Are We Starving at Full Tables?
Author unknown
Summary: This paper from the late 1940s ties the growing rates of heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and mental illness in America to the widespread malnutrition of its citizens, a result not just of the removal of nutrients during food processing but, more importantly, of the disappearance of trace minerals in its worn-out soils. The paper focuses on an experiment conducted by Dr. Ira Allison and the famous soil scientist Dr. William Albrecht in which diseased cows feeding on mineral-deficient pastures were returned to health through supplementation with trace minerals. This paper might have caused U.S. health officials to recognize that Americans were suffering massive malnutrition in spite of bellies full of industrially processed foods. Instead, tragically, it was ignored. From the periodical Steel Horizons. Reprint 41A.
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Are We Starving to Death?
By Neil M. Clark
Summary: A progressive and compelling article about the work of Dr. William A. Albrecht, arguably the greatest soil scientist of the twentieth century, who contends that unless America makes a concerted effort to restore the health of its soil, it will suffer a slow extinction from the "hidden hunger" of mineral-poor foods. From the Saturday Evening Post. Reprint 21, 1945.
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Calcium
By Dr. William A. Albrecht
Summary: A comprehensive discussion of the amazing role of calcium in the soil and its effect on crops and animals, written by one of the greatest soil scientists of all time. Dr. Albrecht, who chaired the soils department at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, is known in the organic farming movement as the "father of soil fertility research." Born in 1888, he published his first article on soil fertility in 1918 and would publish research papers continually until his death in 1974. Albrecht was a friend of Dr. Royal Lee, and the Lee Foundation published several of his papers, which are available in this archive. From The Land magazine. Reprint 8, 1943.
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The Cause of Erosion
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Dr. Lee, who grew up on his grandfather's farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, reflects on his studies of soil health and theorizes as to the chemical and mechanical functions that determine soil's propensity to erode. Contains nuggets of insight with regard to keeping soil fertile and preventing erosion. From The Land. Reprint 29, 1947.
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Concept of Totality
By Joe Nichols, MD
Summary: Pioneering holistic medical doctor Joe Nichols writes about the "six chief causes of disease": (1) emotions, (2) malnutrition, (3) poisons, (4) infections, (5) accidents, and (6) inheritance. The worst, he says, are the emotions. "Worry, fear, anxiety, hate, envy, jealousy—these are the great killers," he explains, recommending the three As (acceptance, approval and adoration of others) as a remedy. A second great killer, Dr. Nichols says, is malnutrition, which starts with soils that have been exhausted of minerals through irresponsible farming practices utilizing artificial fertilizers. "The end result of chemical farming is always disease, first in the land itself, then in the plant, then in the animal, and finally in us. Everywhere in the world where chemical farming is practiced the people are sick. The use of synthetic chemicals does not make land rich. It makes it poorer than before." Dr. Nichols founded the Natural Foods Associates and edited its magazine, Natural Food and Farming, 1954.
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Current Thinking on Nutrition
By Jonathan Forman, MD
Summary: "What I want to talk about is the relation of nutrition to productive farming," writes Dr. Jonathan Forman, a leading pioneer in environmental medicine during the 1940s. Here Forman reviews the lessons and research of nutritional deficiencies and degenerative disease and traces their origins to poor farming practices through the entire food chain. "Poor land makes poor people, poor people make poor land, the people get poorer and the soil gets still poorer." This is nutrition from the soil to the table. Original source unknown. Reprint 32, circa 1946.
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Deaf Smith’s Secret
By A. W. Erickson
Summary: Deaf Smith County, Texas, was known in the 1940s as the "county without a dentist." The author presents evidence that the immunity of the county's residents to dental caries (cavities) was a result of high levels of nutrients in the soil there, which resulted in the growth of exceptionally nourishing foods. Original publisher unknown. 1945.
