Lesson 2 – The New Nutrition: Vitamins and Minerals

“And the earth shall wax old like a garment…” Isaiah 51:6 Ideally, all vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients should be obtained from foods, without the addition of concentrated vitamins in pill or tablet form. This was possible 100 or even 50 years ago, when all foods were grown on fertile soils, were unrefined and unprocessed, and contained all the nutrients nature intended them to contain. But today, when soils are depleted, when foods are loaded with residues of hundreds of toxic insecticides and other chemicals, and when the nutritional value of virtually all foods is drastically lowered by vitamin – protein – and enzyme-destroying food-producing and food-processing practices (such as the tendency to harvest the produce before it is ripened, for example), the addition of vitamins and food supplements to the diet is of vital importance. Nutritionally inferior and poisoned foods of today cause many nutritional deficiencies, derangement in body chemistry and lowered resistance to disease.

The primary purpose of food supplementation is to fill in the nutritional gaps produced by faulty eating habits and by nutritionally inferior foods.

It has been conclusively proven by many clinical studies that the “balanced diet” which the average American eats is actually much too heavy on fats, food additives, sugar and salt and is very deficient in vitamins and minerals.

-Do you skip breakfast, have a light lunch and a full dinner?

-Do you sometimes have such a busy day that you eat dinner after 9:00 P.M.?

-Do you believe that you’ve never been able to stick with a diet because of lack of will power?

If you’re like most people, you’re living with a few myths and misconceptions about nutrition that are keeping you from enjoying optimum health. Your nutrition isn’t really bad, but a change, a fine tuning of your approach to eating could improve every aspect of your life from daily energy and enthusiasm to ultimate life span.

Now that you’re thinking along natural lines you can cooperate with nature in using things from Mother Earth to help you beat the stresses and strains (physical, mental and spiritual) of life on modern Earth.

Here’s a quick quiz that will help you to recognize the weak spots in your diet:

1. Do you eat regular meals at regular times?

2. Do you eat breakfast?

3. Do you eat fresh fruits and vegetables daily?

4. Do you eat whole grains and fibre daily?

5. Do you read food package labels to minimize your intake of fats, sugars and preservatives?

6. Do you avoid white flour products?

7. Do you avoid fried food, including fast foods?

8. Do you avoid fats such as butter, margarine, cheese, mayonnaise, hydrogenated oils etc.?

9. Do you eat fewer than three eggs per week?

10. Do you avoid red meat?

11. Do you avoid using table salt?

12. Do you avoid sugar and sweetened foods like cookies and candy as well as artificial sweeteners such as those found in diet sodas? (Recent findings have shown that aspartame contains 10% wood alcohol.)

13. Do you drink no more than one cup of coffee a day?

If you answered “no” to more than three questions, your eating habits may be predisposing you to daily fatigue as well as possible heart disease and cancer in the future.

The American Diet – Has it Changed?

Your grandfather may have been healthier than you are even though he lived in an era in which sanitation was primitive by today’s standards, with no antibiotics or immunizations and with unsophisticated medical techniques. If he could have enjoyed the benefits of modern medicine back then, he would probably have lived longer than you will. Why? Because of better nutrition. He ate less meat, far less sugar, virtually no processed foods, and drank less alcohol than you do. He also ate more grain products, more fresh fruit and vegetables.

Today, largely because of their diets, over 50 per cent of all Americans are at risk for heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and cancer. In 1977, George McGovern headed a congressional committee that investigated the American diet. The McGovern committee studied the relationship between this diet and the nations major killers – heart disease, cancers of the colon and the breast, stroke, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, and cirrhosis of the liver. They estimated that if Americans modified their rich diets, there would be an 80 per cent drop in the number of obese people, a 25 per cent drop in deaths from heart disease, a 50 per cent drop in deaths from diabetes, and a 1 per cent annual increase in longevity.

Most people are well aware of at least some of the problems with the average American diet. They know they should be eating less fat and animal protein, more nuts, whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruits.

