Chapter 4: "CAN'T EAT JUST ONE" SYNDROME! [Beating The Food Giants by Paul Stitt]

4: "CAN'T EAT JUST ONE" SYNDROME!

make you overeat artificial sweetener Nutrasweet hypoglycemia Another dirty trick: hydrogenated fats (margarine and shortening) Your nutritional needs vary body's hunger mechanism calories Cravings beer Processed foods Wheat flour the cooking process "enriched" and "vitamin fortified" foods poison: refined white sugar sugar consumption breakfast cereals Fat Salt other additives monosodium glutamate "Can't Eat Just One." syndrome white bread Obesity hypoglycemia diabetes chromium Alcoholism typical "teenage" diet hyperactive children poor nutrition and emotional trauma probationers life expectancy underdeveloped nations. infant formula federal health establishment RDA refined oils flax Omega-3 in the Eskimo diet add calcium and magnesium

A friend of mine, Bob, had typical American eating habits — lousy ones. He was very active in sports in high school, and never quite found the time to sit down and eat a decent meal. Instead he grabbed whatever he could, whenever he had time. Like most kids, he made frequent trips to his favorite fast-food spot, and spent the rest of his time munching candy bars and guzzling cola. He couldn't stand vegetables, but always yearned for a cheeseburger and french fries.

When Bob graduated from college and became a radio disc jockey, his eating habits went from bad to worse. He rushed to work in the morning and spent a few seconds wolfing down his favorite breakfast: a handful of chocolate stars. He was on the air from 10 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon, with no time for lunch. He kept himself going through the afternoon on junk; little wonder he had no appetite when suppertime rolled around! No matter, as soon as his first shift was done, he had to cover a news beat. A quick stop at McDonald's and he was back to work. When he got home at night, his hunger had returned, so he filled up on popcorn covered with salt and drenched with butter. And throughout the day, he drove himself on with can after can of cola.

"No doubt about it," Bob recalls today, "I was a junk-food addict."

After a couple of years of this regime, Bob noticed that his health was deteriorating. He seemed to suffer headaches more frequently, and a simple cold would take him weeks to shake. He would come home late at night unable to sleep, and would wake the next morning feeling exhausted and lifeless. He would be unable to function until he had another can of cola and a few more chocolate stars. He often felt restless and irritable, and found that he was getting less and less done on the job.

Then Bob began to experience a sharp pain in his stomach. He remembered that his family had a history of cholesterol problems and colitis. Alarmed, he finally sought the help of a doctor.

Millions of Americans are just like Bob — hopelessly hooked on potato chips, hamburgers, candy bars and cola. Their lives are spent in a miserable limbo between sickness and health. They're slowly killing themselves, gorging their way into obesity, hypoglycemia, diabetes and heart disease. They are casualties of processed food addition, victims of the Can't Eat Just One Syndrome. What causes this syndrome, and what is it doing to our bodies?

The organ which controls our craving for food is called the appestat. It is located at the base of the brain, possibly in the hypothalamus (an area of the pituitary gland). The appestat is constantly monitoring the blood for nutrient content. Only when 51 nutrients are present at their proper levels will the individual feel entirely full and satisfied. If any one nutrient is missing, the individual feels hungry.

Exactly what sort of nutrients will trigger the appestat and in what proportion they are needed is a question which still puzzles scientists. Some of them we know about: vitamins; minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium, chlorine and molybdenum; such amino acids as valine, lysine, threonine and tryptophan, most of which we get from proteins; essential fatty acids; fiber. Many others have yet to be isolated. This sort of nutrition research is expensive, and the going is slow. But even though we haven't discovered all the essential nutrients, it is crucial that our bodies get them all — known and unknown — in order to feel satisfied and healthy.

Many nasty tricks are use by Food Giants to make you overeat. Adding lots of fat, sugar and salt are obvious ones. They know that if they add enough fat, sugar, and salt Americans will eat almost anything — such as George Bush's favorite pig-out food — pork rinds. But potato chips aren't much better. They should really be called fat with a small amount of potato added.

The real dirty tricks that food companies use to make you overeat are more subtle and don't jump out at you when you read the label — things like "natural flavoring" — which sounds very benign, but it can be almost anything. It can be nucleic acid from chromosomes of cells, extracts of yeast cells or waste beef or worse. Rabbi Eidlitz from the Kosher Information Bureau in North Hollywood, California, reported that some ingredients with names like "natural" colors have been known to contain monkey intestines and "artificial flavors" from ground-up cats. So if you like to eat cats, you'll know what to look for. One thing for sure, it's there to make your taste buds go crazy, so that if you eat just one bite, you're hooked and have to keep right on eating until the bag is empty. These compounds have only one purpose — to make the Food Giants' sales climb.

The most insidious, most misleading compounds ever added to foods have the sweetest name of all — artificial sweetener — because they're not added to make foods taste sweet, they're added to make you overeat. They work, too, don't they? Have you ever noticed a morbidly obese person walking out of the grocery store with two cases of "diet drink" and four six-packs of candy bars. If diet drinks worked, Americans would be the thinnest people on Earth. In case you didn't know, sugar consumption per person has dramatically increased since artificial sweeteners came on the market. In fact, since 1980 average sugar consumption each year in the U.S. has increased 17 pounds per person. How silly of you to think that Nutrasweet replaced sugar — it didn't. It increased the craving for sugar and the percentage of people overweight also has increased. That couldn't be Nutrasweet's fault, could it?

Why don't you call the corporate research offices of Nutrasweet and ask them for some scientific proof that Nutrasweet has helped animals or humans lose weight. They don't have it because no controlled trial has ever proven that it works.

The University of Wisconsin one time tried to do a controlled experiment on the effect of artificial sweeteners on humans. They found that they had to put the people behind prison bars to keep them from snitching food after drinking artificially-sweetened foods. Then somebody brought the test subjects a dozen roses because he felt so sorry that they were locked in a prison cell. The prisoners ate the roses.

Some scientists at the Monell Research Center have figured out why this happens. They have found that as soon as the tongue tastes something sweet, the body converts glucose in the blood into storage fat, causing the blood sugar to drop. If the sweet food contains no sugar, then the blood sugar drops, causing hypoglycemia. You get a real craving for food—real hunger pains. About that time, you dash into the kitchen, inhale any food you can find, then calmly walk back to the TV as if you haven't had a thing to eat.

A little while later, you feel guilty for eating that junk, so you have another diet soda to make up for all those calories you ate in the previous hour. Then you have another major craving, and the cycle starts all over again. Sound familiar? Now you know why the obese often get fatter. The harder the obese try to avoid calories (the more diet soda they have), the more problems they have. The Food Giants laugh all the way to the bank. As they get richer, j Americans get fatter, and they don't care.

