FRUIT - FRIEND OR FOE? (MY EXPERIENCES WITH FRUIT) by Dr. Stanley S. Bass At the early age of 16, my interest in nutrition was sparked by a friend who remained at home, afraid to exert himself because he had been diagnosed by a doctor as having a weak heart. For four years he remained fearful of exerting himself, till one day he went to a Naturopath, who put him on an exclusive orange juice diet for 10 days. All chest discomfort vanished and the Naturopath told him he never had a heart condition, and that his chest pains were due to gas pressure in his stomach, pressing against he heart, caused by wrong food combinations. I asked him to ask his doctor for some names of doctors who wrote on the subject. The names received were William Howard Hay in "Health via Food", Rasmus Alsaker, and about 10 other names, which included John Henry Tilden. I began to go to the main public library in New York on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue on a regular basis, spending 3 to 5 hours looking through their marvelous book collection, with some books going back to the 1600's. I looked up every recommendation, started to collect copious notes and began to change my eating habits drastically. I tested every diet that sounded promising. My first radical move was to go on an exclusive fresh orange juice diet for 10 days. My skin rapidly became free of all blemishes and I felt excellent. This intensified my desire for more and more knowledge. I studied the orthodox nutritionists to begin with - Henry Sherman of Columbia University, Rose, Von Bunge, the English doctors - Thompson and many others. I gave up all junk foods and ate only whole foods for about 3 years. Fasting Then at 19 years of age, inspired by Dr. John H. Tilden, I tried my first water fast, living exclusively on water alone which I remained on for 10 days, Needless to say, my sister who was 1 year older than me thought I had lost my mind. We were 4 children living together in our family - our parents were deceased, my mother 3 years earlier, under the legal guardianship of our uncle, who lived separately. My sister was 20, I 19, with one brother 18 and the youngest 13. I was like a papa of our family, my sister worked daily, my sister worked part-time as a musician and we shared our meager earnings. My sister tried to dissuade me, but my insistence, backed by my faith prevailed. The 10 day water fast was an unforgettable experience. Since I was doing it with the only guidance from books, I was somewhat fearful at first, which I kept secret, but soon saw rapid changes in my appearance, which encouraged me to continue. After this I became a lacto-ovo vegetarian, when I immediately received an offer to work at a hotel at a summer resort for 10 weeks. Most interesting changes occurred in me physically and mentally on this diet following the fast. I soon developed a sense of smell like a bloodhound. I could tell what diseases people had just by the radiations given off by their bodies. My psychic abilities suddenly blossomed and I frequently picked up their thoughts, without trying to. My life flowed so smoothly that I was like an expanded consciousness, emotionally very calm, hardly aware of my body, which functioned effortlessly. After I experimented with diet changes after 2 months, adding bread and some meat to my diet, I began to notice emotional changes and desires entering my consciousness and the sudden loss of my super-sensitive sense of smell. I felt as if I had fallen from the Garden of Eden, and longed to return to this wonderful tranquility I had lost. I knew that in the years to come I would be impelled further and further onward, in an adventure as fascinating as Ulysses' travels were to him. Fruit diet Years later, as many nutritionists of that time, I fell under the spell of Arnold Ehret. His beautiful, alert expression in his photograph of his "Mucusless Duet Healing System", was very inspirational to me. He stated that all diseases were caused by mucus produced by the unnatural food eaten, and that the best and most perfect food was fruit, along with some green leafy vegetables, and that man could reach perfection on such food alone. Thus began my experiments with "Fruitarianism". At intervals I went on long juice programs - some 10 days, other 20 days, several times each year. At one point, after living on grapefruit juice alone for more than 2 weeks (occasionally canned and unsweetened) I noticed my gums began to bleed and swell, and when I got to about the 18th day, my teeth began to loosen in my gums. This began to alarm me, so I discontinued these juices. Years later, while working as a musician in Ashbury Park, New Jersey, I went on a 70 day fresh orange juice diet with no other foods. I lost about 1/2 lb a day until the 20th day when my weight remained almost stationary, losing only ounces over several weeks. I chewed on about 1 dozen oranges each meal and spitting the pulp out. I craved vegetables but refused to eat them, believing in Arnold Ehret's insistence that fruit was a perfect food - the Garden of Eden diet intended for man's highest spiritual evolution. Following this period, I later lived for 1 year on a 100% raw unfired diet of fruits, nuts and vegetables alone. My weight was maintained and I ate large amounts of fruit, feeling fine throughout. Years later, I went on another 100% raw food diet, this time for 2 years, consisting of fruits, nuts, vegetables, and 1/2 to 1 avocado almost daily. Strangely, even though I wanted to lose weight, I couldn't, even though I had been fasting on water alone for 2 1/2 consecutive days every week. After the first day of each fast, I would lose 3 to 4 lbs, and after the second day about 1 1/2 to 2 lbs. Then after 2 1/2 days when I'd eat, I'd gain all the weight back within 3 to 4 days. For weeks and months, my weight remained the same basically, even with all the fasting. Note: at one time I fasted every other day on water alone for almost 