The psychological problem with diets is that most of them are supposed to be followed for a limited amount of time. They promise that if you change your eating habits for one or two or six weeks, you’ll lose five or ten or even thirty pounds and then you can go back to business as usual. Even the diets that claim that they will permanently improve your eating habits often propose menus or recipes that are difficult to follow. Somehow these diets never seem to work in the real world. They don’t take into account business lunches, limited time for breakfast, business entertaining, a family who is not dieting with you, or what you can serve for dessert when you’re on a diet and your guests are not.

If you diet constantly, and 42 per cent of the readers of a national women’s magazine said they did, you are constantly raising your weight baseline. Every time you restrict your calorie intake this forces your body to respond as if to starvation conditions. It reacts to lowered calories by conserving energy and lowering your metabolic pace-maker. It is prepared now to get by on less food. Of course, once you go off the diet and begin to eat more calories, your body reacts by gaining weight. It was prepared to function on fewer calories, so it stores the extra ones as fat. You’re worse off than you were before the diet. Not only have you failed and become discouraged, you’re fatter. This is a case where your metabolism – changed by dieting – works against your intentions, not with them.

So many of us in over-weight or even obese North America want to lose weight. The New Nutrition program is not geared specifically to weight loss, it is geared to health. (And of course, health means maintaining optimum weight.) At the same time, many who faithfully stay with this program lose the desired weight.

Perhaps what is more important for us to hear is that weight gain is not our fault, necessarily. It doesn’t signal a character weakness. It is simply the result of eating the wrong foods. Once you change your eating habits, you will feel better and will be healthier. And you won’t be hungry. Within just a few months you can be a different person. With a positive approach to nutrition you can lose weight slowly and effectively. If you focus on the positive- eating healthy meals, taking care of your body, helping yourself to feel great – you change the dynamics of “dieting”. The emphasis is on self-control, not self-denial. You’re no longer depriving yourself. You’re in charge. This is a much more important principle than it might seem at first glance.

Establishing New Eating Habits

1. Eat only when really hungry and eat at regular times. It doesn’t matter what your schedule is, you can eat regularly, even if you work the night shift or as an airline stewardess. The more regular your meals, the more your body can rise to the demand for energy to digest your food. What does matter is that shortly after you get up, whatever time that is, you have your first meal. Five hours or so later you should have a second meal and usually five or six hours after that, have your final meal of the day. Eating regular meals is absolutely crucial for two reasons. 1) you need to supply your body with a steady source of energy throughout the day. Many people feel tired and irritable because they eat sporadically. When they’ve gone without food for six, seven, or eight hours, their blood sugar drops and they feel weak, irritable and fatigued. Coffee or sweets or even a cigarette will send their blood sugar soaring, and they feel temporarily better. Of course, we know how counterproductive these quick fixes are and how they lead to vague symptoms as well as future illness. 2) By providing your body with a steady source of energy-producing food through the day, you’ll find it much easier to fight any cravings to indulge in caffeine, sugar, or cigarettes. You’ll simply feel stronger.

2. Vary your diet – but don’t mix too many foods at the same meal. There is much evidence to the effect that the fewer foods you mix at the same meal, the better your digestion and assimilation will be. Every food – every fruit or vegetable especially – requires a different enzyme system and too many at one time results in less effective digestion. Raw fruits and raw vegetables require totally different enzyme combinations for their effective digestion, and therefore, they should never be eaten at the same meal. Such combination will only result in poor digestion and gas.

For one thing, the more varied your diet, the better your chances of covering all your nutritional bases. Though you’re going to begin taking vitamin – mineral supplements soon, you can’t count on getting all your nutrients from them. A varied diet will provide you with a good source of these nutrients.

A varied diet is also more likely to satisfy your hunger and less likely to set you up for eating those foods you crave most which you just may be allergic to. (There is a lot of research to suggest that when we eat the same foods over and over we just may be allergic to them and therefore crave them.)

3. No Late Meals. Studies have demonstrated that people who eat meals late at night tend to gain weight even though they may be eating the same number of calories at a time as people who eat earlier in the evening. It seems that the digestion metabolism has slowed considerably late in the evening, therefore food sits undigested on the stomach over night. (For anyone who has a problem with insomnia or troublesome dreams, following this rule will be very helpful.).