Have you ever eaten just one Oreo cookie? Bet you can't, either. They look so sweet and innocent! What you should realize is that the Nabisco Company spent millions developing that formula so that you can't eat just one. It contains 23 different appetite stimulants and 11 artificial colors. I saw the recipe and I was aghast. It's not easy to make a cookie that will hook every last American. So next time you buy a package of Oreo cookies, be assured that you'll eat them all at one time and gain another pound. And, the Food Giants will have another dollar in their -pocket.

Another dirty trick the food companies have been pulling on the American public since 1911 is hydrogenated fats.

They have been selling partially hydrogenated fats (margarine and shortening) as a healthy, kosher alternative to lard, butter and other fat.

Until the '80s, no one tried to find out if it was any more healthful than lard or butter. No one, that is, except for a few scientists like Ralph Holman at the Hormel Institute, who intuitively knew that hydrogenated fats were inherently dangerous. Finally, Harvard School of Public Health did a long-term study by asking people how much margarine they were eating, then sat back and waited to see what they died from. Lo and behold, they discovered that the people who ate as little as three pats a day of margarine had twice the heart-attack rate of those who ate less than a pat a day, far worse than those who ate lard or butter. I hope that every margarine manufacturer in the country gets his pants sued off for grossly misleading people about how healthful margarine is.

You'll find margarine or shortening or partially hydrogenated vegetable fat in nearly every bread, cookie and cake sold in America.

Your nutritional needs vary from your neighbor. Your genetic make-up, your age and your living conditions all have an effect on your nutrient needs. If you smoke, you may need more vitamin C. If you live in an area of high air pollution, you may have a shortage of vitamin D. If you're on the Pill, chances are you have deficiencies in vitamins B6 and B12, among others. Scientific evidence suggests that the nutritional requirements of healthy adults for calcium may vary by as much as 500%. The requirements for vitamin A and for thiamine (vitamin Bl) may vary over a fourfold range. In fact, the need for some nutrients may vary between individuals by 1,000%^.l With all this in mind, it's easy to see how foolish it is to rely on the basic four food groups for nutrients. Your nutrient requirements depend upon your own special situation — not on some arbitrary standard set by bureaucrats in Washington!

To make matters even more complex, many nutrients can be metabolized (used by the body) only when in the presence of certain other essential nutrients. Two outstanding nutritionists, Doctors R.A. Harte and B. Chow, did an extensive study of these dietary relationships. They dicovered that the absence of a single essential vitamin, mineral, amino acid or fatty acid can create a "shock wave" that hinders the metabolization of all other nutrients. ² It's clear that getting an improper nutrient balance can be almost as bad as getting no nutrients at all.

It is important to remember that the body's hunger mechanism is affected by the presence of all nutrients, not just calories. Caloric intake is only one part of good nutrition. Dieters especially are prone to the misconception that calories are all they need to count, so they fill their meager calorie allowances with foods that are high in processed carbohydrates and almost devoid of other essential nutrients, foods which can only aggravate their hunger, yet never give their bodies what they really need. At the same time, the empty calories they eat rob their bodies of what nutrients they have stored. This nutrient depletion can lead to lethargy, irritability and, in some severe cases, even psychosis.

Cravings — unusual desires for certain kinds of foods — can often be a signal of nutrient deficiency. If you have a potassium deficiency, for instance, you may develop a yearning for bananas. A shortage of vitamin C may make you hanker for oranges or some other citrus fruits. Following such cravings is usually a good idea, although it can lead to some surprises. For instance, let's suppose you have a copper deficiency. Now, sunflower seeds are an excellent source of copper, and if you try a few you'll soon be gobbling them by the handful. Your body is telling you that you really need the copper you're getting from the seeds. Unfortunately, sunflower seeds are also high in calories, and you may become concerned that you're getting more calories than you need. No need to worry, though — in a few days you'll have raised your copper level back to normal, and a small handful of sunflower seeds a day will be all that's necessary to satisfy your craving.

Nowadays, however, it's easy to be tricked when you follow your cravings. For example, if you're not getting enough B vitamins, you may find yourself longing for a beer—and for good reason. Throughout human history, beer has been one of the primary sources of the B vitamin complex. That good, yeasty flavor in the suds tells your body it's getting what it wants. The problem is that American beer manufacturers have found a way to remove the vitamins from their product. The yeasty flavor is supplied by chemicals. As a result, you can now drink glass after glass of American beer (such adulteration is not allowed in Europe) and never get the B vitamins your body needs. So sometimes it's important to "teach" your body that it can't always have what it thinks it wants, especially when what it wants is junk.

Hunger is affected by many factors: not only nutrient level, but also the physical volume of the food, the amount of effort it takes to chew it, and how much water is in it for digestion, to name just a few. We are only beginning to learn about many of these factors. But your body knows about them, and cries out for them whenever it feels a nutrient deficiency. What do you do when your body comes crying to you? If you're like most Americans, you give it the worst thing possible — processed foods.

Processed foods are foods that have been changed — foods no longer in the form in which they are found in nature. Actually, most foods, even natural foods, undergo some processing. Corn, for example, must be cooked in order to be properly used by the body. Nothing is wrong with processing, if kept to an absolute minimum. But the majority of processed foods found on grocer's shelves are processed beyond excuse. Vegetables are cooked to mush, raw sugar is refined to sucrose, potatoes are turned into dehydrated flakes. Some processed foods have never been in the state of nature. Instead, they are fabricated in laboratories, created from chemicals, vegetable protein, and hydrogenated oil. When we say processed foods, then, we really mean foods that have been unreasonably changed.

Processed foods are terrible things for your body for two reasons — they are stripped of their nutrient value in the refining process, and they are poisoned with sugar and other harmful additives.

Wheat flour is one food which is especially ravaged by processing. In the refining process, more than half of each of the most essential nutrients is sold for making pet food. The milling process destroys 40% of the chromium present in the whole grain, as well as 86% of the manganese, 89% of the cobalt, 68% of the copper, 78% of the zinc, and 48% of the molybdenum.³ By the time it is completely refined, it has lost most of its phosphorus, iron, and thiamine, and a good deal of its niacin and riboflavin. Its crude fiber content has been cut down considerably as well.⁴White flour is wheat flour that has been plundered of most of its vitamin E, important oils and amino acids.⁵ Yet all of these nutrients are needed for a satisfied, healthy body. While whole-wheat flour is one of the most nutritious foods, processing sees to it that the white flour found in most products is nutritionally worthless.

In addition to refining, the cooking process also robs foods of their natural nutrient value. Heat is especially harmful to pyridoxine (vitamin B6), and it can destroy other nutrients as well. The soft, mushy vegetables you buy in cans contain only traces of the nutrients they had when they were fresh in the field — canned peas have lost all but 6% of their nutrient value by the time they are eaten. Raw apricots have more than twice the vitamin C of canned apricots in heavy syrup, as well as 177% of the niacin, 150% of the riboflavin, and 145% of the vitamin A. You do get one "bonus" from the canned apricots, however: 44% more carbohydrates.⁶ Breakfast cereals fare no better in the processing game. The popping, puffing and extruding they go through cut their food value down substantially.