2 1/2 years, living on mostly raw, uncooked food on eating days, and felt great throughout. I continued fasting 2 1/2 days a week, every week, and maintained this habit for over 40 years, still continuing it to this day. I looked forward to these fast days since they were my most productive days - no distractions with eating, could sleep as much as I wanted, enjoyed reading, studying and thinking even on philosophical subjects. When I was in my late 20's, I had the good fortune to meet a Naturopath and Chiropractic doctor, a great leader and teacher in the field of Natural Hygiene, Dr. Christopher Gian-Cursio, who introduced me to a new wonderful world of balanced nutrition, which I went into deeply, with the intention of becoming a practitioner some day. He told me about his experiences while following Arnold Ehret, which led to deficiencies in his diet. He once went on a grape cure, recommended by Johanna Brandt. He lived on nothing but grapes, cases of them for about 35 days. He ate pounds of them at each meal. By the 32nd day, his gum was bleeding, and his teeth loosened in their sockets. He said that one of his teeth fell out of his mouth. He exclaimed, "My God, I am detoxicating my teeth." At that point he knew that something was terribly wrong with the fruit diet. It wasn't until later, when he read a booklet by a famous British nutritionist entitled "Fruit, It's Use and Misuse". He said it was the best book he ever read on fruit. I later read his book, but don't recall his name. This doctor stated that according to the theory of nutrition, fruit was alkaline in it's ash effect after digestion and was good for you. But, after what he observed in many people, he came to the conclusion that the alkaline ash present after digestion was due to the fruit acids leeching out the minerals from the body to neutralize the acids in the fruit. The body was not gaining in mineral content, but was losing the minerals from the bones, teeth and body instead. The theory was based on a faulty interpretation of what actually happened. This clearly explained what had happened to me on my citric-acid fruit-juice diet. This also explained what had happened to Dr. Cursio on his grape diet, rich in malic acid. This explained what had happened to many people who went on acid fruit diets. I remember when I was in a hotel in New York working with an orchestra, when several of my teeth had loosened up, and one abcessed tooth caused my face to swell greatly. Not wanting to quit the job, I began an immediate fast on water alone, a method I had always used in emergencies, whenever I was in pain. In a few days, the swelling and pain subsided and was completely gone by the 10th day and 2 days later I felt something in my mouth. I took it out and it was a molar tooth with a big hole through it. My body had ejected the dead tooth - first by producing an inflammation in my jawbone, followed by the loosening and discard of the dead tooth. The same thing happened to me at another time in my life when my body discarded another dead tooth the same way. When I told the story to 2 dentists, they said they never heard of this before. When my jawbone receded from the tooth, due to the loss of minerals from the acid in the fruit, I years later lost 2 healthy teeth due to the jawbone receding off the teeth. Fruit and teeth A surgeon dentist who was a Natural Hygienist and later became my dentist, in Rockaway Beach, Moe Leichter, told me that the worst recession of the gums and loss of teeth he saw in patients were in vegetarians and Natural Hygienists who lived mostly on fruit. He said that their teeth were ridged, soft in some, and lacking in calcium. He believed it was best to avoid heavy use of acid fruit. Dr. Curio eventually recommended the use of only sub-acid fruits, low in acids, like pears, golden delicious apples, and non-acid fruits like melons, is the best of the fruits. My two favorite fruits, honey dews and green Kadota figs were problematic to me. I found that the green figs in excess (over 1/2 lb), would occasionally cause my mouth and tongue to burn. After rinsing my mouth, my tongue was red, and I'd get occasional blisters on my lips. Honey dews, in I ate the whole melon, would cause my mouth and tongue to burn. When I rinsed my mouth the water was pink and sometimes bloody from the acid irritation. I remember when I was in my teens, I would go down around Hudson Street in lower Manhattan to an animal importing house, owned by Henry Trefflech. He'd have hundred of Rhesus monkeys who were fed heavily on grain and some would develop bloody dysentery causing death in a few days. He would sell me these for $5 and laughingly expecting them to die. I would take them home, put them on a water fast and within a few days the dysentery would stop and they'd be well. Then I'd try different diets on them to gain experience, and when they reached good health I'd sell or give them to ape shops and look for more sick monkeys. I was somewhat annoyed to see them bite into expensive figs, eat the soft sweet center and seeds, and throw away the whole outside (the acid part). They never ate the skins or unripe part of fruit. This caused me to discard anything I couldn't chew down, and kept that practice going the rest of my life. My fruitarian diet experiences, the problems I saw with fruitarians who believed that fruit was God's gift to mankind, the dentist's years of experience, led me to live mostly on melons, especially watermelon. I had always been a great lover of fruits, especially melons, which I ate liberally, considering it a natural food. My diet at that time had been mostly raw consisting of salads (whole and blended), large amounts of fruits, some nuts, seeds, fish, sea food and occasional chicken. I had lived on a 1 meal a day plan for more than 35 years. I ate only at night after a days work, having nothing but water at all times. I had developed the habit of eating slowly, chewing all food