We suggest that you eat dinner no later than 6 or 6:30 P.M. if you are on a typical nine – to – five work schedule.

4. No Large Meals. If you follow the first three principles and eat a varied diet at regular times and don’t eat late, you’ll have no trouble avoiding large meals. People tend to eat too much when they’ve gone too long without food. So if you’re eating regularly, you’ll feel satisfied and will eat a reasonable amount at each meal.

Aside from caloric intake there’s another reason to avoid large meals. Eating a large amount of food at one time seems to affect your metabolism. It will make you feel more tired, more fatigued, and more moody. Under those conditions you’ll be more likely to ignore your principles of good nutrition.

5. Prepare in advance so that you may eat slowly in a relaxed unhurried atmosphere. Make sure that you have what you need on hand to eat well and healthy so that you won’t have to shop hungry or be tempted to dash out for some sweet dessert.

We suggest that every evening you think about the next day and what you’re going to eat. Are you going out for lunch or dinner? Will you be eating at your desk? Should you bring something from home for lunch? Do you have the makings of a good breakfast?

6. Enlist help. Many people are secret dieters. Fortunately, the New Nutrition is an excellent program for the whole family. Because it is not a so-called diet with specific amounts and foods, there is no reason why everyone in your household can’t join you in your new eating habits. If you have children, they can only benefit from the New Nutrition. Studies have shown that many North American children are malnourished because of all the empty calories they consume. A child will benefit as much as you from improved nutritional habits, and throughout life he or she will be reducing the risks of developing the same chronic diseases that you are avoiding.

As you start sharing your New Nutrition program, your friends and co-workers may shake their heads and say it won’t work at worst, or they could really benefit in their own health at best.

The Principles of the New Nutrition

1. Eat less fat. Fat is the most concentrated source of calories in your diet. It has 9 calories per gram, while both protein and carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram. You need fat to carry on your metabolic processes, but only the equivalent of one tablespoon per day – far less than is consumed by the average American.

As most people know, a diet rich in fat and cholesterol puts you at risk for heart disease, our nations’ number one killer. Coronary heart disease is due to arteriosclerosis, which is a slow, progressive degeneration of the large arteries that begins early in life but rarely produces symptoms until middle age. In many cases the disease is undetected until the first heart attack, which is often fatal.

A high – fat diet has also been linked to two cancers that are major killers among Americans – cancer of the colon and breast cancer. The Japanese, who ate little fat of any kind until recently, when their diet became more “Westernized,” have been largely free of these two cancers. One study of Seventh-Day Adventists shows that if they ate meat, a component of a high-fat diet, they were two to three times more likely to develop colon cancer than those who ate a vegetarian diet their entire lives.

Reducing the fat in your diet may be the single most important step you can take towards better health and longer life. But it is not easy because so many foods we like contain fat, especially “convenience foods” that do not require preparation, for example, cheese. You’ll have to work to reduce your fat intake, but it is well worth the trouble, and it should be the highest priority of your nutrition improvement week.

Here are some steps you can take to reduce the fat in your diet:

–Eat less animal protein of all kinds – especially beef and pork. This also includes dairy food. This will cut down on your cholesterol as well as your fat intake. Most people should cut their dairy – product intake in half; many people have 24 servings per week and should be having about 9-12. Many people think that dairy products contain mainly protein when in fact they contain mostly fat. One of the quickest ways to cut down on dairy fat is to switch to low-fat or non-fat products. Some recent studies have shown that skim milk is not only low in fat, it also helps control cholesterol levels. Use skim milk instead of whole milk, low-fat yogurt instead of whole milk yogurt, and low-fat cheeses. Most hard cheeses contain more saturated fat than beef. Cottage cheese, pot cheese, farmer’s cheese, and part skim mozzarella and ricotta are good low-fat cheeses to substitute.

–Change from butter or hard margarine (made with hydrogenated oil) to soft tub margarine ( made with unhydrogenated oil).

–Eliminate fried foods from your diet. They contain too much fat. Broil, poach, bake, roast, steam, or barbecue (with a sugar-free sauce) instead. You can sometimes saute’ foods, but should do so with very little fat. Most recipes call for double the fat you need. Use a non-stick pan and just a little bit of corn or olive oil for a low-fat saute’.