What about the "enriched" and "vitamin fortified" foods? They're an outlandish rip-off. For example, white flour is enriched with vitamins only after it had been stripped of several times that many. Even after enrichment, white flour has less than half the calcium, and far less than a third of the phosphorus and potassium of whole-wheat flour, even though it has more carbohydrates than whole wheat.⁷No wonder that, in one research project, two-thirds of the rats kept on a 90-day diet of enriched white bread died before the experiment was finished!⁸ The eight vitamins sprayed on most "fortified" breakfast cereals represent only a small portion of the nutrients originally present in the grain —not to mention fiber, an important ingredient which has been removed almost entirely. What's more, many of the synthetic vitamins added to foods cannot be properly used by the body. For instance, the iron in most "iron-enriched" breads is provided by phosphate salts of iron. These salts may have the light, pleasing color that bread manufacturers think the public is looking for, but the iron they provide is very poorly absorbed in the body. To top it off, enriched foods often contain preservatives, such as phosphates or EDTA, which serve to diminish the availability of the iron still further. ⁹

Most importantly, we are only now discovering the nutritional properties of the parts of whole foods that are thrown away in refining processes — bran and wheat germ — are two good examples of things once thought to be "waste" products. Clearly, when the Food Giants spray a few cents worth of synthetic vitamins on junk food and then claim that their products are as good or better than whole, natural foods, they are perpetrating an enormous fraud.

But the Food Giants do more than just plunder their products of nutrients. Even though they've made the foods nutritionally worthless, they're not satisfied until they've turned them into poison. And their favorite ingredient for poisoning foods is refined white sugar.

White sugar—or sucrose—is one of the purest substances in the grocery store. It is chemically almost identical to glucose, which is the form digested sugar takes in the bloodstream. It contains no nutrients; an unfortunate fact, since sucrose requires other nutrients, such as chromium, sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium and many B vitamins, in order to be metabolized. Since it is a sort of predigested sugar, it passes directly through the lower intestine and enters the bloodstream almost immediately.

A terrifying cycle begins. The dramatic rise in blood-sugar levels demolishes the delicate oxygen/glucose balance that the body maintains in the blood, and the individual feels tense, nervous and hyperactive (remember how Bob, after a full day of eating candy, could never seem to fall asleep at night?) The islets in the pancreas kick into high gear, producing massive doses of insulin to get rid of the sudden sugar load. The insulin carries the sugar to the liver, where it is converted and stored as the complex sugar glycogen. The process continues madly, and, as quickly as it came, the sugar levels plummet. The body's cells, especially those of the brain, are starving. The individual feels sluggish and drowsy, and may even lie down and fall asleep. The pancreas shuts down, and the adrenal glands and pituitary gland produce hormones which begin converting glycogen back to glucose. When the individual awakes, his body is screaming for more white sugar to restore depleted blood glucose, and as soon as he answers (perhaps with a breakfast of chocolate stars), the roller-coaster ride starts all over again. Although we'll be discussing the larger health effects of sugar consumption a little later in the chapter, it is enough to say for now that the wildly fluctuating blood-sugar levels caused by sucrose ingestion, which elevates insulin levels, can be enormously damaging to the pancreas, liver, brain and other organs.

Sugar is poison, and it's everywhere. You know about the sugar in your coffee, and you know it's in snacks like marsh-mallows, chocolate bars, gum and soda pop. But you probably don't know that you're getting a lot of sugar from bologna, catsup, chicken noodle soup, mayonnaise, biscuit mix, medicine, and even cigarettes. Between 1913 and 1971, refined sugar consumption in America rose from 76.4 pounds per person per year to 101.5 pounds. At the same time, the amount of sugar used directly by the consumer dropped from 52.1 pounds to 42.7 pounds! This means that the better part of our increased sugar consumption — some 70 pounds per person each year — has come from sugar added to processed foods. ¹⁰ It's not hard to see where the increase came from: Del Monte canned peaches in heavy syrup are 12% sugar by weight; General Foods' Tang and Jell-O are 13%, and Morton's coconut cream pie is 24% sugar.¹¹

It's no secret that breakfast cereals are some of the most sugar-poisoned foods around. It's not surprising that the food giants are fighting legislation that should force them to print sugar content right on the box! Cereals like Kellogg's Sugar Corn Pops and General Mills' Count Chocula are more than 45% sugar, and Kellogg's Froot Loops contain nearly 50% sugar. Sugar Smacks lead the way, though, with 56.4% sugar. Even the "health" cereals, such as Quaker 100% Natural and Kellogg's Bran Flakes, can contain nearly 25% sugar. ¹² Never mind the reassuring "vitamin fortified" labels on the boxes — pre-sweetened cereals are killing your children.

Sugar is just one ingredient that has become far too prevalent in the American diet. Fat is another. In moderate amounts, of course, fat has its place in good nutrition. But we're far past overdoing it — our fat consumption has risen from 114 pounds per person in 1961 to 125 pounds in 1973, and the figure is much higher now.¹³ This dramatic rise in fat consumption is a direct result of our love affair with processed foods. The Department of Agriculture has noted that the increased popularity of convenience and snack foods, as well as hamburger joints and carry-out chicken and fish restaurants, has contributed to this increase. Of course, the Food Giants love fat. It's a cheap ingredient, it gives greater weight to foods, and it stimulates the appetite. They add it liberally to everything from margarine to breakfast cereal. Most of this fat is in the form of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, a form which upsets cholesterol metabolism. ¹⁴ Leading researchers are now recommending only 10% of calories from fat or 25 grams per day. The USDA Eating Right Pyramid recommends a maximum of 50 to 65 grams a day, depending on work output.

Salt is another of the Food Giants' favorite additives used to excess. The human body needs some salt, but it doesn't need a lot. Some doctors estimate the daily requirement to be about half a gram. In fact, excessive salt has been found to contribute to high blood pressure and hypertension. But the food scientists know that excess salt stimulates the appetite, so they dump it generously onto potato chips, bread, processed meat, canned vegetables and a host of other foods. By the time a can of peas reaches your table, daubed with butter and dashed with a salt shaker, its salt content is 225 times what it was when it was fresh in the field. Today Americans consume 6 to 18 grams of salt a day.¹⁵

The average American also eats nearly 10 pounds a year of some 2,000 other additives. These range from the well-known ones, such as monosodium glutamate (MSG), to butylated hydroxybenzoate, the stuff that stabilizes the foam in your beer. While many of these additives may be relatively harmless, some are clearly dangerous. MSG, for example, has been linked to brain damage in inants, and one researcher has found that as much as 50% of the hyperactivity among American children may be caused by artificial flavorings and colorings.¹⁶ But most food additives are simply a mystery. No one knows what they are doing to you, either alone or in combination. Even the government isn't sure—it has changed its mind on 8 of the 19 food colorings once declared "U.S. Certified." ¹⁷ But the Food Giants do know one thing — chemical additives mean profits. Preservatives like BHT, BHA and EDTA keep foods fresh for months, enabling them to be manufactured more cheaply in huge, centralized factories and shipped long distances, or stockpiled until the price goes up. Artificial flavorings and colorings, along with "flavor enhancers" like MSG, allow the food conglomerates to tickle your taste buds while sparing them the expense of real, natural ingredients. So even though most chemical additives have never been fully tested for safety, the Food Giants use them with enthusiasm.