well. Almost always I felt wonderful, and having an empty stomach most of the day allowed me to have all my energy easily available for mental and physical work. The only problem that resulted from living on 1 meal a day was that I wound up, after years, eating almost the amount of food in that one meal that consisted of a total of 3 moderate-sized meals in bulk. Since I always ate foods in the correct sequence (the most liquid first, and the most solid last, as well as in the right combinations), I had no difficulty digesting my meals even though the weight of that one daily meal added up to several pounds, frequently over 3 lbs. With occasional interruptions of telephone calls lasting 20 minutes or so, the time I spent eating that one daily meal added up to an average 3 to 4 hours or more at night. The largeness of the many-coursed meal provided my body with enough nutrition to satisfy all my needs for the remaining 20 hours that I ate nothing, and I was never hungry the rest of the time. By the following evening, my food was thoroughly digested, with all senses alert and a keen appetite always present. It was a wonderful lifestyle, living with energy truly available at all times for even the most demanding mental or physical work, due to an empty, peaceful stomach. Most people, even doctors, are not aware of the fact that the greatest expenditure of energy in the body occurs in the digestion of food. Most of our energy is lost in the digestive process, so that even an extra slice of bread, eaten beyond the body's need for food, can account for 3 to 4 hours of energy used up in manual labor, such as shoveling snow. When not eating breakfast or lunch, this energy becomes available for even the most difficult and prolonged mental concentration, even exceptional sex ability, and when not used, provides a feeling of exhilaration of mind and body which lasts all day, every day, with rare exceptions. The only time I felt tired was after eating when I enjoyed relaxation or sleep. Fruit and sleep At one time, in studying the harmful effect of excess carbohydrates and its connection to almost all diseases, even though I had previously considered fresh fruit as a natural and healthy food, I experimented with eliminating it totally from my diet for several weeks. I wanted to find out if the sugar in fruit could be harmful, even though fruit was rich in nutrients, calories, minerals, etc. and highly recommended by most nutritionists and doctors. At that time I found that I felt alright if I could get at least 8 hours sleep, but then, I felt better with 9 hours, and even better with 10 hours sleep, which I attributed to my advancing age. I received a call from a herbalist who was interested in old rare Natural Hygiene books and all books on health. He visited me and we spent almost 8 hours each day for about 5 days, wherein he chose books and we negotiated prices on each. He purchased half of my library, spending thousands of dollars on these books. Having very little time left to eat, I decided to omit all fruit from my diet and live only on salads, proteins and some fat in one moderate meal. The next day he came early when I had only slept 3 hours. Usually, if I slept less than 5 hours any night, the next day I would feel fatigued after a few hours. When driving I would get sleepy occasionally and had to be careful to not doze off and when difficult to keep awake, I would put the car to a side and rest my eyes and try to doze for even a few minutes. I was very surprised to find that I was not tired at all, but full of energy as though I had 9 or 10 hours sleep. This continued for 5 days of book sales, even though many hours were spent daily on boring negotiations on many single books. I stayed on this diet of no fruit at all for about 3 weeks, finding that I felt good as long as I would get at least 5 hours sleep a night on the average. Then after the 3 weeks I decided to go back to eating fruit again to determine the difference in how I felt. As soon as I added fruit to the diet, I found that I needed a lot more a sleep that same night, sometimes as much as 12 hours if I ate a lot of fruit. I discussed this with Dr. Aajonus Vonderplanitz, a nutritionist in California, and he said that he also needed a lot more sleep after eating fruit. He gained weight quickly from fruit and any cooked food. This had been my experience. The explanation was that the sugar in fruit, even though considered "natural", retained fluid in the body just as salt did. Since sugar in excess in the blood can be considered dangerous, the body keeps it well diluted in fluid as a safety measure. I recalled days in the past when I had eaten large amounts of watermelon in the late afternoon. That night, 8 hours later I was awakened in my sleep sometimes 8 to 10 times during this night to urinate. I began to avoid these binges due to this sleep disturbance. Fruit and modern research Even so-called "natural" fruit sugar can aggravate "candida" conditions and it can be dangerous in diabetes, so we know that fruit has to be controlled in its consumption. Authorities are coming more and more to the conclusion that excess carbohydrate in the diet, sugars and starches which quickly convert to glucose are responsible for the cause of more than 80% of the most severe diseases - heart disease, blood vessel diseases, and cancer among a long list. There is no condition which is not affected adversely by an excess of sugar in the blood. Dr. Richard Bernstein, recommended highly by Drs. Eades, was a type 1 diabetic, who was deteriorating rapidly in vision, legs were losing sensation, along with other very serious problems. He began to experiment on his diet in an attempt to create a stable blood sugar which remained in a normal range at all times, even after meals. After years he succeeded only after eliminating all fruit from his diet (appr. 25 years ago). And by limiting his consumption of vegetables (which contain only 1 gram