–Avoid commercial baked items. We already know that they are loaded with sugar. Also, they are often made with saturated fats. If you bake, use polyunsaturated, unhydrogenated margarine for the fat in the recipe.

–Make your own salad dressings. Most recipes use far too much vinegar – you can use lemon juice very handily and much better for health instead. Most recipes also call for oil to vinegar (lemon juice) ration of three to one, but you can make a fine dressing with a reverse ratio, especially if you use some healthy and flavourful herbs and spices with it like garlic, onion, a touch of cayenne pepper, basil, oregano – use your imagination.

2. Eat more complex carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates are available in starchy vegetables, whole grain bread, unrefined cereals, brown rice, beans and whole wheat pasta. They should comprise over half your total calories. As you eat more complex carbohydrates like fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, whole grain breads, pastas and entrees (made with brown rice, millet, quinoa etc.) you will be increasing the fibre in your diet considerably and helping your digestion. If you increase your intake of these complex carbohydrates, you’ll also be increasing your intake of vitamins, minerals, and trace nutrients, and at the same time, you’ll be cutting down on your urge to eat calorie-rich fats and sweets.

Also, carbohydrates help control your appetite, by elevating your level of brain serotonin, which reduces carbohydrate craving. If you limit your carbohydrate intake, as some diets recommend you do, you won’t be satisfying the body’s need for them and you’ll constantly feel hungry. This condition can be regarded as a carbohydrate hunger and once satisfied, it will stop.

–Eat more salads. Make them a mainstay of your diet, particularly in the summer when you can create a meal out of a salad by adding seeds, nuts or perhaps some kinds of low-fat cheese. When you make a salad, don’t throw away the outer leaves of the lettuce, unless they’re spoiled, since they contain more calcium, iron and vitamin A than the inner leaves.

3. Change your Main Source of Protein. Most of us get plenty of protein in our diets, but over the years the source has changed. We now get over 70 per cent of our protein from animal and dairy products, and as we’ve seen, these foods are too high in fat. We should be putting much more emphasis on low-fat products, fruits and vegetables.

Here’s how you can shift the emphasis of your protein source:

–Get more protein from soy. Studies have shown that the cholesterol levels of people whose protein comes totally from soy – soy flour or textured soy protein – decrease consistently. Soy flour can be added to oatmeal, casseroles, burgers and other foods. Fresh soybeans can be eaten in salad or as a side dish.

Tofu is an excellent source of soy protein.

–Get some of your protein from dried beans and peas. You can use lentils, chick peas, and dried beans and peas in soups and casseroles. They will fill you up and keep your blood sugar on an even keel.

–Enlarge your repertoire of meatless meals that use low-fat cheeses and soy protein. Stir-fried vegetables with slices of tofu, and meatless lasagna made with low fat cheese are two good protein dishes that are low in fat.

4. Cut down on Salt. Everyone needs some salt, or sodium chloride, in their diets, but most people get far too much. It isn’t just the salt you add from the shaker that makes your daily consumption far too high – it is the salt in most prepared foods that you may not be aware you are consuming. The excess amount of salt in the North American diet has been identified as a contributing factor to high blood pressure, kidney damage, pre-menstrual water retention and swelling, ringing in the ears, and heart disease. A teaspoon of salt contains approximately 2,000 milligrams of sodium, a level considered within the safe range (1,100 to 3,300 milligrams) by the Food and Nutrition Boards of the National Academy of Sciences. But current estimates of the daily sodium intake by most adults average from 2,300 to 6,900 milligrams – which means that some individuals get all the salt they need for a week in one day.

Also, if you cut down on salt it will eliminate the need to drink liquids at meal-time which slows and hinders digestion. (Milk, buttermilk and yogurt are not liquids – they’re foods). Over a period of time your taste-buds will adjust to not having salt and you will begin to actually taste your foods’ natural flavour.

