The Basic Four Diet

Lesson 84 - The Basic Four Diet

Introduction

There was a large wall chart, and the third-grade teacher was pointing to it as she taught me and my elementary school classmates our first lesson in nutrition.

There were four big pictures on the chart. One picture showed a cow surrounded by milk, butter, and cheese. Another picture had steaks, porkchops, and sausages piled high, with a few beans sprinkled around the different meats. At the bottom of the chart was a picture of loaves of bread and a bowl of cereal. Finally in the other corner of the poster was a head of lettuce, apples, oranges, and a yellow squash.

The teacher was pointing to each picture. “Now to grow up healthy and strong,” she said, “you must eat different foods every day. You need milk and meat and bread and some vegetables or fruit at every meal.” She pointed to the picture of the cow, and then to the steak (I didn’t know at that time that the steak had come from the cow!) and then to the bowl of cereal and the yellow squash.

It sounded good to my eight-year-old ears. All you had to do to eat right and be healthy is just to remember to eat four types of food at every meal. It was logical and so neatly explained by that big food chart that had been supplied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Twelve years later after following such a diet, I knew my third-grade teacher had lied to me. I wasn’t healthy or strong or well. I studied nutrition on my own, and discovered the real truth about diet and well-being—the truth that had been so carefully hidden from me and is still denied children in school today.

The Basic Four Food Group diet that was so vividly illustrated on that chart is still the most popular diet and nutrition plan in this country today. And it is dangerously incorrect.

84.2. What Is The Basic Four Diet?

84.2.1 Four Food Diet Plan

84.2.2 The Reasons for the Four Food Groups Diet Plan 84.2.3 The Advantages of the Four Food Group Diet Plan

The Basic Four Diet was created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and is formally known as the USDA Four Food Group Plan.

This plan classifies all foods into four basic groups, and recommends a minimum number of servings from each group in order to satisfy the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs) of nutrients. The RDAs are a set of recommendations for daily intake of calories, protein, vitamins, and minerals made by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences. The amounts recommended by the board will, accord-

ing to them, “provide for the maintenance of optimum nutrition in healthy persons in the United States.”

In the Four Food Group Plan, foods are arranged into four categories:

1. Milk Group
2. Meat Group
3. Bread and Cereal Group
4. Fruit and Vegetable Group

Each group contains foods similar enough in nutrient content to be more or less interchangable, or so the reasoning goes. The table below shows the four food groups, serving sizes for the group, and the alternative selections that may be chosen from when planning on a diet using the Four Food Group Plan:

Four Food Diet Plan

Food Groups Minimum Servings For Adults

1. Milk Group 2 servings. (One serving is 8 ounces of milk or yogurt, or 1 slice of cheese.)
2. Meat arid Meat Alternatives 2 servings. (One serving is 3 ounces of any of the following: lean meat, fish, shell fish, eggs, poultry, cheese with dry beans or dry peas or peanut butter.)
3. Bread and Cereal Group 4 servings. (One serving is 1 slice of bread or 1 ounce of dry cereal or 2/3 cup of cooked cereal.)
4. Fruit and Vegetable Group 4 servings. (One serving is 1/2 cup cooked fruit or vegetable, or 1 medium-size raw fruit or vegetable)

The Reasons for the Four Food Groups Diet Plan

The Four Food Group plan was basically devised to cover the foods predominantly produced by our agricultural and commercial enterprises. Ostensibly, it simplified meal planning, assured us of our nutrient needs, and was an easily understood approach to nutrition.

Here are the major nutrients in the diet that each food group was supposed to supply:

PROTEIN Meat Group, Milk Group

CALCIUM Milk Group

IRON Meat Group

B VITAMINS Bread and Cereal Group, Milk Group

VITAMIN A Fruit and Vegetable Group

VITAMIN C Fruit and Vegetable Group

The Advantages of the Four Food Group Diet Plan

There are two major advantages in using the Four Food Group plan to develop a diet:

1. Theplanisrelativelysimpletounderstand.Allfoodsaredividedintofoureasilyrecognizable groups, and exact serving amounts of each food group are specified. Even those people entirely ignorant of nutrition can use the Four Food Group plan without any additional education.
2. Some non-foods and junk foods such as soft drinks, candy, and other snacks are not included in any of the four categories. (You should notice, however, that many poor foods and processed foods are included in these groups— for example, nitrate-preserved meats, white bread, polished rice, pasteurized milk, etc.).