of carbs per ounce) to 1 cup of tossed salad at the beginning of 3 meals a day, which included oil and a little vinegar or lemon. Known as perhaps the world's greatest authority on diabetes, he restricted his carbohydrates to a total of 14 grams a day of salad (or cooked starchless vegetables), stabilized his blood sugar at all times and became a super-athlete in his 60's, an anaerobic athlete comparable to the world's great athletes. We know that even if no carbohydrates at all are eaten, the body can convert protein to carbohydrates needed by the brain and special organs (viz. - the Eskimos and some tribes that live exclusively on meat). When I stopped eating fruit, - tomatoes, cucumbers and succulent vegetables became fruit for me, and I began to taste the sugar in vegetables. After a few weeks I rarely thought about fruit and enjoyed a life of great calmness and tranquility, free from the fluctuations in emotions and moods that consistently follow sugar and fruit lovers. Another bonus was control of weight at all times, which for me was a god-send. In the 1990's and beyond, nutritional authorities began to write on the dangers of high sugar, and later, a high carbohydrate diet. Carlton Fredericks included natural fruit and its sugar as a culprit in hyperglycemia, then hypoglycemia. E.M. Abramson, in " Body, Mind and Sugar" spoke of the dangers of excessive glucose in the blood. William Duffy with "Sugar Blues" was another writer. Of the recent writers there were Dr. Robert Atkins, Drs. Mary and Michael Eades, Dr. Richard Bernstein, etc. All of these considered the sugar found in fruit to be a cause of the rapid rise in insulin secretion by the pancreas. When excessive it produced hyperglycemia (excessive sugar in the blood). This was soon followed by hypoglycemia (a marked lowering of the normal blood sugar). Excessive insulin secretion to handle the excessive sugar in the blood leads to cellular insulin resistance, over-excitation of the pancreas, then the adrenal glands, the thyroid gland and a host of complications. For a full presentation of the dangers of excessive blood sugar, I recommend "Protein Power" by Michael and Mary Eades. Dr. Cursio over the years was decreasing the amount of fruit he allowed his patients - from 12 oz at a meal, he lowered it to 8 oz. maximum. Testing All Diets On Mice In 1990, after many years of reading, study and research of books written by doctors and nutritional authorities, each recommending their particular diet as the best of all, I decided that - since it could take many years to test each individual diet, and many lifetimes to test all of the diets - the best way to reach a reasonably scientific conclusion to this question was to do my own testing of all the possible diets on mice. Since 1 day for a mouse is equivalent to approximately 30 days for a human, by running several different diets on hundreds of mice, I could in a few years get the final answers on all possible diets. I began this project testing raw vegetarian/vegan diets, cooked, lacto-vegetarian, ovo-vegetarian, lacto-ovo-vegetarian, the addition of fish, fowl, meat etc. both raw and cooked. After awhile, I tested the fruitarian diet. In a cage of 40 white mice I put all kinds of fruit. They ate some but were still hungry, so I added fresh corn-on-the-cob and avocado. All seemed well until the 3rd day, when I went to the cage, I saw 8 dead bodies with the heads missing and parts of some bodies eaten. I was shocked at the carnage. This was equivalent to severe deficiencies occurring to humans after 2 months on this type of diet. I immediately put the cage on a full diet including raw milk cheese, cooked food, grains, etc. to stop the deaths. Even with the diet change, other deaths followed for about 4 more days before it ended and conditions returned to normal. Two years later, I repeated this diet again on this same cage, which had since recovered their health, and the same thing happened. On the 3rd day of this very liberal fruitarian diet which included corn-on-the-cob and avocados, I found 7 dead bodies cannibalized with their heads missing, I immediately stopped this "fruitarian" diet, which was the next direction of all of the 15 different diets + an additional 50 other related follow-up diets which I tested. From that time forward I have cautioned all prospective aspiring fruitarians to avoid this dangerously deficient diet, since I had proven it on living creatures close enough to man to have some relative validity. Dr. Stanley Bass 10-2004 Visit Dr. Bass website: www.drbass.com for more articles about fasting, diet, optimal health, and energy-concepts in healing. For those who are interested in learning about the results of more than 100 different diets tested on hundreds of mice in a 4 year period at great expense to me, can order 2 books I wrote, entitled 1) "In Search of the Ultimate Diet", and 2) "Discovery of The Ultimate Diet" in which I tested over 100 different diets on hundreds of mice personally, For both, send $28.50, money order, to Dr. Stanley Bass About Tooth Decay & Diet DENTAL HEALTH & CIVILIZATION In the summer of 1933, [we made] contact with large bands of Indians who had come out of the Pelly mountain country to exchange their catch of furs at the last outpost of the Hudson Bay Company... they have remained as nomadic wandering tribes following the moose and caribou herds in the necessary search to obtain their foods. The rigorous winters reach seventy degrees below zero. This precludes the possibility of maintaining dairy animals or growing seed cereals or fruits. The diet of these Indians is almost entirely limited to the wild animals of the chase. This made a study of them exceedingly important. The wisdom of these people regarding Nature's laws, and their skill in adapting themselves to the rigorous climate and very limited variety of foods, and these often very hard to obtain, have developed a skill in the art of living comfortably