Ruined natural ingredients, plus sugar, salt, fat, and chemical additives. Put them all together, and what have you got? You've got tantalizing, phony foods that are high in refined carbohydrates and calories and devoid of nutritional value. It's a recipe for destruction — the formula for "Can't Eat Just One."

Here's how the syndrome works. Say you sit down in front of the TV with a bag of chips and a can of cola. You pop one of the chips in your mouth. Its salty flavor entices you, and you're soon munching them by the handful. All the while, your body is getting hit with the old one-two: lots of simple carbohydrates to digest, and no nutrients in the food with which to digest them. Your system starts robbing its own nutrient stores — assuming it still has any nutrients in reserve — but these are soon gone. Your bloodstream is depleted of nutrients, and your appestat tells you that you need something more. Your body is crying, "Food, food!" But you're not giving it food. You're munching down more chips.

You take a swig of cola. Your body, already locked in combat with the garbage you've been eating, reels from the sudden dose of sugar. After a few minutes of sugar high, your pancreas is working overtime, filling you with insulin. Soon your bloodstream is seriously sugar-depleted. You reach for another can of cola.

On and on it goes, throughout the evening. You stuff yourself with garbage that can't fill you up, but makes you thirstier, and you guzzle down poison that will only make you tired. Soon the bag of chips is gone and you've polished off three cans of cola. You get up and run to the kitchen, looking for that bag of potato chips, or maybe a peanut butter sandwich on soft white bread. On the way out you grab a fourth can of cola from the 'fridge.

You know you shouldn't be eating so much, especially after such a big supper. But you can't help yourself: you're hooked. You can't eat just one.

Does the scenario sound familiar? Late-night binges aren't the only signs of the syndrome. The harried businessman who wolfs down three or four hamburgers at the local Hardee's and the 10-year-old girl who gobbles two bowls of Cap'n Crunch at breakfast are both victims of Can't Eat Just One, and there are millions of others. Naturally, the syndrome means big profits for the Food Giants, and the Conspiracy of the Sales Curve insures that they'll do whatever is necessary to get you to eat more and more of their product. If that means more refining, more sugar, more chemicals, then so be it.

The history of the food industry is replete with examples of this constant and insidious process. It was the introduction of pre-sweetened cereals, for instance, which saved a flagging cereal market in 1948, and the Food Giants learned that the more sugar they added to their products, the better they sold. Bread manufacturers have also learned that white bread sells much better than whole-wheat bread. Not only is nutrient-stripped white flour less satisfying, but white bread's soft, gummy texture insures that several slices can be bolted in one sitting. No doubt about it! Can't Eat Just One is making the huge food conglomerates rich.

But what is it doing to you?

Well, the Food Giants aren't the only ones getting huge on processed foods — Americans are, too. Americans take in far too many calories and exercise far too little; the result is obesity. Today obesity strikes some three million adolescents and 30 to 40% of all adults. And the problem gets worse as you get older: 60 to 70% of all Americans over the age of 40 are overweight. ¹⁸ Obesity is a killer. It is considered one of the primary contributing factors in cardiovascular disease, a scourge which took the lives of 440 of every 100,000 people in the U.S. in 197819 and even more in 1992. Obesity can also lead to hypertension (high blood pressure), atherosclerosis, hernia, gallbladder disease, diabetes mellitus and liver diseases. Researchers also believe that obesity can increase the risk of many types of cancer, including colon cancer, cancer of the uterus and female kidney cancer. In fact, nearly all of the leading causes of death in this country can be traced, at least in part, back to obesity, and the millions who have lost their health to these diseases are victims of the Food Giants.

The Can't Eat Just One Syndrome is also responsible for the epidemic of hypoglycemia in this country. When I say "epidemic" I am dead serious: Marilyn Light, Executive Director of the Adrenal Metabolic Research Society of the Hypoglycemic Foundation, reports that 49.2% of the population of the U.S. is hypoglycemic.²⁰ Hypoglycemia is a condition in which the body cannot metabolize sugar properly, and, given the make-up of the American diet, it's not surprising that half of us suffer from it. After the pancreas and other organs of the endocrine system have received years and years of punishmerit from massive doses of refined sugar and the resulting insulin and chromium depletion, they simply go haywire. They produce too much insulin at the drop of a hat, and the individual suffers from chronically low blood sugar. This leads to a plethora of worrisome symptoms: dizziness, fainting, headaches, fatigue, drowsiness, muscle pains and cramps, coldness in the extremities, numbness, insomnia, restlessness, illogical fears, nervous breakdown ... the list goes on and on.

Hypoglycemia has become so much a part of people's lives that its effects are taken for granted. The mid-morning cravings for a "pick-me-up," brought on by the huge doses of insulin your body had produced to try to cope with a sugar-laden breakfast, has been institutionalized into the coffee break. Like to lie down for a nap after supper? Chances are good you're suffering from a hypoglycemic effect. Are the kids cranky until they get a chocolate bar? They're probably well on the way to hypoglycemia themselves, if they're not already there. You may not think much about these behaviors, but they are a sign that something is dangerously wrong. Hypoglycemia can be devastating to the endocrine, cardiovascular and nervous systems, and prolonged hypoglycemia can be a one-way ticket to diabetes.

A diabetic's pancreas, after years of producing too much insulin, reaches the point where it can no longer produce sufficient insulin. The body is now completely unable to deal with sugar. A sugar load will strike the body in full force, cause extreme feelings of tension and nervousness, and will then disappear almost completely, causing a catastrophically low blood sugar level, which can lead to stupor or even diabetic coma. Ironically, when a diabetic feels the grogginess of a low-blood-sugar state coming on, his doctor usually tells him to eat something sweet — a candy bar or some gum — but this only starts the cycle all over again. Even though their problems are chemically opposite, then, the hypoglycemic and the diabetic share many of the same symptoms, although the diabetic's are often more severe. For both, an inability to cope with sugar leads to a roller-coaster effect of wildly fluctuating blood-sugar levels. For both, too, the cure is the same: a diet with moderate amounts of more complex carbohydrates in high-fiber foods, which allow digested sugar to enter the blood more slowly and at a rate that the system can handle. Adding chromium to the diet also will help prevent high and low blood-sugar levels. Dr. Richard Anderson of the USDA discovered that adding sufficient chromium to the diet could eliminate one half of the diabetes in this country.

