Most problem foods are widely used basic foods that lead to health
problems in large parts of the population. So-called junk food and heavily processed
and chemicalized food belong in this category; many foods treasured by 'natural
health' enthusiasts - for instance, honey, dried fruits, yogurt and wholemeal
bread - also belong to this list.
What chiefly makes a particular food a problem is the presence of one or
several components that may cause metabolic or digestive problems if used
indiscriminately. Because we use and have used problem foods in excess, our
metabolism has been weakened to such an extent that it cannot safely process
even small amounts of certain foods without becoming distressed. This can be
demonstrated with food muscle-testing.
However, for individuals with a suitable metabolism, most problem foods
may be acceptable and sometimes even beneficial in moderation; this does not apply
to heavily chemicalized food. It is advisable, nevertheless, for nearly
everyone to minimize the intake of problem foods in general. It is also best to
avoid more strictly the problem foods that you can identify from those
described in this chapter and from personal experience as being a cause of your
health problems.
Some problem foods frequently cause food allergies and may be the
primary allergens or causative agents that sensitize us to a range of other
allergens. This applies especially to the gluten in wheat and to proteins in
cows' milk. When the body is still young or overacid and sensitive it tends to
respond strongly to these foods. However, problem foods cause even more serious
problems when the body is older, alkaline and insensitive, but then there are
no 'alarm reactions' to warn us. This leads to the development of chronic
degenerative diseases such as autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular diseases and
cancer.
In addition to specific health problems being caused by specific foods,
the overall impact on the adrenal glands of habitually consuming problem foods
may raise the basic stress level to such a high degree that a relatively small
additional stress from emotional or social problems may trigger severe
reactions. These may include asthma, epilepsy, migraine, depression,
irritability, hyperactivity, phobias, nervous breakdown and mental disease.
The main problem foods in our society are:
· Lactose and cow's milk products
·
Gluten and wheat products
·
Sugar and sweet foods
·
Red meat and fats
·
Chemicalized food, stimulants and
yeast or molds
In addition, the fact that we cook too many of our foods and hence have
insufficient enzymes in our diet, greatly contributes to the development of
chronic degenerative diseases and premature aging.
Have a closer look at cow's milk products and
lactose. In some form they can be beneficial but as commonly used they tend to
create a lot of problems for our health
The three problematic ingredients in dairy products are lactose (milk sugar),
butterfat, casein and other proteins. While lactose is a problem in all animal
milk, including goat's milk, difficulties with casein and butterfat are
specific to cow's milk.
Bottle-feeding with cow's milk has far-reaching effects. The earlier it
is substituted for breast milk, the more damage is caused. The baby's digestive
system is still immature and relies on enzymes provided in mother's milk. It
cannot properly digest cow's milk, especially if it has been pasteurized and is
without enzymes.
In addition, in the first few weeks or months the wall of the small
intestine is not yet fully developed and allows only partly digested proteins
to pass through and this causes allergies. In a recent investigation all
infants and most older children had antibodies against cow's milk in their
blood. This means they were allergic to it, even in the absence of obvious
symptoms. However, usually unspecific symptoms are present, such as
restlessness and crying at night, dermatitis, tender abdomen, tantrums, weak eyes,
low energy, hyper-activity, indigestion and a high incidence of colds, ear and
respiratory infections. A contributing factor that makes these babies prone to
infections is the absence of immuno-protective agents in bottle milk that are
present in breast milk, especially in the colostrum.
In one
Scandinavian study it was shown that no purely breastfed baby developed early
middle ear infection, and also was protected against it in later life. In
contrast, early introduction of cow’s milk predisposed children to this and was
exclusively found in children who received cow’s milk before the age of 6
months.
Furthermore, bottle-fed babies suffer from zinc deficiency. Zinc is
essential for activating the immune system. The zinc content in cow's milk is
actually higher than that in mother's milk. However, in cow's milk zinc is
bound to a protein from which the baby's immature digestive system cannot
release it.
Other trace minerals are also difficult for the baby to absorb from
cow's milk; iron is especially problematic. A resulting iron deficiency in
babies contributes to the development of anemia, a weakening of the immune
system and retarded mental and cognitive development.
