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Why be concerned about nutrition
Why Be Concerned About Nutrition
People are conscious about nutrition and try to eat a good diet and get exercise. Unfortunately that's not enough, and too frequently it takes a major health problem such as heart disease or cancer to make a person realize that he or she must really change his or her eating and life styles.
Every one of us probably has some type of health problem in spite of efforts to eat right and exercise. Most adults, and many children, today suffer from complaints including allergies, headaches, lack of energy, excessive fatigue, muscle and joint pains, and various digestive and respiratory disorders, along with a variety of emotional states ranging from mild depression to mood swings and anxiety. But we're all still walking around, and do not necessarily consider ourselves to be ill. Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D. , a popular nutritional biochemist, calls that "vertical ill health" (others may call it the “walking wounded”). If the health problem gets worse to the point of having to go to bed, then you have progressed to "horizontal illness”. Preventive nutritional therapy tries to intervene at the vertical stage or sooner rather than wait until it becomes horizontal ill health.
Why We Have These Health Problems
· Experiment
Many of us don't realize it, but we have all been part of a century-long experiment in the history of humankind. Starting in the early 1900's, foods have become mass-produced, using petroleum based fertilizers to replace only a few of many nutrients and largely without concern for the long term effect on the soil. As a result, soil and foods now lack the nutrients they once had, thus causing nutrient deficiencies.
Our bodies are also assaulted daily by environmental toxins, pesticide and hormone residues in our food, impurities in the air and water, as well as physical and emotional stresses. Many people are also taking one or more of today's commonly used drugs that did not even exist 40 years ago; most of these drugs treat only symptoms and not the underlying disease. We are now seeing the results in people both old and young. Heart disease and arthritis and cancer are rampant, senility in the old is accepted as normal, autoimmune diseases are on the rise, and fertility has become a big problem.
· Modern Agriculture Methods
Modern agriculture is one of our major sources of water pollution, contributing large quantities of pesticides found in our groundwater. The chemicals used in agriculture include chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. An example is the use over 300 chemicals to spray fruits and vegetables. The Food and Drug Administration has not tested many of these chemicals, nor have they studied the quantity of these chemicals consumed in the diet of the average person or the effects of these chemicals on the person. For example, pesticides have been linked to hormonal imbalances, especially in women.
The Cable News Network (CNN) reported in April ’99 that levels of pesticides in some produce are at levels considered to be toxic to children (Example: one peach contains enough pesticide to make a 5 year old sick). Yet, the government bases “acceptable levels” of these chemical residues in our food on the average adult.
In addition there is a great push on now by the biotechnology companies to genetically engineer and irradiate our foods. There are no long-term studies to determine how the introduction of a foreign gene in the tomatoes for example will affect human health. Irradiation and genetic engineering of foods has been linked to the increased incidence of food allergies due to mutation of the protein molecules. The proteins of the body are three-dimensional and fit together in the body like a puzzle. But if one part of that protein is changed the shape may also change, making it unusable by the body.
Part of the problem with genetically engineering foods lies in the choice of genes they are cross breeding…mice and tomatoes, insects and corn. Coupled with the lack of labeling requirements on genetically engineered produce, it creates a real dilemma for those trying to eat conscientiously.
· Commercial raising of animals for meat
Livestock are raised in cages standing in their own waste. Then they are routinely dosed with a chemical called Toxaphene to kill the parasites they develop in crowded, unsanitary conditions. (In the most microscopic dose Toxaphene produces cancer, birth defects, and causes bones to dissolve in lab animals). The livestock are also fed antibiotics to keep them from being sick and injected with hormones to make them fatter faster. The hormones and antibiotics both show up in milk and meat. The Europeans had the sense years ago to ban the use of hormones in their food, but you may have read recently how President Clinton is trying to bully them into accepting our hormone-laden food. Even the Wall Street Journal came out with an editorial claiming that hormones were no problem in food. The truth is that ingesting hormones can cause precocious sexual development in children as well as imbalance hormones in adults and children. The continuous feeding of antibiotics to livestock breeds strains of bacteria, including salmonella that are resistant to drugs.
· Toxins in our water, clothing, personal care products, etc.
We are exposed daily to toxins. The chlorine in our water “fries” protein like an eggwhite being cooked, and it depresses our thyroid glands. New clothing contains chemicals that should be washed before a first wearing. Everything that comes in plastic containers exposes us to plastic chemicals. Even toothpaste contains warnings of toxicity if swallowed. And there is increasing evidence pointing to a link between aluminum-containing antiperspirants and breast cancer.