The frustrating thing about diabetes is that the disease has been known for hundreds of years to crop up whenever refined sugar becomes a major part of the diet, because refined sugar depletes the body of chromium and other nutrients. For instance, the increase in diabetes mortality in Denmark between 1880 and 1934 is in close correlation to the increase in sugar consumption in that country.²¹ In a recent study, Yemenite Jewish immigrants to Israel were shown to have a low incidence of diabetes until they had consumed a Western diet high in sugar for several years. ²² It's time that people — especially diabetics or those with diabetes in their family histories — become aware that the disease can be avoided. As it is, the swelling ranks of diabetics can consider themselves victims of the Food Giants.

Alcoholism is another byproduct of the Can't Eat Just One Syndrome. Alcohol is, in fact, nothing but a super-refined sugar, containing two carbon atoms per molecule rather than the six in sucrose. The simpler molecular structure allows alcohol to enter the bloodstream much faster, directly through the stomach lining, but makes it produce as many calories as an equal amount of fat. The result is a quicker, more intense "high" than one normally gets from sugar, and, of course, a greater depression afterward.²³ It's not unusual, then, for those who have become bored with the "pick-me-up" they used to get from sugar to turn to the even faster lift of alcohol instead.

The link between a junk-food diet and alcoholism is quite well established. One fascinating study was done by a group of researchers from Loma Linda University. They divided rats into two groups. One group was fed a typical "teenage" diet: glazed doughnuts, sweetened soft rolls, hot dogs, carbonated beverages, spaghetti and meatballs, apple pie and chocolate cake, white bread, green beans, tossed salad, candy and cookies. The other group of rats was given a diet judged nutritionally sound for adolescents, which included fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, legumes, and whole-wheat flour. Then each group was given the choice of two things to drink: pure water, or an alcohol/water mixture. The rats on the nutritionally sound diet didn't care much for the alcohol and stuck mostly to the pure water. The rats on the junk food diet, however, craved the alcohol mix and drank it almost all of the time. The researchers concluded that the sort of high-carbohydrate/low-nutrient diet that most teenagers — and other junk food addicts — live on can create a biological thirst for alcohol. ²⁴ The rising alcoholism rate among teenagers should surprise no one who knows the kind of garbage served in most high-school lunch programs. So if you want your children to become alcoholics, start them on the way with sugar.

Diseases such as diabetes and alcoholism are the more drastic effects of Can't Eat Just One. But there are more subtle, more pervasive effects that a high-carbohydrate/low nutrient diet is having on our everyday health and behavior. As Dr. Merrill S. Read, director of the Growth and Development Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Development, has pointed out, students who start the day with a poor breakfast are often apathetic, inattentive and unruly. Dr. Read quotes studies which indicate that children who exhibit such "negative" behaviors are quieted down by a nutritional mid-morning snack. Dr. Ben Feingold, a California allergy specialist, has found that hyperactive children can be helped with a diet that restricts artificial flavorings and colorings. ²⁵ But you don't need complex medical studies: Every time you have to drag your kids kicking and screaming past the supermarket candy counter, you get a clear view of how junk food is affecting their behavior.

How about your behavior? Research has established links between poor nutrition and emotional trauma. Junk-food addiction has been shown to contribute to depression-induced suicide, automobile accidents, juvenile delinquency, sexual problems, senility and other problems. And you don't have to be a potential suicide or an ax-murderer to be a victim of the Can't Eat Just One Syndrome. That grogginess and irritability you feel when you get up in the morning, the sluggishness you suffer by mid-afternoon, the fight you have with your spouse over dinner, your insomnia at night all are signs that processed food is taking its toll on your life.

Who knows what effect junk food is having on our entire nation? Statistics indicate that violent-crime increases in this country parallel the growth in sugar consumption.²⁶ Officials at the Montgomery County Detention Center in Maryland have found that inmates who were unruly and had poor morale when continually served prepackaged, processed meals enjoyed improved behavior when they were given a diet containing less sugar, more fresh fruits and vegetables, and wholewheat bread.²⁷

A remarkable program developed by Barbara J. Reed (now my wife), chief probation officer of the Municipal Court of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, provides some clues to the shocking damage that junk foods do to the human personality. In 1975, 106 persons whom the court had put on probation were given a questionnaire to determine their state of health. Reed and her co-workers were astonished to discover that fully 82% of those questioned displayed 15 or more symptoms of hypoglycemia, with a third suffering from 25 symptoms or more. The eating habits of these unfortunates told the story. About 16% said they craved sweets, cakes or pastry, and 26% admitted being chain smokers. Nearly a third claimed to drink very little water, while 38% said they drank a lot of coffee or tea and 33% reported daily consumption of alcohol. But the real culprits were cola and other soft drinks. More that half said they drank them daily.²⁸

The probationers also were screened for their complete social history, including the health background of their families. Barbara reported, "It is astonishing... how many of their parents and/or grandparents are diabetics. We have not yet done a statistical work-up as to the percentage of people we see with a diabetic or hypoglycemic background but we are aware that it is very high." It was clear that the ruinous effects of processed foods on the health of the probationers and their families had contributed to their criminal behavior. ²⁹

Those who had complained of many symptoms of malnutrition were put on a diet that stressed fresh fruits, vegetables, whole-grain breads and moderate amounts of unprocessed meats. The diet forbade refined sugar, white flour, all foods with artificial additives, alcohol, and caffeine-laden beverages, including colas and soft drinks. In addition, the test subjects were put on vitamin supplements, especially vitamin C and B-complex vitamins. ³⁰ In nearly all cases, the probationers' health improved remarkably, and they became much more responsive to Barbara's normal counselling program.

In some cases, improvement was dramatic. One 51-year-old woman, for instance, was referred to the department while on probation for petty theft. When Barbara met her, she was tense, argumentative, confused, depressed and exhausted, and had been hospitalized many times for tranquilizer overdose. She complained of 40 symptoms of hypoglycemia, and was sent to a special clinic where she was indeed diagnosed as hypoglycemic. After one week of dietary therapy to correct her body chemistry, she was able to drive her car again, and in two weeks she returned to work. After two months off junk food, she was vibrant, energetic, decisive, and exclaimed that she hadn't felt so good in 10 years.