Even though it is sold in health foods stores, sea salt has the same effect as regular table salt. When you’re reading labels at the supermarket, here’s what to avoid:

Sodium Chloride (Salt) (ANY ADDITIVE THAT CONTAINS SODIUM AS PART OF ITS IDENTIFICATION)
Monosodium Glutamate
Baking Soda
Baking Powder

5. Avoid Chemical additives. It is becoming increasingly clear that chemicals added to food for preserving, colouring, and flavouring are implicated in any disease, (arthritis, migraine headaches, colitis, cancer, mental problems, and hyperactivity, to name a few). For unknown reasons, these chemicals can cause individuals to develop irritation and inflammation in weak systems or organs of the body.

Effective nutritional treatment of any ailments can begin with the elimination of foods that contain chemical additives. Unfortunately, because the food industry has ignored the problem, these foods may include many canned goods and bottled drinks and some frozen products. Whenever you buy something that is not fresh, read the label carefully. You will probably be surprised at the number of chemicals you are consuming. While attempts have been made to remove some chemicals from food, many of those in use today are still undergoing tests to determine if they are safe. Our suggestion is not to wait for government to do it for you but to begin eliminating food additives from your diet now. By substituting additive – free foods for a feast of chemicals, you will be doing yourself a great favour.

Some common foods containing additives are canned goods; processed meats such as bacon, hot dogs, luncheon spreads, etc.; dry cereals; soft drinks; packaged desserts; foods that have been precooked, fabricated, altered or are imitations.

Antibiotics enable animals to gain weight quickly, which permits breeders to bring them to market sooner. Yet these antibiotics cause the bacteria in animals’ systems to become immune to the germ-killing powers of antibiotics. Humans could then ingest the diseased animals and this may cause severe illness. Additionally, some scientists fear that this practice will spur the development of drug-resistant germs that could pose more hazards to human health.

Vitamins and Minerals: Snake oil or sensible?

Vitamins are organic food substances that are absolutely essential for the maintenance of life. They are necessary for normal growth, metabolism, and our physical and mental well-being. Found only in living things, these nutrients must be obtained in the diet because the body does not manufacture them. Vitamins do not provide energy directly to the body, but they are necessary for complicated chemical reactions that turn food into energy and structure. From vitamins our bodies make the substances that are vital for the healthy functioning of body and, as we’ve learned in the last several decades, mind.

For example, for the brain to get energy from blood sugar, at least a dozen different chemical reactions must take place. At each step, one or more vitamins are necessary.

Minerals work in tandem with vitamins and, like vitamins, act as catalysts for numerable biological reactions within the body and brain. Unlike vitamins, minerals are found in both organic and inorganic matter. When they are in the soil in which a particular vegetable or fruit is grown, they become part of the structure of that plant and are absorbed when the plant is eaten. Plants use minerals for their own internal metabolism. It is thought that mineral deficiencies in humans may be even more common than vitamin deficiencies.

Minerals have two general functions in the body: building and regulating. Minerals are important constituents of bones, teeth, tissues, muscles, blood, and nerve cells. They also help regulate many biological reactions, such as heartbeat, nerve responses, blood clotting, balancing internal fluids, utilizing oxygen, and aiding digestion and metabolism in general.

What Vitamin “Deficiency” Means to You?

Most of us think of vitamin deficiency as something that results in beriberi or rickets, or some rare disease that no one in the industrialized world gets anymore. We learned about these deficiencies in grammar school and feel quite complacent that we’re protected against them. This is a very uninformed view of vitamin-mineral deficiencies. As with all the other chronic diseases we have discussed, a vitamin deficiency doesn’t show up overnight and it isn’t a simple black or white issue. There are minor levels of deficiencies that can affect you in subtle ways every day of your life.

There are three levels of change that occur in your body when a vitamin or mineral is lacking. First, your stores of that vitamin are depleted. Second, there is a subtle change in metabolism that could cause minor symptoms of deficiency. And finally, only in the third stage is there evidence of classical clinical symptoms.

A study recently demonstrated these three stages. Volunteers were deprived of vitamin B-1 or thiamine. For five to ten days, no changes were discovered. Then, after ten days of depletion, there was evidence of changes in cellular metabolism. The classical signs of vitamin B-1 deficiency weren’t seen until two hundred days after the vitamin was stopped, but during those two hundred days, even though there were none of the classical signs of B-1 deficiency, the volunteers experienced declining health and increased illness. They had vague symptoms, including loss of weight, loss of appetite, fatigue, insomnia, and increased irritability.