with rugged Nature that has been approached by few other tribes in the world. The sense of honor among these tribes is so strong that practically all cabins, temporarily unoccupied due to the absence of the Indians on their hunting trip, were entirely unprotected by locks; and the valuables belonging to the Indians were left in plain sight... The condition of the teeth, and the shape of the dental arches and the facial form, were superb. Indeed, in several groups examined not a single tooth was found that had ever been attacked by tooth decay ... Careful inquiry regarding the presence of arthritis was made in the more isolated groups. We neither saw nor heard of a case in the isolated groups. However, at the point of contact with the foods of modern civilization many cases were found including ten bedridden cripples in a series of about twenty Indian homes. Some other affections made their appearance here, particularly tuberculosis which was taking a very severe toll of the children who had been born at this center... The suffering from tooth decay was tragic. There were no dentists, no doctors available within hundreds of miles to relieve suffering. The physiques of the Indians of the far north who are still living in their isolate locations and in accordance with their accumulated wisdom were superb. There were practically no irregular teeth, including no impacted third molars, as evidenced by the fact that all individuals old enough to have the molars erupted had them standing in position and functioning normally for mastication. Where the Indians were using the white man's food tooth decay was very severe. . . In the new generation, after meeting the white civilization and using his foods, many developed crooked teeth, so-called, with deformed dental arches. . . Weston Price, DDS: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration AGRICULTURE & BAD TEETH The Director of the National Museum in Iceland says that it is definitely established that during 600 years, 1200 to 1800 in Iceland, there were no dental cavities. The foods they ate were milk and milk products, mutton, beef and fish. They ate no carbohydrate. The only exception to this was a little moss soup in the summer, but this was a rare "fun food" of little nutritional importance. Two Indian tribes reveal the same thing. The prehistoric Indians of California were vegetarians, unlike most folks of that period, and they had tooth decay. In contrast, the Sioux Indians lived on buffalo meat and were devoid of cavities. The Pueblos worshipped the Corn God, but he was not grateful. They have the most wretched teeth of all the American Indian tribes. They lived on corn, squash and beans. The Laplanders, who ate mostly reindeer meat during the 18th century, rarely had cavities. Modern laps have a decay rate of 85% of their teeth. William Campbell Douglass, MD: The Milk of Human Kindness The Masai are tall and strong... For their food throughout the centuries they have depended very largely on milk, meat and blood, reinforced with vegetables and fruits. In the Masai tribe, a study of 2,516 teeth in eighty-eight individuals distributed through several widely separated manyatas showed only four individuals with caries. These had a total of ten carious teeth, or only 0.4 per cent of the teeth attacked by tooth decay. In contrast with the Masai, the Kikuyu tribe are characterized by being primarily an agricultural people. Their chief articles of diet are sweet potatoes, corn, beans, and some bananas, millet, and Kafir corn, a variety of Indian millet. The women use special diets during gestation and lactation. The Kikuyus are not as tall as the Masai and physically they are much less rugged... A study of 1,041 teeth in thirty-three individuals showed fifty-seven teeth with caries or 5.5 per cent. There were 36.4 per cent of the individuals affected. Weston Price DDS: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration SUGAR & TEETH & BODY CHEMISTRY Last, but not least, sugar consumption is the cause of bone loss and dental decay. Tooth decay and bone loss occur when the precise ratio of calcium to phosphorus in the blood varies from the normal ratio of 4 parts phosphorus to 10 parts calcium. At this proportion, all blood calcium can be properly utilized. Dr. Melvin Page of Florida demonstrated in numerous studies that sugar consumption causes phosphorus levels to drop and calcium to rise. Calcium rises because it is pulled from the teeth and the bones. The drop in phosphorus hinders the absorption of this calcium, making it unusable and therefore toxic. Thus, sugar consumption causes tooth decay not because it promotes bacterial growth in the mouth, as most dentists believe, but because it alters the internal body chemistry. Orthodox nutritionists admit that sugar causes tooth decay, although they may be mistaken about just why this is so, but their warnings to avoid tooth decay by limiting sweets are disingenuous. Most people would be willing to pay the price for bad teeth as long as they did not have to stop eating sugar. After all, teeth can be repaired or replaced. But poor teeth are always the outward sign of other types of degeneration in the body, degeneration that cannot be repaired by mechanical means. Sally Fallon: Nourishing Traditions Sugar consumption causes tooth decay NOT because it promotes bacterial growth in the mouth, as most dentists believe, BUT because it alters the internal body chemistry. INHS email group: VEGETARIAN TEETH Today I went to the dentist, after 3 years of postponing it - and the verdict was "no holes"!! Absolutely unbelievable - last time in 2000 I had a bill of $5000 (pre-insurance) due to many severe holes - and the time before that in 1997 I had a bill of a couple of 1000's as well. (Yes I know I should go every year, but I just have this barrier - and I didn't expect that many holes - earlier I usually only had one or two.) The only difference is that I was an