WHAT AMERICANS CAN LEARN FROM EUROPE ABOUT BETTER HEALTH
In spite of the great medical progress and the billions of dollars spent on health care in the United States today, it is estimated that there are still in this country over 80 million chronically ill people. The most distressing fact is that instead of improving, the situation is worsening with every passing year. There is an epidemic increase in such diseases as heart disease, cancer, arthritis, allergies, multiple sclerosis, and birth defects. Our mortality rate is higher than in most civilized countries; and in life expectancy among nations, the United States ranks 22nd for men and 10th for women. Many responsible scientists have expressed their concern and called the health conditions of this nation “catastrophic.”
What are the reasons for such an appalling and frightful deterioration of the health of the American people? The main reason for this is our artificial, sedentary, air-conditioned way of life in a denatured, synthetic, chemicalized, and poisoned environment. Nutrition is the most important single environmental factor affecting one’s health. But, according to a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture survey, only half of the American households are found to be eating a nutritionally adequate diet. The other half of the American people are malnourished.
Why, in the country that has the most abundant supply of food in the world, should one half of the population be malnourished? The answer is: because of ignorance. “People just don’t know what kinds of foods are necessary for good health and vigor,” said Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, George L. Mehren. The nutrition Americans obtain today in the form of devitalized, factory-produced and chemicalized food, loaded with poisonous residues from additives and pesticides, can result only in deteriorated health. Add to this the air poisoned with deadly chemicals, the polluted water, and the gigantic consumption of toxic drugs, and you will have found most of the reasons for the appalling deterioration of our health.
The extensive and prolonged use of chemical fertilizers has depleted our soils and, although the quantity of the crops still remains high with the help of constantly increasing amounts of chemical fertilizers, the nutritional quality of foods produced on depleted soils is lowered. For example, wheat grown in the American midwest in the beginning of the century contained an average 17-18 percent of protein; sometimes it even went as high as over 20 percent. Now, the average content of protein in our wheat is only 12-14 percent, often even less. Just imagine what this significant difference in the content of one of the most important nutritional elements will do to your health! In Russia, wheat still contains 16-18 percent protein. Professor Barry Commoner, of Washington University in St. Louis, said that a slice of American bread needs a slice of cheese on it to match the slice of plain Russian bread in nutritional value 1
The mineral and vitamin content of processed foods produced on depleted soils with the help of chemical fertilizers is equally reduced. For example, nutritionist Dr. H. K. Stieberling writes in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association that the national food supply is about 15 percent lower in vitamins A and C today than it was 20 years ago.
In addition to pesticides, foods are loaded with various other toxic chemicals added to it during processing. These are: preservatives, dyes, bleaches, conditioners, hydrogenators, softeners, moisteners, acidifiers, alkilizers, antioxidents, emulcifiers, and many more. Many of these are harmful and unfit for human consumption.
The air in most of our larger cities is so polluted by the poisonous gases from automobiles and industries that it is also a major health hazard. It is considered to be one of the leading causes of cancer in the respiratory organs. Emphysema, which spreads as a plague around the whole nation, is directly linked to polluted air and smoking.
Our water is just as unfit for drinking as our air is for breathing. Almost half of the American public is drinking fluoridated water in spite of the mounting evidence that the toxic effect of sodium fluoride is one of the reasons for the catastrophic deterioration of the health of Americans.
In addition to all this, we poison ourselves in a hundred other ways in our everyday living with household chemicals, detergents, insecticides for homes and gardens, insect repellents, air-fresheners, disinfectants, hair sprays, etc. Many other things in our environment, such as clothing, rugs, wallpapers, upholstery, and mattresses, are treated with toxic chemicals.
*1\58\2*
Related Posts:
Tags: General health