An allergy to cow's milk and subsequent mucus congestion of the lungs, combined
with zinc and iron deficiencies of the immune system, cause frequent colds and
respiratory infections in babies. This, in turn, depletes the baby more and
more of vitamin C. The effect of all this is a high incidence of crib deaths in
bottle-fed babies. Crib deaths sometimes occur shortly after immunizations,
which further drain the already dangerously low levels of vitamin C. Toxic
gases from synthetic mattresses cause further distress.
Archie Kalokerinos, in his book Every Second Child (Keats), relates
that in some Aboriginal communities every second child given a vaccination died
of crib death, but when fed high doses of vitamin C before and after
vaccinations, not a single child died.
Is it a coincidence that
Crib deaths are uncommon in breast-fed babies. However, even breast-fed
babies can develop allergies if the mother has a high intake of cow's milk
products or is allergic to it herself. Full-term babies in the first two weeks
and premature babies in the first one or two months may become allergic to
almost any substitute for mother's milk. If breast-feeding by the mother is not
possible during this time and a wet nurse is not available, then fresh raw
goats' or sheep's milk is the least harmful alternative.
LACTOSE
Approximately 90 per cent of the world's adult population - that is, all
but the majority of the Caucasian race - cannot split lactose into its two
components - glucose and galactose. After the age of 3 a deficiency of the
lactose-splitting enzyme lactase develops, and this can cause more or less
severe indigestion and diarrhea if the diet contains appreciable amounts of
lactose. This condition is known as lactose intolerance.
Lactose intolerant people can tolerate lactose better if fermented milk
is used, as in the form of yogurt or kefir, where the lactose is partially
split by lactic-acid bacteria. Alternatively, lactose-splitting enzymes are now
commercially available and may be added to milk. However, lactose intolerance
is only a minor problem compared to the much more serious health problems
caused by galactose. Lactose intolerance actually appears to be a wise
precaution of nature rather than a regrettable accident, because it protects us
from the great danger of galactose overload.
Most European adults and older children who can digest lactose are
unable to use galactose efficiently. Babies need galactose as an important
building component of the brain, the central nervous system and of many proteins.
Thus mother's milk is even higher in lactose than animal milk to ensure the
baby does obtain sufficient galactose.
In later life, very little galactose is needed and this can easily be
synthesized from other sugars. Therefore, most of the ingested galactose is
converted in the liver to glucose and used as body fuel, but the amount that
can be converted is rather limited, even in a healthy liver.
This conversion is a slow and complex process requiring four different
enzymes. One of these is sometimes missing from birth, giving rise to a
condition known as galactosaemia. Continued milk-feeding leads to a build-up of
galactose in the baby and causes cataracts, cirrhosis of the liver and spleen
and mental retardation.
If the liver is not healthy, it becomes less able to convert galactose.
This fact is sometimes used as a criterion for a clinical liver-function test.
If galactose is injected into someone with a defective liver, most of the
galactose will later appear in the urine.
MUCIC ACID
Unfortunately, under normal conditions only part of the galactose is
expelled with the urine. If there is a deficiency of protective antioxidants,
then the rest is mainly oxidized to galactaric acid, commonly known as mucic
acid. The great health danger of mucic acid is that it is insoluble. The body
cannot let it pile up in vital areas and block organ functions or blood
circulation. Therefore, it forms the mucic acid into a sticky suspension in
water, called mucus. Thus mucic acid is a main component of pathogenic (disease-producing)
mucus.
It is the function of the lymphatic system to remove dangerous
substances, such as mucus, from areas of vital importance and transport it to
the organs of elimination. Mucus is too dangerous to dispose of through the
kidneys or with bile through the liver, but it has a special affinity to the
mucous membranes that line the insides of our body openings. Such areas, and of
prime importance, are the lungs, the respiratory tract and the hollow head
spaces, the sinuses and the Eustachian tube (a passage between the mouth and
the inner ear).
The mucus accumulates in these hollow spaces until external factors help
to sensitize the mucous membranes sufficiently to allow the mucus to pass
through. This is relatively easy in young individuals and those with a poor
sugar metabolism as they have high levels of histamine and inflammatory adrenal
hormones. Even minor irritations of the mucous membranes, be it from cold air,
dust, air pollution, pollen or germs, will sensitize these to let some of the mucus
flow out.