almost-vegan for a decade plus ending in 2000, and since then have been a paleo-hygienist. I have always been good at brushing and flossing so that hasn't changed. Perhaps I am now reaping the rewards of all those eggs I have been eating (and craving) since 2000, (for a while I was up to 8 a day) and the other animal foods I have been eating. It can't be just a fluke (why didn't I have at least a small hole?), there must be a reason. In that case - thnx Dr. Bass for convincing me this was the way to go!! I hope healthy teeth means better health in general - isn't that what the dentist Weston-Price meant .... A. 3-04 MINERAL DEFICIENCIES & TEETH > I realized another thing that I added to my diet in the last 2 years. Sea vegetables! I eat nori, and dulse a lot now. I make nori rolls 2 times a week and I often throw dulse in my salads. I still drink reverse osmosis water though. I believe adding the dulse and nori along with more greens like kale, chard and spinach is why I no longer get cavities! Another thing I've noticed is that since I've added these things my hair and nails are much stronger. My teeth even feel stronger too. ... I must have been missing minerals. I. 3-04 Really interesting - goes hand in hand with what Steve said about mineral-rich soils and improved teeth: > In 1984 I visited Fiji and stayed six months. There is a remarkably fertile and small region on the main island there, the Sigatoka River Valley, where the soils are alluvial and refreshed every few years with freshly-ground rock flour, happens when the Sigatoka River floods in a cyclone. .... When I ate the food from the Sigatoka Valley over half a year my teeth got tighter in my jaw; Isabelle's fingernails hardened, our whole sense of well-being improved. S. 3-04 April 2004 ow Much Protein? Ever since it was decided that protein is the most important and most essential part of our food, there has raged a controversy over how much protein a day is required to meet the needs of man. At first, the efforts to determine the amount of protein needed were made by merely striking an average of the amount of protein actually eaten by certain groups of men, who are now known to have been gluttonous eaters. Next, an effort was made to determine the amount of protein needed by experiments on dogs. Imagine, trying to discover the protein needs of man by making tests on dogs! Without going into the matter of these experiments and measurements, suffice it to say that both of them helped to establish a high protein standard, which, although since repeatedly shown to be much too high, is far from dead, both in lay and in professional thought and practice. Indeed, within the last few years, there is apparent a growing tendency to re-affirm the old high-protein standards established by the earlier investigators. "Liebig conceived the idea that albumens and proteins are needed in direct proportion to a man's or woman's activity." More than seventy years ago Liebig conceived the idea that albumens and proteins are needed in direct proportion to a man's or woman's activity. He thought that the human body is run on the substances of which its muscles and viscera are composed. Of this notion, Drinkwater says: "If muscles are worn away by exercise of their normal function, according to the old view, it would be like a locomotive having to have its wheels and machinery renewed at the end of each journey, instead of needing simply water and fuel." (Food in Health and Disease, London, 1906.) Following Liebig, Voight declared in 1881 that man requires twenty percent of his daily diet to be protein. A little later Atwater made it twenty-five percent, and Moleschott and Veirordt made it twenty percent. Voight experimented upon dogs in his effort to determine the protein requirements of man. These standards demanded for the adult, who has ceased growing, 7% to 12% more protein (more tissue building material) than nature herself provides for an infant which doubles its weight in six months and trebles its weight in a year. Not until Lahmann in 1892 appreciated this discrepancy and set about to determine the proportions of protein, carbohydrate, fat and salts in mother's milk, and used this information as a basis for calculation for adult diets, was a really decisive blow struck at the old school of dietetics. Lahmann was an old school physician who had associated himself with Louis Kuhne. He noticed that Kuhne's patients, fed as they were on fruits and vegetables, were not receiving the "required" amounts of protein, but fared well on their low protein diet. Analyzing the ingredients of dried milk, that is water free milk he found that the fat, sugar and minerals amounted to 85.5 percent of the whole; the protein present amounted to only 13.5 percent. Thus for a growing baby, producing more tissue daily than does the adult, nature provides a diet, which, apart from water, contains only 13.5 percent of the tissue building material called protein. But relative to the total bulk of breast milk taken by an infant, the pro-tein is really only 1.6 percent, because it is 88 percent water. Only in relation to the ingredients other than water is the amount 13.5 percent. This is said, however, not to be wholly a reliable basis of calculation, because unless we know the adult's activity as compared with that of the baby, we cannot accurately assess the adult's need. Drinkwater says that "the most strenuous muscular labour does not increase in the smallest degree the metabolism of albuminates (proteins) in the body; it is the non-nitrogeneous alimentary principles, the fats and carbohydrates, whose consumption is increased by muscular activity." It would seem, therefore, that our need in accurately assessing the protein needs of the adult as compared to that of the infant, would be a knowledge of the relative differences in tissue building activity that goes on in the two organisms. 