Or take the 31-year-old man who was put on probation after being convicted of telephone harassment. He had problems with the police since the age of 15, and four years of psychiatric counselling had done him no good at all. He complained of severe headaches and sweating, and indicated 49 of the hypoglycemic symptoms. He too was diagnosed a hypoglycemic and put on dietary therapy. Within one week his headaches and sweating ceased. His attitude and appearance improved remarkably, and he got a promotion in a job he had nearly lost before his treatment. After four months of eating right, he was making plans to return to the University of Akron to work for a degree in civil engineering. ³¹

America is becoming a nation of processed-food junkies, and the effects are all around us. Our overfed, undernourished condition is contributing to everything from our rising crime rates to the increase in highway fatalities. And J.I. Rodale, in his book, Diet and War, has pointed out that excess consumption of sugar, white flour and meat always seem to be accompanied by an aggressive and militaristic national policy. If anyone seeks the cause for the so-called "decline of America," let him look first in America's kitchens.

So murderous is America's love of junk food that citizens in 15 other nations can now claim a longer life expectancy than we can.³² How can this be, some wonder, when America is the richest nation in the world? The answer is quite simple. We believe being the richest nation in the world means eating more junk food than anyone else around. It is our twisted sense of affluence which makes us lag so far behind Japan, Sweden and Norway in life expectancy.

There is another phenomenon which points out the hazardous effects of processed foods: the inordinate gap between male and female life expectancy in the United States. Women in this country simply live longer than men. Now, this sort of gap is not typical of all organisms. Males and females of other species have very similar life expectancies. Nor is the tremendous gap peculiar to all humans. The difference between male and female life expectancy in the U.S. is twice that of France, for instance. 33 Nor has the gap always plagued Americans. The difference in life expectancy between 20-year-old males and females in this country grew 820% between 1850 and 1977! In the latter year, the average American male could expect to live until age 70, while the average female lived to nearly 78. 34 No, this horrendous difference can only be explained by the modern American male lifestyle — the lifestyle of the individual who scorns vegetables, thinks of salad as "rabbit food," loves to fill up on steak and mashed potatoes, and never watches television without a beer and a bowl of chips. It's crystal clear that Americans — and especially American men — are paying for junk food addiction with their lives.

The ones most devastated by the growth of the processed food industry are the populations of the underdeveloped nations. In their insatiable lust for sales, the food monsters are competing for overseas markets. They are pouring millions into Third World advertising campaigns, trying to convince the poor Brazilian farmer that "He Deserves a Break Today", and the starving child of Ghana that "Things Go Better With Coke." Indeed, my Colombian friend who preferred Coca-Cola to milk is one of the Food Giants' victims.

The Food Giants are certainly racking up a lot of victims in the Third World. Two noted food researchers, Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins, have visited stores in the rural areas of poor countries and have found chewing gum sold by the stick, Ritz crackers sold one-by-one, and two-packs of Twinkles split up so the awful things can be sold separately. The demand for this poison has been generated by food-conglomerate advertising that is doing a great job of teaching people in poor lands "that their traditional diets of beans, corn, millet and rice are worthless as compared to what Americans eat." ³⁵ To the food conglomerates, poor people turning from native, whole foods to processed junk means profit; to the people themselves it means slow death. They spend the little money they have on high-carbohydrate, low-nutrient foods, and the resultant nutrient depletion of their bodies sends them further down the road to malnutrition.

One area in which promotion of processed foods has been particularly successful — and horrifying — has been the area of infant formula. Billboards and radio spots, free samples and fake "milk nurses" have convinced poor mothers to reject breast feeding as "old-fashioned," and to turn instead to powdered formula, which they can neither afford nor prepare properly. Thousands of children a year are dying from the "bottle disease" epidemic, while the formula companies — most notably Nestle — grow rich.

The starving child in India and the comfortable American housewife — both are victims of the triumph of processed foods. Today, nearly 10% of the world's population cannot afford to buy sufficient food. But 20% of those who can, choose instead to buy something undernourishing. ³⁶ This, in the end, is the ultimate aim of the Food Giants: to conquer the entire world with massive advertising and addictive products. The results are horrifying in the underdeveloped lands, where knowledge of nutrition is scarce. But even wealthy Americans, who should knowbetter, spend less than 10 cents of their grocery dollar on fresh fruits and vegetables, and the health effects of this neglect are enormous. Only 20% of Americans eat a low-fat diet and only 15% get enough nutrients every day. Sadly, only 3% get the combination of low fat and adequate nutrients. Must we be doomed to waste more and more of our resources on foods that are killing us? Can nothing be done?

We look in vain to the government for help. The federal health establishment had until 1992 been spreading information on nutrition that is worse than useless. For instance, they have been responsible for the myth that all one needs to do to insure good nutrition is to eat foods from the "Four Basic Food Groups": breads and cereals, meats, dairy products, fruits and vegetables. No matter that the bread is denuded white bread, that the cereal is pre-sweetened, that the milk has been broken down and formed into "processed cheese food," or that the fruit comes in heavy, sugary syrup. The government treats whole, fresh foods as nutritionally equal to the nutrient-robbed processed merchandise that takes up so much of the grocer's shelf. In fact, it wasn't until 1979 that the government approved the use of fresh fruit in school-lunch programs!

One of the biggest pieces of misinformation that the government has spread is the "Recommended Daily Allowance.'' We have already seen that the RDA can tell us little about our own nutritional needs as individuals. But if that weren't reason enough for scrapping it, the fact that the RDA itself keeps changing erratically is. Look, for instance, at the RDA figure for pantothenic acid that had again been removed from the list. ³⁷ Did our physical needs change so much over time? Of course not; science simply proved once again that it doesn't know as much about good nutrition as our own bodies do. In fact, there's only one point on which nutritionists agree about the RDA: The allowance for most of the listed nutrients is drastically too low. There's little reason to wonder why this should be so. Most of the men who make up the RDA list are food industry officials themselves. They're only trying to save the Food Giants "unnecessary" work.

In the early '80s, I taught a nutrition class at the local YMCA to a group of people who wanted to know more about nutrition than the local University Extension was willing to teach them. I had great fun teaching the importance of each individual vitamin and mineral, just like I was taught. Everything went well until the last class when I told them that a good diet of whole-grain breads and cereals, fresh fruits and vegetables and a minimal amount of animal products would provide all of the vitamins and minerals that their body needed, except for Vitamin C, which I felt the body needed more than the RDA required. One young female asked me to prove it from the nutritional content of food tables.

I went home, and set out to prove that I was right. Lo and behold, I was dumfounded to find out that I was dead wrong. Not only ordinary supermarket foods, but even organically grown, whole, unprocessed foods did not provide all the nutrients. I checked and re-checked the scientific journal articles and I found that very few scientists had checked to see if diets would actually deliver the RDAs.

One study that I found was done at the University of Wisconsin in 1967, but not published until 1976 in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The study did show that "balanced" diets according to the basic four food groups were severely lacking in eight different nutrients. The study was carefully done by weighing food before serving and subtracting for plate waste, etc. Even the University Extension people were unaware of the study that had been published seven years before.

