Dr. Craig Reese, DC, PC
DR.
CRAIG REESE, D.C.
February/March 2004 Newsletter
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Almost daily, for over 20 years, I have read books, magazines and newsletters talking about the latest discovery in nutrition and natural health care. I have always tried to keep up with the latest news so I could better help my patients. About six months ago a set of CD’s came out that were a collection of speeches given on nutrition that explained the cause for nearly every health problem we are having in our society today. Surprisingly, it was not tied to the latest wonder product being sold on TV or by MLM. It was a collection of talks given by Dr. Royal Lee from 1954-1964. That’s right, forty to fifty year old information that predicted the meteoric rise in cancer, heart disease, infertility and diabetes.
Not a New Problem
Dr. Lee describes those diseases as a natural reaction to starvation due to the consumption of artificial foods and supplements. It is enlightening to hear this doctor complain about the poor quality of food that was extant in the 1950’s. I know we have really bad food now but I didn’t realize how long it has been a problem. Pasteurized, processed, fake food was killing people in the 19 30’s and 40’s and it is really killing us today. Dr. Lee keeps asking over and over, “How do you expect the body to make something out of nothing? It can’t!” Eating food should be for rebuilding the body and not for satisfying some psychological need. When you put something in your mouth, it should have some nourishing aspect to it. At least the majority of the food you eat should be alive and health building. It is common sense that you can’t build a house out of sticks and crepe paper yet people are surprised to get sick on a diet of coffee, sugar and pizza. When you eat dead food or take dead synthetic vitamins your body has to supply the nutrition you need to metabolize it. So not only is the food empty of nutrition, it also robs your body of it’s own stores of vital nutrients. That is the price you pay for convenience.
Dead or Alive
Dr. Lee found in his research that flour was just as perishable as raw milk. It was rancid within a day or two of grinding. You see only live food spoils and dead food has an infinite shelf life. Bleaching of flour was not to make it whiter but to kill all the nutrients that were left in the flour that could go rancid. Food processing was designed for convenience and making food more readily available. The processing removed all the nutrients known and unknown and then was “fortified” with a handful of synthetic vitamins. Dr. Janet Lang calls that being “nutritionally mugged”. It is like someone robs you of your wallet full of money but “enriches” you by tossing you back a quarter for the bus. You can buy a loaf of bread today off the shelf and it will last for weeks in your pantry before it gets moldy. Wonder Bread has a shelf life of months!
In the past I talked about essential fatty acids and how heat, air and light destroys the quality of the oil. That is why flax oil is refrigerated in a black, tightly sealed bottle to keep it from spoiling. Once a grain is ground into flour, the oils and nutrients that were protected by the germ of that grain go rancid very quickly. Sprouted breads are different and maintain a higher level of protein and fat then processed grains, but they spoil quickly, too, and can only be found in the freezer section of the store. Also, don’t be fooled by the notion that “Whole Wheat” bread on the shelf is more nutritious. In fact, it has been bleached 400% more than white flour to keep the bugs out of it. If the bugs won’t eat it, you shouldn’t eat it either! Pasteurizing milk allows it to rot slower on the shelf but it kills all the nutritional value that raw milk has. Baby cows die of malnutrition when fed only pasteurized milk. If it is not healthy for them it is really not healthy for you! Unfortunately, it is against the law in Colorado to sell raw milk for human consumption.
Blame it on Atkins
A lot has been written lately about how the sudden surge in popularity of the Atkins diet has hurt the income of the bread industry. If bread were made the way it was traditionally made before the 1900’s, it would still be a healthy food and not nutrient-free carbs that make most people fat. People today are growing obese at an alarming rate. Many look to fast fixes like gastric bypass surgery, drugs, starvation diets, liposuction and fake diet foods that are highly processed junk. You cannot build a healthy body with artificial food! The original beauty of Atkins' diet 30 years ago was that you were forced to eat real food. You ate meat and vegetables and you lost weight and got healthier. Now there is a whole line of processed low carb fake food so that you can still eat your pancakes with syrup or fake pasta and pizza. You will be much better off sticking to the real foods that have to be eaten quickly before they spoil than the pre-packaged instant foods even if they have a low carbohydrate content. Dr. Mercola stated in his book, The No Grain Diet, that you should work not on getting slimmer but instead work on getting healthy and slim will follow. That is what Dr. Lee was advocating since the early 20’s.
Politics as Usual
Dr. Harvey Wiley helped to get the Pure Food and Drug Law of 1906 passed and he was appointed head of the government department that was to oversee the implementation of this law. That department later became the FDA. He was determined to drive all adulterated food and drugs from the market. He was fired from this position in 1912 thanks to the political pressure brought to bear by the major food mills and manufacturers. The bleaching of flour was banned in this country by that 1906 law and was upheld by the Supreme Court as being illegal in 1918. But the law was never enforced and the new head of the FDA joined forces with the food lobbies. In the 1930’s the AMA got into the act and worked out a deal with the food companies. If they spend lots of advertising money with the AMA Journal then the AMA would launch a campaign to persuade doctors to endorse white bread as a healthy food. Up to that time, doctors instinctively knew that it was bad for their patients. This deal generated millions of dollars of revenue for the AMA over many years. Due to the right political pressure and money spent, we have Wonder Bread and Coca-Cola and tons of other fake foods still on the shelves today. All the “new” advances in food and water may be very interesting and creative but it is not the way to health.
Franken-food
Science each year proclaims to have solved some of the riddles of the universe only to find out years later that they really opened Pandora’s box. The fake food experiment that has been propagated on the American public has been killing us quickly and quietly for nearly a century. Now we are dealing with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in our food supply. Dr. Mercola has an interesting article on his web site about the prevalence of these foods in our diet (http://mercola.com/2004/jan/24/gm_foods.htm). Most people surveyed say they don’t eat GMO foods but if you buy a packaged food with corn or soy in it, there is a 70% chance that it has GMO products in it. There are no labeling requirements for GMO foods and no studies have been done to determine the effects of eating this food. Just like bleached flour at the turn of the last century, we are being used as guinea pigs for the food industry. The trick to avoiding GMO’s is to buy only organic food. Because the spread of GMO’s cannot be easily contained, some of the organic foods may be contaminated. This has forced organic farmers to buy expensive testing equipment to be sure their crops aren’t contaminated.
Since this is the time of year when people vow to lose weight and make other resolutions we should consider eating more organic foods and less processed foods. Getting healthy will get you slim. This is a cheap and tasty way to buy health insurance and it supports those companies trying to create a healthier world. Lastly, Dr. Lee suggested that people should get half of their food each meal in its raw form. Many of our degenerative diseases today are from eating an excess of cooked food.
Office News
I will be out of the office attending a seminar on Friday February 5th and Friday March 19th. The office will also be closed from 3 PM Thursday March 18th through Friday March 19th since the staff will be coming with me. I will also be out of the office Monday March 22 through Wednesday March 24 for a mini vacation with my kids during their Spring Break. It’s nice to think that spring is less than two months away!