47 g - 1887 In 1887 Hirshfeld made a series of experiments and placed the protein standard at 47 grams, but the "scientists" rejected his standard. A young man of twenty-four years, Hirshfeld performed heavy labor, weight lifting, mountain climbing, etc., on a diet containing less than half the protein thought to be necessary. He lost neither weight nor strength, while the "nitrogen balance" showed that he did not lose body protein. Hindhede says of his work: "It is strange, indeed, that Hirshfeld's investigations have been permitted by science to drift almost into oblivion. He was a young man (twenty-four) who could make little impression upon the weight of Voight's authority." The low protein standard attracted little attention until after Horace Fletcher startled the "scientists" out of their lethargy. Chittenden in 1904 protested against the over-consumption of protein and established three ounces daily as the average adult requirement. It was not, however, until a little later, when it was shown that the amount of urea excreted is by no means proportionate to the activity indulged in, that Liebig and his school, together with the whole of the dietetic conventions that were supported by his ideas, were ultimately shown to be completely false. We must cease to think of the adult's activities as involving chiefly the expenditure of his protein elements, his tissues, but as the expenditure of his fuel. Compared, therefore, with the protein needs of the growing infant, who is making more tissue daily, those of the adult are very small indeed. Therefore, to make 13.5 percent of the diet of the adult, protein, would be ridiculous. "Men are poisoned by excessive protein ingestion." Lahmann was in favor of conforming to the proportion of milk. This was too high, particularly as he used cow's milk as his standard. Chittenden maintained that "body-weight, health, strength, mental and physical vigor and endurance can be maintained with at least one-half of the protein food ordinarily consumed." He estimated the proportion of protein for the adult at 3.5 percent lower than for the infant, and thought that health could be maintained much more satisfactorily on about 10 percent of protein in the diet than on 20 percent. 30 g - 1923 It was later found that the estimates of both Lahmann and of Chittenden are much in excess of actual body needs, for active grown men. Boyd, taking flesh as the source of protein, estimated the minimum daily ration of protein requisite to maintain body-weight at 30 grammes, i.e., only 4.65 percent in a total amount of 650 grammes of food. (Vitamins, London, 1923, P. 61.) 26 g - 1923 Ragnar Berg, after making a more accurate investigation, found it to be only 26 grammes, or 4 percent of the total (Vitamins, London, 1923); while Rose, after providing a better supply of bases, found it to be only 24 grammes, or only 3.7 percent. (Vitamins, London). .58 g/kg per day - 1920's After carefully surveying all previous estimates and after conscientious experimentation of his own, Berg came to the conclusion that the adult body's need of protein should be calculated on a basis of .58 grammes per kilogramme of body weight (Vitamins). Berg concluded that "a supply equivalent to 1 gramme of protein per kilogramme of body-weight, when a mixed diet is taken . . . provides a margin of safety of from 50 to 100 percent." Thus a fully grown adult, of say 140 lbs. should consume not more than 2.2 ounces of protein a day—i.e., if he is taking his protein in the form of meat or cheese, he should not take more than half a pound of beef or curd cheese altogether; or if he is taking it in the form of cod-fish, not more than 7/8 of a pound. (14 oz) (Note: 1 ounce/oz = 28.47 g, 1 lb = 0.45 kg) It is obvious that the average full-grown man, even of moderate habits, allows himself a much larger proportion of protein. If he has eggs and bacon for breakfast, these alone, apart from the bread he consumes with them, will provide 3/5 of his daily quota of 2.2 ounces of protein, leaving only 1.6 ounces for his lunch an dinner. Thus, by the time he has his lunch, consisting of a cut from a joint, a chop or a steak, he has consumed more than his quota, and the rest is all excess as far as protein is concerned, quite apart from the bread, potatoes, milk or cereals he may also have had. Ragnar Berg allows a small increase of protein for reproduction, and in this case proteins of high biological value are essential. But when reproduction is allowed for, it is obvious from the previous figures that the average man who has ceased growing, indulges to excess in those kinds of foods which are body building and which he does not require, and thus, not only deprives his body of other important elements, such as mineral salts and vitamins, but also impedes the combustion of his running fuel. Hindhede reared four athletic and wide-awake children on a diet so low in protein that it has been said "it would frighten a school teacher into blind staggers." 100 g - 1934 Nixon, who is no vegetarian and has no bias in favor of vegetarianism, writing in January 1934 said that 100 grams of protein daily (i.e., 3.527 ounces or nearly 1/4 lb.) is average requirement for physical and mental activity and for fertility, 50 grams of which should be "first class protein" by which he means meat, eggs, cheese, including fish. This is the amount of protein he regards as sufficient for a young man in his prime when reproductive powers are at their zenith. •This means that one-half the young adult's daily protein consumption should be high grade proteins. •Vegetarians would use as proteins of high biologic value - nuts, peanuts, avocadoes, soy beans, bananas, and green vegetables. In my own work, I have watched hundreds of men, women and children make steady (often rapid) gains in weight and strength following lengthy fasts, while consuming less than half the protein daily that is supposed to be required. I have reared children and supervised the rearing of many more on a diet