I was shocked and chagrined for the huge lie I was telling my students. I also felt that I was misleading the customers who were buying my bread. It was not nearly as nutritionally complete as I had thought it was. So, I began tinkering with the recipes to see if I could end up making a product that was much more nutritionally complete, that when added to a diet of fresh fruit, vegetables and a few or no animal products would provide a nutritionally complete diet as defined by the RDAs.

I started adding zinc, iron, copper, folic acid, pantothenic acid, selenium, chromium, manganese, niacin and riboflavin. I used the best forms of these compounds so that they would be highly bio-available. The forms of the compounds I chose would be found in natural foods, but not at high enough levels for the amount of food a person who was on a calorie-restricted diet would eat. I found that adding these compounds to bread formulas was easy and only added a few cents to the cost of each loaf of bread. But, I could not find a way to add some of the nutrients to the breads because they prevented the bread from rising.

In the fall of 1986, Dr. Tony DeBartolo, a nutritionally oriented physician from Sugar Grove, Illinois, called me and told me that Natural Ovens breads were 98% perfect and why didn't I go all the way.

I told him I thought a grade of 98 was pretty good, and I had only averaged 88 in school, but then, I asked him what did he mean. He said he thought there was a problem with the refined oils we were adding to the bread, that the soybean and peanut oils we were using had some problems. He said that soybean was high in Omega-6, which promoted the growth of tumors, and that peanut oil was likely to be contaminated with aflatoxin and was atherogenic — promoted plugging of the arteries. I agreed with him, but told him they were the "best" available. So I asked him, "What should I do?"

He said, "You are a biochemist, you figure it out." I said to myself, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Then I got to thinking. Why not look for an oil seed that could be ground and used directly in the bread dough? I knew that most of the problems came from the processing and refining of the oil at high temperatures; it wasn't entirely the oil itself. The processing removes the protective substances and starts producing peroxides, cyclic monomers and other toxic substances. The only oil that this didn't happen to is olive oil, and it created real flavor problems in the bread.

I tried several different oil seeds — whole soybean, sunflower and flax.

The soybeans made the bread taste like paint. The sunflower made the bread fall apart, but the flax made the bread taste great, hold together and rise better, and gave the bread a slight nutty taste. I was elated.

Then I went to the library to find out more about flax. The account given in the Encyclopedia Britiannica of 1898 gave the most complete information. It told how flax seed had been used for centuries as food and how the plant had been used for thatching on roofs and how the stalks had been retted and used for making linen. More recent information hinted that flax may contain toxic compounds and had fallen out of favor as human or animal food because of flavor problems.

I decided to visit the universities in states that grew the most flax. Surely, they would know more about it. In November of 1986, I headed for North Dakota State University in Fargo — a real nice place to visit in winter.

In 20-degree-below-zero weather, I got the good and bad news. Flax contains an anti B-6 compound that could cause death in young chickens by tying up all the B-6 available in a regular diet, but the anti B-6 factor could be overcome by adding extra B-6 to the diet. I also learned that I should visit Dr. Ralph Holman at the Hormel Research Institute of the University of Minnesota because he knew a lot about the types of fat in flax.

On the way home from North Dakota I stopped by to see Dr. Holman. He told me that flax was a very rich source of a fatty acid called Omega-3 and that Omega-3 in the Eskimo diet had been found to prevent heart trouble in the Eskimos, even though their diet consisted of 60% fat and contained more than 1,200 mg of cholesterol each day. I was highly elated. I had found something that could make the bread taste better, but would also dramatically improve the health benefit of the bread. I learned that the flax contained 10 times more Omega-3 than any fish oil and that the type of Omega-3 found in plants, called by biochemists alpha-linolenic acid, was safer than the type of Omega-3, DHA and EPA found in fish oils. I was so excited that I could hardly wait to get home and do more testing.

As soon as I got home, I ordered 10,000 pounds of flax from a grain dealer in North Dakota. I immediately ordered a grinder, started soaking the flax as soon as it arrived, and started grinding it. What a mess it made!

Ground, soaked flax is the stickiest mess on earth. I found our why it had been used as wave set for people's hair in the former generations. I found out that I had more research to do.

First, I discovered that dry flax seed was difficult to grind and so I had to modify the grinder and grinding procedures.

Second, I discovered that it tended to go rancid quickly after being ground, but that if I added zinc to the flax, it would tie up the iron to prevent peroxidation. (I have a patent on this idea.)

Third, I discovered that some of the varieties of flax turned rancid very quickly and that others tended to stay good for a long period of time.

Within a year, I incorporated all of the results into a procedure that dramatically improved the process of adding flax to foods. For a one-person research team, I thought I had done pretty well.

In 1988 I took this idea and my newly developed flax products — a dry flax drink product and flax-based breads — to a scientific conference on Omega-3 in Belgirate, Italy.

The scientists there were very skeptical. First of all, they knew that the foods would taste horrible if they had that much Omega-3 in them. Secondly, no product could contain that much Omega-3 in a single serving.

Were they ever surprised about how good the foods tasted. Secondly, they were amazed when I proved to them how much Omega-3 the products contained — up to 2,000 mg in a single glass of orange juice and up to 1,000 mg in 2 slices of bread.

As a result of this work, a large article appeared in the big papers in Chicago, Milwaukee and the Twin Cities. Flax was finally getting the recognition it was due.

The FDA questioned my use of flax in foods, but when I showed them the safety data I had on flax and the 8,000-year history of the use of flax in foods they accepted flax as a normal food ingredient.

Researchers in the University of Toronto began studying flax with grant money from the Flax Council of Canada. Dr. Stephen Cunnane found that the linolenic acid in flax could lower people's cholesterol level and Dr. Lillian Thompsen found that the lignans in flax could act as an anti-estrogenic compound and help prevent the growth of neoplastic tumor cells in the colon and mammary gland. As a matter of fact, Dr. Thompsen found that high levels (10% of the diet) of flax could act like Tamoxifen, yet was much cheaper and safer than Tamoxifen, and the side effects were much less severe.

As a result of these studies, the nutritional watchdog in Canada, Health and Welfare Canada, studied flax intensively for two years and had only praise for flax's health benefits.

Then the National Cancer Institute got into the act, and the Dietary Prevention branch under the capable leadership of Dr. Herb Pierson administered a half-dozen research grants to study flax and found many beneficial results. They found it lowered people's blood pressure and cholesterol, decreased in the body the production of PGE2, (a compound that stimulates the growth of cancer cells), helped people lose weight and had many other beneficial aspects.

The NCI also funded the FDA to do further studies on flax. This is one of the first times that the FDA has taken a proactive stand and started looking for foods that they can approve of before they are widely used by food companies.

I decided in 1988 to feed it to chickens and to pigs for seven generations to determine the long-term health effects.

