Nutritional Deficiencies

In your lifetime, you will consume approximately 70,000 meals and from that you will eliminate about fifty tons of waste products. The foods you choose to eat in those meals can either build up your health or tear it down. The food choices you make, whether they are good or bad, accumulate over time. The choices you make affect how you feel, what diseases you may or may not get, and conse- quently even your healthcare cost.

How do you feel right now? If you’re like most Americans, my guess is you’re not feeling that great. Most people are stresses out and exhausted. On top of that they get fre- quent headaches, have annoying allergies and fungal toe- nails; they get frequent colds and/or flu, have decreased sexual desires; they are depressed and can’t get a good night’s rest.

Proper nutrition starts with the building blocks of foods: the macro- and micronutrients. Paying attention to macro- nutrition - the intake of carbohydrates, proteins, and fat - is an essential component to getting on our road to optimal health. Micronutrition - the intake of vitamins and miner- als - is also important, as these nutrients are the ‘support team’ to keep your metabolism running smoothly, making sure that the processing of macronutrients occurs both effi- ciently and effectively.

Until the twentieth century, humans existed almost 100 percent on food from plants and animals. Today, it is esti- mated that two-thirds of the caloric intake of most Ameri- cans comes from processed grains, sugar, fat and oil, and alcohol. Yes, it is true that we have longer life expectan- cies, but does this mean we are actually healthier or just that we are living longer with our chronic diseases?

FACTORS THAT LEAD TO POOR NUTRITIONAL STATUS

Before the industrial revolution, the human diet was still largely plant based. It consisted of foods that could be hunted (rabbit, fish, deer, etc), gathered (nuts, seeds, berries, etc) or grown (grain, vegeta- bles, farm animals for meat, milk, and eggs). Foods were unprocessed and eaten while fresh. However, with the industrial revolution a major shift began to take place. The population shifted from farms to factories and began to rely more on buying food than providing their own. Food was now grown, shipped, stored, prepared, and eaten. Food became a commodity, sub- ject to mechanization and automation.

Processed Foods - We all are familiar with refined flour: excessive pro- cessing has created this ‘new food’ that is actually highly deficient in valuable nutrients as the best parts of the grain were lost - the germ, the bran, and the fiber.

Health and Wellness

Chemical Warfare - The use of insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides on most of the crops grown in America has led to many insidious health problems. Traces of many carcin- ogens (cancer causing agents) in the food and water supply are derived from chemical insecticides. Heavy metals, such as Mercury, Arsenic and Lead are often found in those chemical agents and hence end up in our foods.

Depleted Soil - In order to put nutrients back into the soil, techniques such as crop rota- tion and soil fertilization with organic matter (compost, manure, lime, etc) were used. To- day, synthetic inorganic fertilizers are used which contain fewer and fewer nutrients to replenish the soil, eliminating nutrients vital to humans. Hence, we are seeing widespread deficiencies in trace minerals among our patients.

Early Harvest - Most foods were ripened on the tree or vine before being picked or harvested. These vine-ripened foods absorbed more nutrients from the soil. Today foods are often grown far from the point of sale. To preserve freshness, crops are picked before they are ripe or forced to ripen quickly under unnatural conditions. Other crops are sprayed, gassed, and fumigated in order to delay ripening during shipping. Either way, we are missing out on those last stages of ripening which allow for the formation of more vitamins and absorption of minerals.