Such mucus cleansing may be experienced periodically as a cold, hay
fever, wet cough or running nose. In others, the accumulation of mucus, which
provides a favorable breeding ground for germs, causes chronic infections in
specific areas such as the sinuses, the middle ear, the respiratory tract and
the lungs. This may allow a permanent trickle of mucus through the affected
mucous membrane. In addition, a dead front tooth may be responsible for chronic
sinus problems.
With a high lactose intake, the lymph channels and lymph glands are
usually congested with mucus as well. This allows influenza and other
infections to spread from the sensitized mucous membranes through the
mucus-filled hollow spaces into the lymphatic system, causing lymph gland
swellings and inflammations. I have found that in many people the number of
colds, influenza and other respiratory infections can be varied at will from
none to several per year just by varying the lactose intake. Mucus congestion
is also the main cause of ear infections and hearing problems, especially in
children.
In most cases it is not a lactose allergy but a galactose overload that
is responsible for this excessive mucus. While in the case of those suffering
from cow's milk allergy somewhat more lactose may be tolerated when it comes
from goat's milk, in most individuals the lactose in goat's milk or in tablets
will be equally as mucus-forming as that from cow's milk.
ASTHMA
When more mucus accumulates in the lungs than can be expelled, asthma is
likely to develop. Often lung congestion is combined with a strong subconscious
fear element that may, for instance, result from insecurity or lack of love in
early childhood. Another contributing factor is hypoglycemia coupled with weak
adrenal glands.
Many cases seem to be predominantly mucus-induced. I remember a patient
who was fond of yogurt and, for health reasons, prepared it from skim-milk
powder. This produces yogurt with a much higher lactose content than yogurt
from full-fat milk (see Table 4-1). When I persuaded her to use somewhat less
yogurt and prepare it only from whole milk without additional skim-milk powder,
her asthma disappeared for good. The asthma-causing skim-milk yogurt provided
approximately 50 g of lactose per day, while she was asthma-free on whole-milk
yogurt with about 5 g of lactose daily.
The lung irritation caused by accumulated mucus also means that the
lungs are more prone to be affected by food allergies and chemicals. This could
result in inflammatory swellings of the bronchial tubes. Mucus accumulating in
the lungs allows bacteria to infiltrate. Some strains of these bacteria convert
sugars into alginic acid, another sticky mucus. Often there is Candida or
fungus infestation as well, which sensitizes the mucous membranes to airborne
molds. Mucus-releasing colds in this setting can be a blessing in disguise,
provided they are not treated with antibiotics. Also dead teeth may induce
copious mucus.
The mucous membranes of asthmatics, which are highly sensitized by mucic
acid, react strongly to air pollutants such as smoke, pollen and sulfur
dioxide. The adrenal glands are weak and histamine levels are high because of a
sweet diet and allergies. To overcome asthma, we need to reverse these negative
conditions by using a low-allergy diet with a minimum of sweet or mucus-forming
food, while the respiratory tract should periodically be cleared of mucus. Also
breathing exercises help.
CHRONIC DEGENERATIVE DISEASES
A serious consequence of a lymphatic system badly congested with mucus
is the development of leukemia. This happens when the immune system has been
sufficiently damaged by frequent mucus-related infections combined with other
factors such as toxic chemicals, a sweet diet, allergies and vitamin-mineral
deficiencies.
It may not be a coincidence that Nathan Pritikin, famous for his
much-publicized diet to cure cardiovascular diseases, developed leukemia. The
original Pritikin diet is high in skim-milk products and, therefore, imposes a
severe galactose overload on the body. Either leukemia or another
galactose-related degenerative disease is more likely to develop as a long-term
effect of a high intake of skim-milk products. Cardiovascular diseases can be
prevented or cured nutritionally without causing other health problems.
Leukemia stands in between the acute mucus-related infections of
childhood and the usual chronic degenerative diseases that develop with
advancing age. When our metabolism slows down as we become older or are on an
unsuitably heavy meat diet, the body gradually becomes too alkaline and the
mucous membranes become more insensitive. In this condition mucus released
through colds and other respiratory infections becomes rare and most of the
mucic acid is stored in the body.