Perhaps the most famous recent case of a marginal mineral deficiency involved Alberto Salazar, the marathon runner. His long distance running performance was clearly declining and, despite a number of medical tests, no reason could be found. But on closer observation it was discovered that his iron stores were depleted. Normally if your iron stores are depleted, the first sign would be anaemia, but it has recently been discovered that before you develop anaemia, you might suffer from fatigue and reduced performance on exertion. When Salazar took iron supplements, his performance improved. If he were not a famous runner, but just a part time athlete like so many people, his marginal deficiency would probably never have been discovered.

Obviously your body begins to react to a vitamin or mineral deficiency long before you develop the signs of any disease connected with that deficiency. If you are aiming for optimum health, you don’t want to wait to develop clinical signs of a disease: You want your metabolism to function at a peak level all the time. There is evidence that even a marginal deficiency of a vitamin or mineral will contribute to the vague symptoms that we have discussed so far in this Correspondence Course. Fatigue, lethargy, irritability, difficulty in concentration, insomnia, and even a lowered resistance to infection and disease can all result from just a marginal deficiency. And though an average diet, or even a relatively poor diet, won’t completely deprive our bodies of specific vitamins for extended periods of time, it certainly won’t give us our optimum daily vitamin or mineral needs.

Biochemical Individuality

Roger Williams, past president of the American Chemical Society, has documented thousands of differences among people, particularly in relation to their nutritional needs. In working with laboratory animals, for example, he discovered that some rats need forty times more vitamin A than others. He has proposed that many degenerative diseases are the end result of our ignorance of differing nutritional requirements. Some people live in a chronically deficient state that eventually leads to gout, arteriosclerosis, pre-disposition to alcohol, cancer, diabetes, and mental depression. Concerning alcoholism, for example, he found that when rats in the laboratory were given a choice between alcohol and water, the animals whose diets were well fortified with vitamins and minerals preferred water while the ones on a deficient diet consumed more alcohol.

Dr. Linus Pauling, two time winner of the Nobel Prize, found that vitamin C excretion varies by a factor of 16 from person to person, and that of vitamin B-6 by a factor of 35. This means that individual vitamin needs can vary by 3,500 per cent. Even taking into consideration the fact that someone with an extremely high or an extremely low requirement would throw off the curve, this still indicates that relying on the RDAs (Required Daily Allowance) to determine what your body needs is probably not accurate.

Biochemical individuality means that you must look for clues in your behaviour, sense of well-being and in the way your particular body reacts to different supplements, in order to find your optimum vitamin-mineral supplement level.

While we don’t have space in this Correspondence Course to go over all the deficiency symptoms of every vitamin and mineral, we do urge you to begin a good quality vitamin-mineral supplement right away. This will help you immediately to ease into the makeover, and you can research the individual vitamins and minerals and their deficiency symptoms in any good reference work in the library as you need. (Nutrition and Vitamin Therapy, by Michael lesser; How to Get Well, by Paavo Airola, The Vitamin Bible, by Earl Mindell, etc.)

Look for natural source vitamins and chelated minerals (all others are inorganic and thus very hard for your body to assimilate – sometimes impossible), as your budget allows.

These nutrients, especially the antioxidants, Selenium, Vitamin A, C and E will help you to better cope with stress and have fewer vague symptoms. At the same time, this supplement will help you resist addictions to caffeine, alcohol etc. You should begin taking these vitamins and minerals immediately, even if you don’t begin the Makeover for another few days. The idea is to prevent, as much as possible your body putting your emotions through stress as you start the Makeover.

As we look up to the God who created all things in the earth, sea and sky, we can be of good courage because we remember that Jesus Himself used natural remedies while upon this earth. “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.” John 9: 5-7 When we use the things that God has provided in nature: vitamins, minerals, herbs, and diet therapy we are going exactly in the pathway that has been prescribed to build up our immune system – in harmony with our Creator’s plan.