Our bodies have been designed to thrive on natural foods, not processed look-a-likes. Our bodies have the amazing ability to extract the right amounts of vitamins, minerals, and protein from the food we can grow in our own backyards (yes protein is found in plant foods). Anything that is made in a laboratory or factory is far from natural and may have dire consequences when introduced into a system that requires natural foods. Dr. T. Colin Campbell has spent most of his lifetime researching health and nutrition and has come to some amazing discoveries through that research. Here are some of the facts he has found in his line of work concerning unnaturally altered foods and synthetic supplements:
"Our bodies have evolved with this infinitely complex network of reactions in order to derive maximal benefit from whole foods, as they appear in nature. The misguided may trumpet the virtues of one specific nutrient or chemical, but this thinking is too simplistic. Our bodies have learned how to benefit from the chemicals in food as they are packaged together, discarding some and using others as they see fit. I cannot stress this enough, as it is the foundation of understanding what good nutrition means.
Supplements will not lead to long-lasting health and may cause unforeseen side effects. Furthermore, for those relying on supplements, beneficial and sustained diet change is postponed. The dangers of a Western diet cannot be overcome by consuming nutrient pills."
"It is not that these nutrients aren't important. They are - but only when consumed as food, not as supplements. Isolating nutrients and trying to get benefits equal to those of whole foods reveals an ignorance of how nutrition operates in the body. A recent special article in the New York Times documents this failure of nutrient supplements to provide any proven health benefit. As time passes, I am confident that we will continue to 'discover' that relying on the use of isolated nutrient supplements to maintain health, while consuming the usual Western diet, is not only a waste of money but is also potentially dangerous."
"Our food choices have an incredible impact not only on our metabolism, but also on the initiation, promotion and even reversal of disease, on our energy, on our physical activity, on our emotional and mental well-being and on our world environment. All of these seemingly separate spheres are intimately interconnected."
"How many billions of dollars must be spent before we understand the limitations of reductionist research? Scientific investigations of the effects of single nutrients on complex diseases have little or no meaning when the main dietary effect is due to the consumption of an extraordinary collection of nutrients and other substances found in whole foods."
- T. Colin Campbell, PhD, The China Study, Pg. 228; 229; 240; 288.
Supplements will not lead to long-lasting health and may cause unforeseen side effects. Furthermore, for those relying on supplements, beneficial and sustained diet change is postponed. The dangers of a Western diet cannot be overcome by consuming nutrient pills."
"It is not that these nutrients aren't important. They are - but only when consumed as food, not as supplements. Isolating nutrients and trying to get benefits equal to those of whole foods reveals an ignorance of how nutrition operates in the body. A recent special article in the New York Times documents this failure of nutrient supplements to provide any proven health benefit. As time passes, I am confident that we will continue to 'discover' that relying on the use of isolated nutrient supplements to maintain health, while consuming the usual Western diet, is not only a waste of money but is also potentially dangerous."
"Our food choices have an incredible impact not only on our metabolism, but also on the initiation, promotion and even reversal of disease, on our energy, on our physical activity, on our emotional and mental well-being and on our world environment. All of these seemingly separate spheres are intimately interconnected."
"How many billions of dollars must be spent before we understand the limitations of reductionist research? Scientific investigations of the effects of single nutrients on complex diseases have little or no meaning when the main dietary effect is due to the consumption of an extraordinary collection of nutrients and other substances found in whole foods."
- T. Colin Campbell, PhD, The China Study, Pg. 228; 229; 240; 288.
Artificially supplying our bodies with synthetic nutrients, or natural nutrients unnaturally added to other foods, will not give us the health benefits that would come by consuming necessary nutrients in their natural state. However, this is not the only problem I see. I also see the opportunity for a few to capitalize from the needs of many. To me this seems morally wrong and is in direct opposition to what these researchers are trying to do, which is to help people in need. The poor people will become dependent on a bad product under the false impression that that product is good for them and a small minority will make a profit from that dependence and falsehood. This seems to be counter productive to helping the poor and malnourished. They will remain poor, in bad health and on top of that will then become dependent on others. They will then need to find more ways of making money, which they already don't have much of, in order to buy a product that doesn't help them. Aidan Mackey has this to say in the book Beyond Capitalism and Socialism:
"Most emphatically, we must first restore the family and its values. After that, in natrual progression, must come the family trade or craft, and the small organic family farm. Upon these must any sane and healthy society be built, and we must destroy the grotesque combines and cartels, many of which are strong enough to dictate to governments. It is clear they exist not to produce food or furniture, but profit. We all know the euphemism "diversification," which means that in pursuit of the money-god, they will readily switch from one field to others not remotely connected, providing there is money to be harvested."
- Aidan Mackey, Beyond Capitalism and Socialism, pg. 4
- Aidan Mackey, Beyond Capitalism and Socialism, pg. 4
Instead, I propose taking the money and time away from research and using it to send knowledgeable people to these nations and teach people how to garden, build homes of their own, build their own furniture and other needs, make their own clothing, etc. Teach these people how to fill their own needs with the help of others in their own small communities. Don't worry about their reading, writing and math skills, that kind of knowledge will not feed starving children. Stop making them dependent on capitalists who only care about their pocket books, not the lives they are affecting. Stop making them dependent on groups because they will never learn to be self-sufficient that way. Make them dependent upon themselves and what they can produce through the work of their own hands. Do this and you will have made an independent people that are no longer poor and needy.
Stop giving out fish and start teaching people how to fish for themselves.