Lactose intolerance, and thus enforced avoidance of foods containing
lactose, can also reduce the incidence of another disease - cataracts of the
eyes. Even infants may develop cataracts when they cannot convert galactose to
glucose. Therefore, galactose overload is also an important cause of cataracts
in adults. In addition, high blood glucose and fructose levels may contribute.
These simple sugars are reduced to sugar alcohols that cause cloudiness in the
lens. Another form of cataract is mainly caused by a chronic deficiency of the
vitamins A, B2, C and E, and the minerals chromium and selenium. Radiation
exposure or drugs can also cause cataracts.
Besides cataracts, there are other diseases that are usually considered
to be typical for the aging body but that occur already in infants with galactosaemia.
These include liver degeneration, edema and reduced memory or senility (the
latter being equivalent to mental retardation in infants with galactosaemia).
Cancer (carcinoma) reportedly can result from galactosaemia. A recent report
shows that women who consumed yogurt had a higher rate of ovarian cancer than
controls that consumed the same amount of lactose from other milk products.
Because of the activity of the lactic-acid bacteria, yogurt contains more
readily available galactose than other milk products. Another cancer-related
problem is the high estrogen content of milk. This is likely to stimulate the
growth of breast and ovarian tumors. However, as estrogen is fat-soluble it can
be expected to remain with milk fat and skim milk products should be alright in
this regard.
A frequent complaint is increasing deafness because of mucus congestion
of the Eustachian tube and the middle ear with subsequent infection and
inflammation. In children this condition has been called 'glue ear'. This is
especially a problem with children of non-European background because they can
still absorb lactose but cannot very well convert galactose into energy,
especially from cow's milk.
With lactose-induced mucus congestion, degenerative lung diseases may
also develop, such as emphysema. While smoking is generally considered to be
the greatest hazard for lung cancer, it may actually rank equal with galactose
overload, and most at risk are heavy smokers with mucus-congested lungs.
Sometimes the lungs simply fill up with mucus. Actually, a patient died in my
presence because his lungs and breathing passage were filled with sticky mucus.
He literally drowned in it. With each breath I could hear the air bubbling up
through the mucus.
A combination of mucus accumulation in the lungs and the digestive
system is seen in cystic fibrosis, which is mainly due to an overproduction of
an abnormal mucopolysaccharide - a long-chain carbohydrate that normally
supplies the physiological mucus required by the body. Cystic fibrosis
sufferers also may be unable to convert galactose and, as they are usually
deficient in protective antioxidants, they may also produce large amounts of
mucic acid. Like galactose overload, cystic fibrosis is a disease of the
Caucasian race.
In part, excessive mucus formation stems from an infestation of the
lungs with bacteria that produce an abnormal amount of sticky alginic acid. The
important point is that alginic acid is synthesized from a simple sugar -
mannose - which these bacteria can convert from an excess of any other sugar,
such as galactose, fructose or glucose. Therefore, mucus-forming as well as
sweet foods must be avoided.
LACTOSE IN FOOD
Preventing excessive mucus accumulation in the body is much easier than
trying to remove it afterwards. If you are concerned about your future
wellbeing, it is a wise precaution to reduce your intake of lactose to a
minimum. See the following table for the lactose content of some common dairy
products.
LACTOSE CONTENT OF DAIRY PRODUCTS
|
butter |
0.5% |
|
cheese, cottage cheese |
2-4% |
|
goat's milk |
4.3% |
|
cow's milk |
4.9% |
|
yogurt and ice-cream (with
skim-milk powder) |
5-25% |
|
skim-milk powder |
52% |
|
whey powder |
70% |
With a lactose content of 52 per cent in skim-milk powder, you may now
realize how dangerous the current fad is for using low-fat ice-cream, yogurt,
cottage cheese and so forth, instead of full-fat products. Such low-fat foods
are made from skim-milk powder and contain three to five times as much lactose
as the equivalent full-fat foods. Sometimes skim-milk powder is even added to
butter. Therefore read the label and avoid butter that lists 'non-fat milk
solids' as one of the ingredients.