Upon feeding it to chickens, I discovered it could make the chicken meat taste much better and have as much Omega-3 as any fish. I also discovered that the eggs contained high levels of Omega-3 and would make egg yolks an ideal feed for young infants. Researchers in Canada fed people with normal cholesterol values four eggs a day for 10 weeks and found no increase in serum cholesterol value, whereas from the scientific folklore on eggs, one would have expected the serum cholesterol value to go up 50 points.

Upon feeding flax to pigs, I found that it made them healthier, calmer, easier to work with, and over a five-year period, average litter size increased 50%. Not bad for a food product that has been around for 8,000 years, but had been neglected during the present century.

In 1992, I found a way to add calcium and magnesium to bread. I discovered that most forms of calcium and magnesium are alkaline and prevent yeast from working. I spent several years trying to find away to prevent this alkalinity from killing the yeast. I finally discovered that if I added an organic acid from citrus fruit that it would neutralize the alkalinity. That acid is called citric acid. It worked like a charm. Now I could add 20% of the RDA for calcium and magnesium to one serving of bread, not affect the taste or rising ability of the yeast. I was elated.

The public knows very little about nutrition. Instead, it pays attention to the advertisements of the Food Giants. People buy what the food conglomerates make them want. More than 70% of weekday food advertisements time is spent in hawking garbage. ³⁸ To the Food Giants, sales are more important than nutrition. Meanwhile, the customers are being brainwashed — lulled into thinking that because we have a Department of Health and Human Services that approves these processed foods, they must be good to eat. They're tragically mistaken. The time has come for people to start reading labels and paying attention to what they put in their bodies.

Until food companies are required to pass a test for nutritional value in a product, like flax did, before it's put on the market, and unless the government advises people which foods are so nutritionally worthless that an animal can't even survive on them, the consumer will continue to be in the dark about nutrition. The federal food agencies should be prepared to require that all products must satisfy a sufficient amount of the body's nutrient needs in order to earn the name "food." Otherwise, the public should be warned against them.

We do, in fact, have such a nutritional testing program in this country — but it's for pet foods. In order for a product to be labeled "dog food," it must satisfy all the nutritional requirements of the animal. It must be tested on living animals, and these tests must be conducted for a minimum of two years. We have already seen how much effort and expense food companies like Quaker spend on pet-food testing. If so much attention can be paid to pet food, why can't more be paid to human food? Why is the government more interested in the health of a dog than in the health of his master? When will we ever get our priorities in order?

In his fascinating book, "Paradox of Plenty," Harvey Wallenstein give a detailed explanation of the philosophy and growth of the food industry from 1930 to 1990. He lays out in explicit detail the corrupt thinking and proves with thousands of referenced articles how the American food industry has put packaging, flavor, advertising gimmicks, clowns, etc., ahead of the all important reason for eating food — nutrition. "Paradox of Plenty" is a scholarly work that fully indicates the food industry as the super cause of American obesity and runaway sickness costs. I recommend it as a "must read."

Remember Bob, the junk-food Junkie? His doctor sat him down and asked him a question so few doctors, even today, ever think of asking: "What have you been eating?" Bob told him of the orgy of candy, cake and fast food that his diet had become. His doctor told him firmly that he must cut out all the garbage and begin to eat right. No more chocolate stars for breakfast, no more lunches at McDonald's. When he wanted a snack, he was to eat fruit. When he was thirsty, he was restricted to water or fruit juice. Bob, frightened at his disintegrating health, decided to give it a try.

Bob's new diet turned his life around. His acid stomach disappeared, and so did his insomnia. Headaches didn't plague him as they used to, and he no longer had that groggy feeling in the morning. More importantly, Bob just plain felt better. He had more energy, enjoyed life more, accomplished more. He found himself growing more relaxed and thoughtful, more in touch with himself. Oh, he admitted to an occasional can of cola or a rushed fast-food lunch, but for the most part he had said good-bye to junk and life seemed a lot nicer. At his last check-up, the doctor was amazed at his improved physical condition.

In a seductive world of foods destined to kill him, Bob saved himself. You can, too.

NOTES

1.    Roger J. Williams, Alcoholism: The Nutritional Approach. (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1978), pp. 36, 41-2.
2.    E. Cheraskin and W.M. Ringsdorf, Jr., with Arllne Brecher, Psychodtetetics: Food and the Key to Emotional Health
         (New York: Bantam Books, 1974), p. 22.
3.    Jim Hightower, Eat Your Heart Out: Food Profiteering in America (New York: Crown Publishers, 1975), p. 77.
4.    Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, United States Senate, Dietary Goals for the United States
        (Washington: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1977), p. 28.
5. Harold Rosenberg, The Book of Vitamin Therapy (New York: G.P. Putman's Sons, 1974), p. 25.
6.       United States Department of Agriculture, Nutritive Value of Foods   (Washington: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1971), p. 19.
7.       Select Committee on Nutrition, p.28.
8.   Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, p. 160.
9.   Carol Keough, "The Fallacy of Food Enrichment." Organic Gardening, " Vol. 26, No. 5, May 1979, p. 120.
10.   Select Committee on Nutrition, p. 43.
11.  Hightower, p.79.
12.  "What's in Cereals," Changing Times, Vol. 33, No. 7, July, 1979, p.45.
13.   Hightower, p. 80.
14.    Select Committee on Nutrition, pp. 48-9.
15.   Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, p. 166.
16.   Hightower, p. 88.
17.   Rosenberg, p. 48.
18.   Select Committee on Nutrition, p. 73.
19.   "Average of Annual Death Rates for Selected Causes," 1980 Information Please Almanac (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979). p. 810.
20.   William Duffy, Sugar Blues (New York: Warner Books, 1976), p. 21.
21.   Duffy, p. 79.
22.   Select Committee on Nutrition, p. 45.
23.   Robert L. Jackson, "Insulin-Dependent Diabetes in Children and Young Adults," Nutrition Today, Vol. 14,
        No. 6, November/December 1979, p. 27.
24.   Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, p. 45-6.
25.   Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, p. 122.
26.   Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, p. 5.
27.   Select Committee on Nutrition, p. 52.
28.   Barbara J. Reed, "Food, Teens and Behavior". Natural Press.
29.   Barbara J. Reed
30.   Barbara J. Reed
31.   Barbara J. Reed
32.   Mark Bricklin, "The Right Direction for a Longer Life," Prevention, Sept, 1980, p. 30.
33.   Bricklin, p. 30.
34.   "Expectation of Life in the United States," 1980 Information Please Almanac, p. 814.
35.   Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins, with Gary Fowler, Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity
        (New York: Ballantine Books, 1979), pp. 333-335.
36.   Medard Gable, with the World Game Laboratory, Ho-Ping, Food for Everyone (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1979), p. 28.
37.   Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, p. 90.
38.   Select Committee on Nutrition, p. 62.
39.   Harvey Wallenstein, "Paradox of Plenty," (New York. Oxford University Press). 1993