And Now For The Truth

84.3.1 One Man’s Meat Is Everyone’s Poison

84.3.2 If You Don’t Eat the Cow, Why Drink the Juice?

84.3.3 The Staff Of Whose Life?

84.3.4 And The Winner Is...

84.3.5 Second Helpings, Anyone?

The Basic Four diet plan is 75% incorrect. Three of the four food groups it uses (Meat, Milk and Bread) are inimical to human nutrition and well-being. The inclusion of foods from these three groups is the cause of most of the dietary ills suffered in this country today.

Only the group of Fruits and Vegetables can be considered essential for nutritional well-being. The Basic Four Food Group diet plan, then, has a batting average of 25%—perhaps not bad for major league baseball, but a deplorable percentage for your state of health.

Since the Basic Four Food Group plan is still the most popularly recommended and well-known diet plan in the country, you will need some hard facts to convince others that it is a dangerous and incorrect diet to follow. To help you understand why this diet plan cannot promote health or even supply basic nutrient needs, each of the four recommended food groups are examined in great detail in the following sections:

One Man’s Meat Is Everyone’s Poison

Meat is one of the most heavily-promoted food groups in the United States. We are told that we must eat meat every day in order to get the necessary “complete” protein that animal food products can supply.

In fact, the alleged need for meat-eating is based entirely on the need for protein in the human diet. Except for a few B-vitamins, protein is the only major nutrient that meat can supply. The meat group of foods that is included in the Basic Four Food Group diet is done so entirely because of an unhealthy obsession with protein foods that is common to American society.

Not only are protein foods heavily promoted, they are so intimately associated with meat that the two are almost synonymous. Tell someone that you do not eat meat, and he will almost assuredly ask, “But where do you get your protein?”

The Basic Four Food diet propagates this misconception that protein comes almost exclusively from meat by naming its first food category, “Meat and Meat Alternatives Group.” Notice that the category is not called “Protein Foods” or “Essential Amino Acids Foods” but “Meat.” The other protein foods listed in the group which are not animal flesh (such as cheese, dry beans and peas, and peanut butter) are called “Meat Alternatives.” An “alternative” is defined as a second choice or something that may be used in place of the first choice. In other words, according to the Basic Four diet plan, meat is the number one protein source. All other protein foods are called alternative (or “secondrate”) choices.

Dr. Herbert M. Shelton has stated that “the so-called scientific world is wedded to the carnivorous practice and all of its dietetic advice is designed to induce mankind to eat more flesh, eggs, and milk.” Notice that the healthiest sources of concentrated protein, raw nuts and seeds, are not even included in the protean or “Meat and Meat Alternatives” group!

The casual user of the Basic Four Food Group diet plan would probably conclude that the number one nutritional need is protein, and preferably animal protein. Of course that conclusion suits the meat-packing, poultry, and dairy industries just fine. Please remember that the Four Food Group plan was devised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture which has a commitment to supporting and promoting cattle-raising, milk and egg production, and other livestock industries. In fact the U.S.D.A. is staffed at the top by members of these industries.

Are protein needs so great that this nutrient should be our number one concern? The Basic Four Diet plan certainly places a strong emphasis on getting plenty of protein (or meat and meat alternatives) in our diet. Do we need concentrated protein sources or alternatives to this Meat group?

Dr. Shelton in his masterwork Human Life: Its Philosophy and Laws tells us that “the adult body requires only enough protein to maintain repairs and that this amount is extremely small if the body is rightly cared for. We can safely say, Dr. Shelton continues, ”that if the adult person never touched any of the more concentrated protein foods s/he would never fail to secure all the protein, required by the body, to maintain repairs.“

What can we say then about this first food group in the Basic Four Food diet plan? In a “nutshell,” just this: Meat-eating is not only nonessential, but is a degenerative practice that leads to illness and disease. There is no need for “alternatives” to meat, and recommendations for other highly-concentrated protein foods are spurious.

