Is a Carrot a Carrot?

You'd think, wouldn't you, that a carrot is a carrot-that one is about as good as another as far as nourishment is concerned? But it isn't; one carrot may look and taste like another and yet be lacking in the particular mineral element which our system requires and which carrots are supposed to contain.

Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs, and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago (which doubtless explains why our forefathers thrived on a selection of foods that would starve us!)

The alarming fact is that foods, fruits, vegetables and grains, now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain needed minerals, are starving us - no matter how much of them we eat!

No longer does a balanced and fully nourishing diet consist merely of so many calories or certain vitamins or a fixed proportion of starches, proteins and carbohydrates. We know that our diets must contain in addition a score of mineral salts.

It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99% of the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually results in disease. Any upset of the balance, and considerable lack of one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, and shorten our lives.

Disorder and disease result from any vitamin deficiency. It is not commonly realized, however that vitamins control the body's appropriation of minerals, and in the absence of mineral's they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins, the system can make some use of minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless. Vitamins & minerals from whole foods is what our body requires.

Information taken from United States Senate Document #264 "Modern Miracle Men" Presented by Rex Beach, June 1936

Senate Document 264 was written in 1936, and submitted as part of a Congressional investigation into U.S. farming practices. The leading authorities of the day had been sounding the alarm that depleted soils were causing a significant decline in the nation's health, evidenced by a steady increase in degenerative diseases. But when Congress saw the price tag on repairing the nation's farm and range soils, they swept their own investigation under the carpet.

Dr. Charles Northen a pioneer and genius in the field of nutrition demonstrated that countless human ills stem from the fact that impoverished soil of America no longer provides plant foods with the mineral elements essential to human nourishment and health.

The subject so interested Dr. Northen that he retired from active medical practice and devoted himself to proving that by putting back into foods the stuff that foods are made of, would open up the shortest and most rational route to better health.

He showed first that it should be done, and then that it could be done. He doubled and redoubled the natural mineral content of fruits and vegetables. He improved the quality of milk by increasing the iron and the iodine in it. He caused hens to lay eggs richer in the vital elements. By scientific soil feeding, he raised better seed poatoes in Maine, better grapes in California, better oranges in Florida and better field crops in other states. (By "better" is meant not only improvement in food value but also in increase in quality and quantity.)

He stated "We must rebuild our soils: Put back the minerals we have taken out. That sounds difficult but it isn't. Neither is it expensive. Therein lies the short cut to better health and longer life."

Why did Congress think it too expensive?

The information that will follow in the next few days will cover what "mineral deficiencies" are costing us and our children in terms of our health...both mental and physical.