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Excerpts from Senate Document 264 pertaining to Soil Mineral Depletion
In 1936 the United States Senate issued Document 264 relating to proper food mineral balances presented by Mr. Fletcher. The pioneers of this era and the genius' in the field of nutrition demonstrated that countless human ills stem from the fact that impoverished soil in America no longer provides plant foods with the mineral elements essential to human nourishment and health! The pertinent excerpts from this document are published here for your review:
"Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until the depleted soils from which our foods come from are brought into proper mineral balance ?"
"The alarming fact is that foods-fruits and vegetables-grains-now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contains enough of certain minerals, are starving us-no matter how much of them we eat !"
"This talk of minerals is novel and quite startling. In fact, a realization of the importance of minerals in food is so new that the textbooks on nutritional dietetics contain very little about it. Nevertheless it is something that concerns all of us, and the further we delve into it the more startling it becomes".
"Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs and even the milk and meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago. No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his system with the minerals salts he requires for perfect health..."
"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 now know that it must contain, in addition, something like a score of trace mineral salts".
"It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99 percent 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, any considerable lack of one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, shorten our lives".
"This discovery is one of the latest and most important contributions of science to the problem of human health".
"Dr. Northern asked himself how foods can be used intelligently in the treatment of disease, when they differed so widely in content. The answer seemed to be that they could not be used intelligently. In establishing the fact that serious deficiencies existed and in searching out the reasons therefor, he made an extensive study of the soil. It was he who first voiced the surprising fact that we must make soil building the basis of food building in order to accomplish human building. Bear in mind, says Dr. Northern, that minerals are vital to human metabolism and health-and that no plant or animal can appropriate to itself any mineral which is not present in the so>
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