If you eat a diet of natural and unprocessed foods, you will receive an abundance of amino acids, or “protein.” You certainly do not need to eat two or more servings daily from a food group that consists chiefly of chemically-preserved, hormone-laden, and decomposing pieces of animal corpses.

Bypass the “Meat and Meat Alternative” group—there are biologically correct ways to meet your protein needs.

If You Don’t Eat the Cow, Why Drink the Juice?

The next major food group in the Four Food Diet Plan is the “Milk and Milk Products” or dairy category. Before looking at the reasons for making dairy food items a separate category, you should know one fact:

Over 75% of the world’s population—3 out of every 4 people on earth—cannot digest milk (or milk sugar-lactose) after the age of three.

For many people, indigestion, gas, cramping, and/or diarrhea occur after a single glass of milk is drunk. Does this sound like an “essential” food or food group when most people cannot tolerate dairy products, let alone digest and appropriate them?

Let’s ask another question. Do the government nutritionists sincerely believe that every human being must have two or more glasses of milk each day to survive in good health? Maybe or maybe not, but one thing is sure: The milk and dairy industries and similar vested interests would certainly like everyone to believe it.

“Milk has grown to become one of this country’s staple businesses,” Dr. Shelton notes, “and the profits of milk distributing are very high. This industry has fostered the idea that man should be a suckling—should never be weaned, and that he should suck at the teats of the cow even if he lives to be ninety to a hundred years old.” Dr. Shelton concludes, “For adults, milk is both an inefficient and uneconomical food. It is certainly not an essential element of the human diet.”

Over two-thirds of the world’s population never have a single glass of cow’s milk. They consume less milk in their, entire adult lives than is recommended for one day by the USDA. Only in the United States is milk-drinking so heavily promoted for adults.

Why, then, did milk-drinking and cheese-eating become so prominent in our society, and why are dairy products named as one of the four important food groups? Well, the obvious reason is money. The best way to get people to buy and consume more of a food item is to convince them that it is absolutely essential for their health.

And how are milk and other dairy products promoted as being essential for our wellbeing? The answer in one word: Calcium.

Calcium is to the dairy industry what protein is to the meat industry. If you can convince people that a nutrient which is abundant in a specific food category (such as calcium for dairy, or protein for meat) is required in large amounts for optimum health, then foods which contain those nutrients will be consumed in larger and larger quantities.

Except for a few B-vitamins and protein, calcium is the only major nutrient in milk products. Dairy producers try to “beef up” their products by adding vitamin D and fortifying them with other additives. Yet after all is said and done, even the highly-promoted calcium content of milk may be all for naught.

Studies have shown that the calcium in pasteurized and processed milk products is poorly digested and absorbed and used by the body. Indeed, the calcium in such products may be used more to form “stones” or inorganic deposits in the body instead of being used to build strong bones. Is it mere coincidence that patients prone to kidney stone formation no longer have this problem after eliminating dairy products from their diets?

Still, calcium is an essential mineral for our well-being. In fact, it is the most abundant mineral in our body. Among the elderly, especially women, calcium loss is a real problem. Bones become osteoporotic and brittle. Hip injuries often occur due to demineralization and calcium loss. The solution, however, is not in using milk for calcium, but instead, to avoid those foods which increase our calcium requirements and to consume those foods that supply it in its finest form.

That’s correct. A diet high in meat products and junk foods is the real culprit in calcium loss and calcium deficiencies.

Many foods eaten in the typical American diet are calcium-poor already, such as meat, starches, refined grains, and high-sugar foods. In addition, the majority of these foods are also acid-forming. To neutralize these acids formed by a poor diet, base minerals such as calcium are needed in excess of the body’s normal requirements. Further, the body needs extra calcium and other minerals to metabolize these refined and deficient foods. Moreover, much calcium is deranged and thus unusable when foods are cooked.

When refined foods (already calcium-poor) that are high in acid residues are consumed, calcium needs increase. As a result, we are told to drink large amounts of milk to satisfy the calcium requirements of the twentieth-century diet.

When naturally alkaline foods such as a fresh fruits and vegetables are eaten, calcium needs are lowered because body acidity is lowered. Thus the high calcium recommendations made by nutritionists are not valid for those who follow a natural and unprocessed diet of raw fruits and vegetables.

