today in Western societies is chemically grown, denatured, enzyme and nutrient poor, highly processed, refined, chemical-laced, and/or overcooked."

On top of all that, we face yet another threat to our well-being, one that former FDA Commissioner, Dr. David Kessler referred to as "a major challenge for the future," that of contamination. Food-borne diseases affect millions of Americans, and thousands die, every year. While it may be said that our physiological mechanisms are so wonderfully made that, in many cases, they seem to be able to run on just about any fuel for 40-50 years, but eventually our accumulated health insults are manifested as one or more of the degenerative diseases that are rampant, and largely unchecked in our present world. In 1981, C. Everett Koop, former US Surgeon General, said, "75 percent of deaths in America are nutrition-related," and that certainly hasn't improved any since then.

Dr. Paavo Airola, pH. D., author of the Handbook of Natural Healing, the #1 International Health bestselling book, considered to be America's foremost nutritionist, and one of the world's leading exponent of biological medicine, has been quoted as saying, "Those who advocate eating natural foods as the only source of vitamins and minerals live in a dream world of yesterday. Yesterday's law is today's folly. You simply can't eat enough to get the nutrition you need to thrive in today's environment." Although awareness of good nutrition has risen in the past few decades, fast food and junk foods are still the staple of many people’s diets.

Even the 'healthy' vegetables we occasionally eat are usually grown in low quality, chemically fertilized soils, and the beneficial enzymes are destroyed through cooking. It takes a lot of diligence to regularly consume a lot of raw, deep green leafy vegetables that supply chlorophyll, enzymes and other phyto-nutrients that our organs and immune systems require to function optimally. Nutritional guidelines recommend consuming 4 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables every day, but most people eat only 1-2, even if you include the french fries. Moreover, even if nutritional supplements are taken, most vitamin and mineral supplements contain synthetic and inorganic "nutrients," whose absorption and utilization is questionable, and do not supply any of the hundreds of enzymes and real nutrients found to be naturally occurring in concentrated whole food sources. For the most part, these supplements are a waste of money, and studies have shown them to be dangerous and even life-shortening. (See the article God Did Not Create Vitamins) on this same Featured Articles section of this website.

Another unfortunate side effect of the average Western, unhealthy diet is what it does to our bodies’ acid-alkaline balance. Our body's pH must be kept at a slightly alkaline level in order to preserve optimal health. When it falls below this slightly alkaline level (7.2 to 7.4), virtually all cellular functions are affected. If the pH deviates too far to the acid side, cell metabolism will stop, and as connective tissue cells become poisoned in their own toxic wastes, these cells will die. The body's metabolic processes depend on a precisely balanced pH value within cellular spaces.

The average American diet is very acid-forming in the body, which leads to ill health, mineral imbalances and deficiencies, fatigue, and even more serious conditions. Fast foods, sodas, sugar and heavy meat consumption all tend to put the body dangerously on the acid side. (See the article, The pH Factor--Alkalize or Die! on the Health News Bulletins section of this website)

Inasmuch as the typical Western-style diet simply fails at providing the natural nutrition required to achieve and maintain optimal health, it is highly recommended that supplementing with a super greens, vegetarian, whole food complex, or a plant-derived, ionic, liquid vitamin supplement, alive with frequencies. (Details on both can be found in the Nutritional Supplement section of this website) We take and recommend both the OR-ION Liquid, Ionic Organic Vitamins and Super O2 Greens. These are the type of quality nutraceutical products seldom if ever found in drug, grocery or health stores or in catalog offerings.Either one can assist greatly in bringing the body into a healthier alkaline balance. For more information, CONTACT

Lyle Loughry
Phone: (800) 829-9913

Email him at ultrahealth@cs.com.

   

   

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