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The Direct Effect of Malnutrition on Tissue Degeneration
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this succinct address to the Seattle Chapter of the American Academy of Applied Nutrition, Dr. Lee touches on some of the major findings of early nutrition science that are still, incredibly, ignored to this day. Topics include the importance of calcium, phosphorus, and raw protein to tooth health; the total destruction of nutrients in bread caused by bleaching; the connection between vitamin E deficiency and heart disease; the dependency of connective-tissue integrity on adequate vitamin C levels; and the various lesions of B vitamin deficiencies. “What lesson can we learn from these few scattered facts…?” Dr. Lee asks in conclusion. “Simply that we must take the trouble in our homes to prepare our foods from the basic materials as far as possible, even to the extent of growing our vegetables and fruits on properly composted soil, if we can. The dividends will be quite possibly 20 years added to our life span, to say nothing of the life added to our years.”
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Diseases As Deficiencies Via the Soil
By Dr. William A. Albrecht
Summary: In this article from the Iowa State College Veterinarian, world-renowned soil scientist William Albrecht, former Chairman of the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri, connects the dots between unhealthy soil created by unsustainable farming practices and deficiency-related disease. "The degenerative diseases of the modern world," Albrecht says, "need to be traced not only to the supplies in the food and feed market where the family budget may provoke them but a bit farther and closer to their origin, namely the fertility of the soil, the point at which all agricultural production takes off." Date of publication unknown. Reprint 37A.
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Fundamentals of Nutrition
By N. Philip Norman, MD
Summary: A respected, well-published New York medical doctor questions why physicians have so long ignored the fundamental connection between nutrition and good health and discusses the essential requirements for producing nutritious food—from the soil and farm to the grocery store and kitchen table—as well as the various ways in which the American food supply has been compromised. "The medical and dental professions [have] failed to oppose the wholesale adulteration of our food supply, thereby allowing the insidious extension into our food culture of processed foods whose nutritional value was never questioned, until after the damage was done." Kind of says it all. From the American Journal of Orthodontics and Oral Surgery, 1947.
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He Enriches Soil for Crops That Go Into Vitamin Pills
By John T. Alexander
Summary: A bittersweet newspaper account of a man who remineralizes soil using special organic composts developed with the help of scientists to grow crops for concentration into whole-food supplements. On the one hand, the story is exciting and inspirational, revealing the difference that well-mineralized, well-bacterialized soil makes in the nutritional quality of foods grown in it. On the other hand, this is a sad reminder of the path industrial agriculture in this country did not take, opting instead for producing nutrient-deficient plants from sapped soil propped up with artificial fertilizers. Includes the famous quote by Dr. C.W. Cavanaugh of Cornell University: "The fact is there is only one major disease—and that is malnutrition." From The Kansas City Star, Missouri. Reprint 55, 1952.
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Interrelation of Soils and Plant: Animal and Human Nutrition
By Dr. E. C. Auchter
Summary: In this 1939 article from Science magazine, a USDA scientist discusses the budding awareness of the nutritional dependency of the plant on the soil and, in turn, of the animal and human being on the plant, making the health of the soil critical for human wellness. "These developments in the science of nutrition," Auchter writes, "suggest that we ought to give more attention to producing crops of the highest nutritional quality for man and animals." Too bad the USDA never took his advice. Reprint 79, 1939.
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Medical Testament of the Doctors of Cheshire, England
By the Local Medical and Panel Committee of Cheshire, England
Summary: One of the great documents in the histories of both nutrition and medicine. The Local Medical Committee of Cheshire, England—representing the 600 doctors of the county—reviews the doctors' experience over the previous 25 years under the National Health Insurance Act. They concede that they've been unable to make inroads in preventing disease and state why explicitly: "This illness results from a life-time of wrong nutrition!" Citing the soil and farming work of Sir Albert Howard (An Agricultural Testament), they emphasize that good nutrition starts with the health of the soil that plants are grown in. They also review the nutritional research of Sir Robert McCarrison (Studies in Deficiency Disease), whose famous studies in India revealed the critical importance of whole foods, particularly "milk, butter, and fresh vegetables," in preventing disease. The doctors present cases of the deterioration of health in their patients as these individuals consumed the modern English diet, and they point out that the nation's dental and physical health have suffered severely as practices such as the pasteurization of milk, the refining of whole grains, and the consumption of refined sugar have increased. How, they ask, can they carry out their medical mission when the misery they've tried to alleviate will continue as long as the food supply is adulterated? "We conceive it to be our duty in the present state of knowledge to point out that much, perhaps most, of [England's] sickness is preventable and would be prevented by the right feeding of our people." In 1957, the Medical Testament was reprinted in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, signed by an additional 400 dentists and physicians. 1939.
