NUTRITION & HEALTH

Conventional nutrition guidelines dictate that a diet high in fresh fruit and
veggies is necessary to ingest all the vitamins and minerals necessary for
a healthy you. The old saying of "An apple a day, keeps the doctor away"
springs to mind...

Unfortunately modern chemical agriculture, with its disregard for natural
processes and functioning, has upset the apple cart. The mineral content
of fruit and vegetables (as well as that of wheat, corn and other staple
foods) has declined dramatically over the past decades.

In 1914 one apple supplied the same iron nutrition as twenty six apples in
1997! An average apple delivered 4,6mg of iron nutrients in 1914, versus
0,18mg in 1997 (Source: Lindlahr 1914: USDA 1963 and 1997).

During the 1992 Rio Earth Summit Report it was concluded that mineral
depletion from our soils (over the past 100 years) totalled 74% in Africa,
76% in Asia, 55% in Australia, 72% in Europe, 76% in South-America and
85% in North-America!

"Minerals in the soil control the metabolism of cells in plants, animals and
man.  All of life will be either healthy or unhealthy according to the fertility
of the soil." Quoted from 'Man the Unknown', 1912, by Dr. Alexis Carrel,
Nobel Prize winner.

"Sick soils make for sick plants, and sick plants when consumed make for
sick animals and people." said Eric Curlee in 'American Survival Guide',
June 1996.

Because our soils are mineral depleted it follows that foodstuffs grown on
them will also be mineral depleted and therefore fail to deliver the needed
nutrition. Minerals and trace elements can not be synthesised by the body
and must be supplied by the food we consume. They have the following 3
main functions:

• They're components of many enzymes and other proteins such as
  haemoglobin.
• They occur as soluble salts controlling the composition of the body's
  fluids and cells.
• They are important constituents of our bones and teeth.

International studies have shown that as the minerals go down, diseases
go up! There is a correlation between the decline in soil mineral and trace
element content and the increase in deficiency diseases. Nearly all non
infectious diseases that plague mankind are of recent origin!

The man who sums it up best, is Dr. William A. Albrecht, the Chairman of
the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri, "A declining soil
fertility, due to a lack of organic material, major elements, and trace
minerals, is responsible for poor crops and in turn for pathological
conditions in animals fed deficient foods from such soils, and mankind is
no exception."

Dr. Albrecht goes further to unequivocally lay the blame, "N P K formulas,
as legislated and enforced by State Departments of Agriculture, mean
malnutrition, attack by insects, bacteria and fungi, weed takeover, crop
loss in dry weather, and general loss of mental acuity in the population,
leading to degenerative metabolic disease and early death."