containing far less protein than the prevailing standards call for and the healthiest and finest developed children I have seen have been these very children. My feeding program comforms closely to the standard established by the Swiss experiment, an account of which follows. Some recent experiments made in Switzerland should go far to settle a long-sought-for solution to the problem of how much protein is required daily for an individual. Unlike most experiments that have been made in an effort to solve this problem, this experiment was made on human beings and on large numbers of them. If its conclusions do not agree with the findings of the rat-pen dietitians, this will merely be hard on the boys in the rat-pens. 1 g/kg per day - 1968 The British Association for the Advancement of Science was addressed at its regular meeting about two years ago by a Swiss speaker, Prof. A. Fleisch. He told the assembled scientists that experiments carried out with scientific thoroughness on 4,000,000 people in Switzerland showed that the amounts of calories, proteins and fats formerly considered essential in civilized countries were utterly unnecessary. He asserted, on the basis of these experiments, that the United Nations minimum standard of 2,400 calories a day is too much and that 2,160 is sufficient for all except heavy manual workers. The conclusion reached through their experiments is that one gramme of protein per kilo (0.035 oz. per 2 1/4 lb.) of body weight is correct. Before the war the protein requirements were supposed to be 100 grammes (3 1/2 oz.). This amount he asserted, was not only unnecessary, but was actually harmful. He said that a large part of the meat and eggs eaten before the war and a large part of the refined fats, sugar and white bread and macaroni could have been replaced by vegetables, fruits and darker bread, Finally, be said that today, when great nations of the world are suffering from hunger, it is absolute waste to convert large quantities of wheat into eggs, thus losing 90 percent of the nutritive value of the wheat, and to convert tremendous amounts of maize (corn) and barley into fodder (food for cows) and thus lose 75 percent of the calories and proteins. This is a direct stab at our traditional but nonetheless foolish agriculture which first raises huge quantities of food for animals, feeds it to the animals, and then feeds man a small percentage of the food value thus converted into animal foods. "Only about one-half the amount of protein considered necessary before the war is needed daily by the individual for health and strength." It will seem amazing to most of my readers that only about one-half the amount of protein considered necessary before the war is needed daily by the individual for health and strength. The old high protein standards thus go glimmering through the things that were. No doubt the packers and the poultry men will not like this and a great howl will go up from the rat pens. The radio touts who look after the interests of the meat packing industry will shout themselves hoarse denying the validity of these tests made on men and women instead of rats. Nonetheless, there is but one way to determine the nutritive requirements of man. In dealing with the young, the requirements of a rapidly growing animal and those of an animal of slow growth are very different. While the efforts of most investigators seem to have been directed to ascertaining minimum protein requirements, it may be debatable as to whether or not this can establish a valid standard for protein intake. It is quite clear, however, that greater sobriety in the matter of nitrogen (protein) ingestion is essential not only to achieve a return to health, but also in order to maintain health at its highest peak at all times and for all purposes. Reinheimer truly says that "nitrogen, the chief ingredient of protein, is universally a good servant, but a bad master." It is well known to physiologists that both fat and protein metabolism depend upon carbohydrate metabolism. There is a delicate balance between carbohydrates and proteins, to which we have to conform - disease and degeneration resulting from failure to conform. It has been shown that excess nitrogen is detrimental to the capacity for work, while very generally, it is the accumulation of a nitrogen product, kinotoxin, in the muscles that is the cause of fatigue. Men are poisoned by excessive protein ingestion. More than any other food factor, excesses of protein foods fill the body with toxins. Indeed, the whole system becomes overcharged with poisonous products of protein metabolism, which the eliminative functions eventually fail to cope with. The calamitous moribundity of a body poisoned by unsuitable and excessive protein is similar to the case of alimentary anaphylaxis. "Greater sobriety in the matter of protein ingestion is essential, not only to achieve a return to health, but also in order to maintain health at its highest peak." In middle aged adults, perfectly normal kidneys are the exception rather than the rule. By a careful selection of a low nitrogen diet, it is possible to reduce the amount of work required of the kidneys to a level at which they are able to keep the waste products in the blood within normal limits. We can say, without fear of successful contradiction, that a disproportionately increased amount of protein in the diet, due to the arbitrary addition to the diet of foods rich in protein, such as flesh, eggs, cheese, etc., proves harmful, as a continual excess of protein results in severe disturbances of health. Yet these are the very foods that the advocates of much "high-grade" protein place greatest stress upon. An excess of protein thus provided, (this improperly prepared and wrongly combined), is the source of much trouble. Herbert M. Shelton Chapter VIII, Superior Nutrition Published by Dr. Shelton's Health School, San Antonio, 1970 (Note: 1 ounce = 28.47 g, 1 lb = 0.45 kg)