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Medical Testament—Nutrition & Soil Fertility
By Sir Robert McCarrison, MD, and by Sir Albert Howard
Summary: A report on speeches given by Sir Dr. Robert McCarrison and Sir Albert Howard in support of the Medical Testament of the Doctors of Cheshire, England, a declaration of the county's 600 physicians that prevention of disease would be impossible if people continued to eat a diet high in processed foods. (You can read the doctors' pronouncement in these archives under the title "Medical Testament of the Doctors of Cheshire, England.") McCarrison and Howard touch on their extensive research in India and lay out two of the fundamental principles of nutrition: (1) only a diet of whole, natural foods can truly nourish the human body and (2) the nutritive value of natural foods, in turn, depends on the health of the soil it is grown in or on. From The New English Weekly, 1939.
Mineralized Garden Brings Health
By F. A. Behymer
Summary: Newspaper report of soil expert Albert Carter Savage, who in the 1940s warned of the depletion of soil and its effect on the quality of the food supply. Ostensibly about Savage's prodigious garden, the article presents his ideas for restoring fertility and immunity to agricultural lands. "A program of countrywide mineralization could and would create, within a generation, a new type of human being," Savage says. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri. Reprint 14, 1945.
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Modern Miracle Men
By Rex Beach
Summary: A fascinating document from the U.S. Senate that originally appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine. Beach describes the work of Dr. Charles Northern, whom he credits as the first person to show conclusively that mineral-deficient soils produce nutrient-deficient food plants, which in turn lead to nutrient deficiencies in the livestock and humans that eat them. A historically significant record of the decline of America's soils, nutrition, and health. Reprint 109, 1936.
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Natural vs. Artificial Nitrates
By Sir Albert Howard
Summary: Howard, the father of the modern organic farming movement, writes about the inherent inferiority of artificial soil fertilizers, specifically synthetic nitrates. He quotes the magazine English Weekly: "It is always good to see the difference between natural and laboratory products emphasized, in recognition of the imponderable elements with which Nature endows substances, which can by no scientific skill be added to the synthetic product." He also cites a study from an American university showing that "natural nitrates have something that the artificial lacks, and there is no completely adequate substitute for it in the field of [artificial] agricultural fertilizers." Substituting crude imitations for Nature's complex, synergistic compounds is a great way to destroy the health of soil and crops, he adds. Howard, the author of the classic book on organic farming An Agricultural Testament, was also the mentor of J.I. Rodale, the founder of Prevention magazine. From Organic Gardening magazine. Reprint 13, 1945.
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Nutrition and Health
By Sir Robert McCarrison, MD
Summary: Dr. McCarrison, the famed nutritional researcher knighted for his work in India (which culminated in the classic reference Studies in Deficiency Disease, available in these archives), gives a lecture to London schoolchildren about diet and nutrition. He recounts his famous rat-feeding studies mimicking the diets of differing populations in India and, based on the results of his studies, gives his prescription for a basic healthful diet: freshly milled grains, raw milk and milk products, legumes, fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs, and meat. Reprint 43, 1937.
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Our Teeth and Our Soils
By William A. Albrecht, PhD
Summary: A must read for the serious nutritionist. Dr. Albrecht, one of the foremost soil scientists of his day, notes the critical connection between nutrition and the "soil and its fertility, by which alone high-quality foods can be provided." To illustrate his point, Albrecht discusses in depth the relationship between the health of the soil and the health of one particular part of the body, the teeth. He also speculates that the twentieth century will be remembered for the discovery of nutrition and optimistically states, "Better nutrition is leading us to think less about medicine as cures and less about fighting microbes with drugs." From the Annals of Dentistry. Reprint 37, 1947.