Skim-milk powder is also a favorite additive to many other commercial
foods, such as bread and other baking products, sausages and margarine. The
health-food industry is equally fond of adding lactose to many products such as
soy milk and dandelion coffee. Lactose is often used as filler in white
tablets. Cell salts are almost pure lactose. Try to avoid white tablets if the
label does not state that they are free of lactose or are low-allergy tablets.
I suspect that the average daily amount of lactose that healthy adults
can handle without the danger of long-term galactose overload appears is less
than 10 g or the equivalent of a glass of milk. However, those who do have
occasional mucus problems or are afflicted with a galactose-related disease do
well to have a much lower lactose intake. With lactose allergy it is often
necessary to avoid lactose completely for several months or years.
PROTEIN AND FAT
Casein is the main protein in cow's milk and constitutes about 3 per
cent of it. Human milk, on the other hand, has only 0.5 per cent casein
content. The high casein content of cow's milk causes it to form a very tough,
rubbery curd in the stomach; the casein binds the calcium as an insoluble salt.
Thus it is extremely difficult to digest and is a frequent source of indigestion.
Mother's milk and goat's milk, on the other hand, form finely dispersed soft
curds that are easy to digest.
Thus the protein in cow's milk frequently is only partly digested and
becomes a major source of intestinal putrefaction and toxemia. Incompletely digested
protein may pass the wall of the small intestine and cause allergy. Worms in
children are often due to intestinal putrefaction from undigested cow's milk.
Breast milk also contains high levels of fat-digesting lipase and other
enzymes. Therefore breast milk is nearly self-digesting in the baby's gut while
pasteurized cow's milk is very difficult to digest.
In a recent double-blind study 24 out of 27 babies with colic became
free of symptoms when put on a diet free of cow's milk protein. The babies, when
given cow's milk protein, cried on average 3.2 hours daily and when taken off
cow's milk cried for only 1 hour. However, I believe that breast-fed babies
that have all their needs met hardly cry at all.
Allergy-prone mothers are able to pass allergens to their babies with
their breast milk. This is often caused by beta-lactoglobulin, which is in the
cow's milk. When such mothers avoided cow's milk (and thus its proteins), the
babies' colic disappeared.
Colic is due to an inflammation of the intestinal wall, which in turn is
triggered by an allergic reaction against the protein in cow's milk. This
chronic inflammation erodes the micro-villi through which the food is absorbed,
thus resulting in malabsorption. Incompletely digested proteins may also pass
through the damaged intestinal wall into the bloodstream and produce various
allergic reactions, such as dermatitis or brain irritation.
A general consequence of such cow's milk allergy is a weakening of the
immune system, which in babies is further aggravated by a lack of protective
immune factors that are normally transmitted with breast milk. This is why
infants on cow's milk have frequent colds and respiratory infections; and it
may also lead to sudden infant death or immune deficiency diseases in later
life.
Cow's milk appears to disturb the calcium metabolism. Calcium becomes
trapped in undigested casein, while the long-chain saturated fatty acids form
insoluble soaps with calcium. In addition, cow's milk has a more unfavorable
ratio of phosphorus to calcium as compared to breast milk.
Several studies have also shown that cancer patients consume more cows'
milk than do matched controls. Taurine is a sulfur amino acid that is high in
breast milk and low in cow's milk. It is required for brain, heart and liver
functions; it regulates the sensitivity of cell membranes and protects against
epilepsy.
Professor
(of Geochemistry) Jane Plant (Your Life in Your Hands) may have
discovered the connection between cow’s milk and cancer. Her breast cancer had
re-grown a fifth time and she had been given up to die. At this stage she found
out that the rate of death from breast cancer in
As Chinese have normal rates of some other cancers, there must be a
special factor that causes these low breast cancer rates. Also the largely
milk-free Japanese have low breast cancer rates, but when Chinese or Japanese
women adopt a western lifestyle, their breast cancer rates start approaching
the level in western countries. Increasingly, there are now studies appearing
that link milk consumption to breast and prostate cancer.
