Fitness

There are two approaches to improving the diet when nutrition has been neglected. The cautious approach is to increase the amounts of supplements and such foods as yeast, yo gmt, or tiger’s milk gradually; thereby you can prevent digestive upsets and give yourself a chance to cultivate a taste for these foods. Improvement may be slow, but this method is safest for persons without supervision. The other approach, which can end in disaster or spectacular improvement, is to take enough supplements to saturate the tissues and large amounts of foods supplying proteins, B vitamins and other nutrients for a few days, then decrease the amount drastically when body needs have been met. I use the latter method but have sometimes regretted it. Persons who consume more nutrients than their bodies need lose a fortune annually through their excreta.

I take vitamin pills and recommend them, but I still disapprove of them. If wholesome foods were available, supplements would rarely be needed except for vitamin D. Few people can obtain wholesome food. By wholesomeness, I mean the kind of food our grandparents and all our ancestors before them ate at every meal. Just plain food. Fruits” vegetables, and grains grown on naturally mineralized, naturally composted soil untouched by smog, chemical fertilizers, and poison sprays. Milk from healthy animals grazed on green pastures (most such milk need not be pasteurized, and its hormones, enzymes, and steroids are not destroyed; if “pasteurization” is necessary, it can be done by the natural methods of souring or changing into yogurt). Eggs laid by hens allowed to run on the ground, gathering worms and scratching in manure piles rich in bacteria-produced vitamin B12, vitamin K, and many other nutrients. Fertile eggs produced by hens kept with roosters (such eggs are rich in steroids which commercial eggs lack). Meats from animals which have not been castrated. Foods which have not been refined or processed.

Although such foods have been eaten by billions of people who have lived and died, this degree of wholesomeness is now too dreamy to be practical. As I see it, thousands of adults and millions of children in our country have never once had one mouthful of wholesome food. Everything we eat is tinkered with in one way or another. With every tinkering come losses, some small and unavoidable, some large and avoidable; the cumulative amount of these losses is staggering and crippling. It is we who are staggering, we who are being crippled. We must do the best we can, but our best can be none too good. Supplements, therefore, appear to be necessary.

One should constantly be aware that a certain balance seems to exist between the various nutrients in the body, as in the case of the B vitamins. Furthermore, the absorption, utilization, and/or retention of one nutrient often depend upon the presence of another. For example, it is silly to take calcium if you fail to obtain enough fat and/or vitamin D to absorb and use that calcium; or it is useless to spend money on vitamin A unless fat and vitamin E are available simultaneously. These problems are largely taken care of automatically when natural foods are eaten. The overall picture, however, should be kept constantly in mind.

It seems to me that the situation is much like boxes inside of boxes. Each box should be seen as a whole and in relation to each other. The smallest box, let us say, represents the whole of nutrition from the proper preparation of the soil, through the harvesting, handling, processing, and marketing of food; the careful selection which makes it possible for each of the 60 or more body requirements to be met; the scientific preparation and gracious serving of that food; the pleasantness and relaxation necessary to assure digestion and absorption; and the factors which must be controlled to prevent destruction of nutrients in the body and losses through the excreta.

The next larger box might symbolize the body as a whole, all its parts and organs functioning co-operatively. Health is not of a part of the body but of all the cells together. Whether recognized or not, disease is not of a part but also of every body cell. The third box could be symbolic of the body needs as a whole, such as love, peace of mind, psychological adjustment, relaxation and personal recognition as well as the needs for exercise, sleep, fresh air, sunshine, and warmth. The next larger box might represent the individual in relation to his environment, family, friends, work, hobbies, and recreation. The largest box could symbolize this individual’s personal philosophy, religion, convictions, ethics, prejudices, and morals, which in turn determine the part he plays in the world about him. Nutrition, seen in such light, becomes a small part; yet it remains a vital part.

A doctor friend of mine calls persons only part-smart who fail to see nutrition as a whole and its relation to the world about us. When an individual takes vitamin Br or a physician ~ves injections of vitamin B12, either is granting that nutrition has a little value; since some 60 nutrients are considered essential, he is approximately one-sixtieth part-smart. Wonderful physicians have made such outstanding contributions by their clinical research with vitamins Br, B2, and niacin that they now have become famous; these brilliant men are still, nutrition-wise, only part-smart. The person who fails to see the value of soil bacteria, the losses caused by refining, the psychological factors involved in food choice and/or absorption or any other fragment of the picture is, in my opinion, only part-smart. The individual who perhaps harms nutrition most is one who exaggerates its importance; he is often neurotically part-smart. The man who has not yet realized that nutrition plays a role in his ability to be a good husband and father, to make a good income or to enjoy recreation or that it can influence his thinking and feeling is, nutrition-wise, not even part-smart.

Personally applied nutrition is a means to an end, a means which need be remembered only a few minutes daily during the remainder of your life. The end goal is health in all its aspects, a type of physical health which can help to form a basis for mental, emotional, moral and spiritual health. Such a goal is valueless unless you do something worthwhile with the health you attain. If a high degree of health, however, increases your mental alertness and emotional stability and can thus give you the moral courage to live up to your spiritual convictions, then you will find your work fulfilling, your fun rewarding, your goals tantalizing and the world about you both a good place to live and a better place because of your presence. Then only will nutrition have reached its personal goal.

Dr. Rountree has pointed out that the goal of nutrition is growth of body, mind and conscience. She states that the possibilities of improvement of family, community, and world conditions through better food and the use of nutritional knowledge for man’s welfare make up a vision all must catch; that nutritional knowledge alone is of little value but that what you do with this knowledge is all-important. She reminds us that undernourished bodies are tied up with self-centered, pessimistic minds and that malnourished people are not interested in abstract ideas like democracy. She writes: S “Nutritional knowledge can give us a sense of mastery over life, help balance the budget, reduce medical costs, maintain the right architectural propositions for social success and long life, improve the sense of humor, promote efficiency in home, school and business and make us better able to take it. Nutrition well taught will make people glory in the American way of life.”

It seems to me that the person who can be ever mindful of such a concept of health is, nutrition-wise, no longer only part-smart.