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Poor Soils, Synthetics Produce Inferior Results
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this short report, Dr. Lee touches on two pillars of his nutritional philosophy. First, that the amount of nutrients in a food depends heavily on the quality of the soil it is grown in or raised on. Second, that processed and or chemically derived foods, such as corn syrup (aka "glucose" or "dextrose"), are critically inferior to real, whole foods for nourishing the body. From Herald of Health, 1963.
Relationship of Soil Fertility and Psychic Reactions
By James A. Shield, MD
Summary: An assistant professor of neuropsychiatry at the Medical College of Virginia conveys a well-researched link between the health of the soil in which food is grown and psychic reactions. A powerful and well-referenced report that cites and amplifies similar conclusions by Sir Albert Howard. From Virginia Medical Monthly. Reprint 70B, 1945.
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Soil: A Foundation of Health
By Arnold P. Yerkes
Summary: Soil is the weakest link in the knowledge-chain of nutritional understanding. This excellent article explains what happened to the greatest soils on Earth and how we have abused them to our own loss. Yerkes, the supervisor of Farm Practice Research for the International Harvester Company Nutrition, underscores what Dr. Royal Lee and the other great nutritionists of the mid twentieth century knew to be true: nutrition begins in the soil. Reprint 23, 1946.
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Sources of Fundamental Nutrition
By Louis Bromfield
Summary: An excellent overview of the relationship between the health of the soil, the plants, and the animals and humans that draw their life from those plants. Bromfield, a well-educated farmer, sees agriculture as "not merely a dignified and complicated profession; it is also an exact science." Through numerous examples, he illustrates that just as deficient soils result in plants that are less resistant to disease and infestation, animals (and humans) that eat those inferior plants are more susceptible to infection and degeneration. Bromfield's straightforward piece is a clear warning to farmers and consumers alike: protect the soil. From The Role of Research in the Conservation of Our Nutritional Resources. Reprint 85. Publication date unknown.
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The Technique of Health Achievement (excerpt from The Philosophy and Science of Health)
By E. E. Rogers, MD
Summary: This is an excerpt from the book The Philosophy and Science of Health published by the Lee Foundation. Dr. Rogers, in relating to the book's overall discussion of the decline of health in America, discusses how ill health begins on the farm, with deficient soils, and he proposes some methods for revitalizing the soil, thus invigorating the entire food chain. 1949.
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Three Opinions of the Death Food Propaganda
By Dr. Royal Lee, Herbert C. White, and Arnold P. Yerkes
Summary: The Lee Foundation reprinted these opinions of three natural health authorities to counter the "America is the best-fed nation on earth" propaganda coming from government agencies and the commercial food industries. From soil destruction and depletion to food processing and synthetic vitamins, the three authors cogently expose the frauds, lies, and myths perpetrated by the "death-food industry," so described by Royal Lee. Special Bulletin 1-52, 1952.
Trace Elements and Biodynamic Agriculture
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: By the close of the 1940s, Dr. Lee had seen many "peeps behind...the iron curtain that is so carefully maintained by the makers of fraudulent foods to keep the American people in ignorance as to the real cause of their chronic diseases." Thus, in commenting on the opinion of a committee who'd concluded on very little evidence that fertilizing soil with trace minerals is unnecessary to produce nutritious plants, Dr. Lee could not help but question the motives of the committee's so-called experts. "Such haste in promoting one side of a vital question that cannot be settled without a great amount of research certainly throws a lot of doubt upon the integrity and honesty of the committee." Lee would spend the next two decades calling out such formulaic chicanery, the kind of which would later lead to some of the great shams of modern nutrition, including cholesterol theory and low-fat diets. 1949.