The problem appears to be a special protein, called insulin-related
growth factor, IGF-1, which stimulates hormone-related division of cells and
affects especially breast tissue to grow during puberty and pregnancy. It also
affects the prostate gland. Clinical studies showed that higher levels of
circulating IGF-1 in the blood were not only a strong risk factor for women to
develop breast cancer, but also for men to develop prostate cancer. However,
IGF-1 levels were not elevated with benign conditions. The crucial factor is
that cow’s milk is very high in IGF-1, and it is also present in the meat of
dairy cows. High-yield milk production as commonly induced with synthetic
hormones increases the IGF-1 levels in the milk.
A
study of several hundred newly diagnosed diabetic children revealed an immune
response to a fragment of cows' milk protein in all of them. What is more, this
protein fragment has the same composition as one called P69 on the beta-cells.
Juvenile diabetes is much higher in those who have been bottle-fed rather than
breast-fed and it is lower in communities, which consume less cows' milk
products. It appears that this is only a
problem with milk from Frisian cows (called A1 milk) but not with milk from
other, lower-yielding, breeds that produce A2 milk. Most of presently consumed
milk is A1 milk.
P69 is usually protected inside the beta-cells and comes only to the
surface during microbial and especially viral infections. At that time the
immune system can mistake it for cows' milk protein and attack it and destroy
the beta-cell in the process. The problem is that bottle-fed infants are very
susceptible to colds, respiratory and gastrointestinal infections. It is
regarded as normal for them to have six and more infections a year while these
are rare with breast-fed infants.
But it does not end there. Bottle-fed infants also frequently receive
antibiotics that then encourage overgrowth of the intestines with undesirable
microbes and a tendency to chronic pancreatitis. One type of E. coli bacteria
is harmless in the large intestines but it has the potential for causing great
damage in the small intestine. That is because it produces a molecule that is
very similar to insulin. When the immune system becomes activated against this
molecule, it may then also direct its attack against related features at the
beta-cells.
Therefore, several other mechanisms besides cows' milk allergy can
trigger an attack on the beta-cells. Also gluten allergy may be implicated and
in one instance even potato allergy was described as causing very high blood
sugar levels, except if high-level vitamin-mineral supplements were given at
the same time.
Tannin in tea or coffee has a harmful effect on the casein of added
milk. It produces a denatured protein, similar to the manufacture of leather
that cannot be digested and may cause digestive distress.
While milk and lactose may cause mucus congestion visible in the iris as
whitish discoloration, cheese and butterfat cause the iris to turn yellow or
brown in susceptible individuals. Yellow is the first stage of a white area
becoming brown. When patients have avoided fats and cheese, I have noticed the
brown color becoming lighter. From muscle testing I gained the impression that
processed hard cheese is the main offender in those with irises that have
turned brown. This may be due to liver damage caused by the high casein content
of cheese combined with its saturated fat.
According to my observations, individuals with irises that have changed
to brown generally have weak, under-active liver and gall bladder functions,
especially as related to the fat metabolism. Those with irises changed to
white, on the other hand, are more prone to acute and sometimes painful liver
and gall bladder problems. In these individuals acne, psoriasis, blackheads and
an unclean skin may also result from the over-consumption of fats and
especially cheese.
Fermented cow's milk products in the form of natural yogurt, kefir and
natural cheeses produce a fine curd and cause less health problems than
unfermented milk. However, even these should be used with care and only if they
do not cause allergies or mucus problems. Generally, the corresponding goats'
or sheep milk products are much more preferable. The least harmful milk product
is cottage cheese made from fermented goats' or sheep milk.
The most damaging aspect of commercial milk products, apart from
oversupplying the body with lactose and casein, is the destruction of natural
enzymes by pasteurizing the milk. Raw butter, for instance, has formerly been
used to cure psoriasis but pasteurized butter causes or aggravates it. The
healing effect of raw butter is due to its high content of the fat-digesting
enzyme lipase. The same is true for heart and liver problems, which are caused
or aggravated by processed cheese and butter fat.
Such health problems did not occur in the inhabitants of the
Raw milk was formerly used to cure tuberculosis but pasteurized milk is
more likely to cause it. Carnivorous wild animals have diets high in fat and
cholesterol but no signs of atherosclerosis and heart disease. In contrast,
dogs on canned food and cooked meat develop the same diseases as we humans.
In the
Chapter
4: PROBLEM FOODS AND FOOD PROLEMS
·
Cow’s Milk Products and Lactose
·
Chemicals and other Food Problems