Writing in his book Superior Nutrition, Dr. Shelton states: “In a condition of markedly lowered alkalinity or so-called acidosis, calcium will not be utilized even though abundant in the diet. Increased alkalinity of the blood increases calcium utilization.” A diet of fresh fruits and vegetables keeps the body in an optimum state of alkalinity for the most efficient use of calcium. Thus, although smaller amounts of calcium may exist in a diet that is free of milk and all animal products, the calcium is actually absorbed by the body at a much higher and efficient rate than in the body of the meat-eating and milk-drinking person.

And if you are a vegetarian that persists in using milk and other dairy products, you should ask yourself why. If there is no nutritional need for dairy foods, then why do you drink the juice (milk) if you refuse to eat the cow?

In fact, pity the poor cow. She is raised for both meat and milk, and sold to consumers with a package of lies for the basest of reasons. And, like the cow, the consumers of this animal and its products are also kept in ignorance by the men who raise and promote the consumption of the beast.

Now ignorance is no excuse. You know that two of the four food groups (Meat and Milk) are never essential for our health and well-being and, in fact, are pathogenic. Protein and calcium needs are real, but these needs can be fully satisfied with a natural diet of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The Staff Of Whose Life?

The third food group contains bread, cereals and other grain products. Is this group just as nonessential as the meat and milk groups? Let’s see why these foods are considered to be so important in the first place.

The chief reason for including grains arid breads as one of the major four food groups is that such foods are thought to furnish us with the B-vitamin complex, as well as vitamin E and (in the case of “fortified” bread) iron.

Whole, unprocessed, and unrefined grains do contain a significant amount of B vitamins. But are such foods otherwise health-promoting and beneficial to eat?

The truth is that whole grains and their derived products are at best “second-rate” foods. In times of famine or when fresh fruits and vegetables cannot be stored or not available, then grains may be used as a temporary food supply. Whole grains, however, are not a complete or optimum food and cannot support life when eaten cooked instead of sprouted.

“The only grain products that are permissable in the diet of an intelligent and informed individual are the whole grains in their natural state. However, grains are inferior articles of food and they certainly form no normal part of the diet of man. Every man, woman, and child in the land would be better off by leaving them out of their diet.”

If you have doubts about Dr. Shelton’s statements, then please look at the case histories of those enthusiastic followers of a macrobiotic diet who have attempted unsuccessfully to live on a 100%-grain diet. Perhaps we should say “ex-followers” since all such attempts to live on a pure grain diet have resulted in poor health or death.

The Basic Four Food Group diet plan does not advocate a total grain diet. Still, why should we be told to eat four servings or more of bread or cereal each day? The reasoning for this recommendation is that the typical American diet consists heavily of sugar and white flour products. These nonfood items actually deplete the body of B vitamins. To get the vitamins back into the body, we are told to eat more breads and cereals.

But the very foods that are recommended, breads and cereals and other flour products, are usually so processed, refined, and cooked that all the B vitamins have been destroyed! The producers of these processed grain products then add artificial B vitamins to the breads and cereals. Of course, as a student of Life Science, you already know how terrible breads and cereals are.

The bread manufacturers also found another way to sell their worthless goods. They started adding iron to the flour so that their processed foods would then be eaten for the iron “content.” Why stop there? Just add some calcium, protein and vitamin C. Then you would supposedly obtain all of your nutritional needs from a delicious loaf of “fortified” white bread!

Unlike the Meat and Milk food groups, the Bread and Grain category of food is not totally worthless or destructive. When grains are sprouted and eaten raw, they are an acceptable addition to the optimum diet. If they are eaten fresh and raw from the field while still in their milky stage (as corn sometimes is), then they are digestible and usable food. Even if they are cooked and used whole and unrefined, the negative effects of these foods are still not as great as meat and milk. But if refined and processed flours and breads are introduced into the diet at four servings per day, they become as destructive to the health of the person as pasteurized milk and roasted flesh.

In summary, we should remember these four points that were made by Dr. Shelton in volume two of his book Orthotrophy:

1. Cereals(breads and grains) do not form any part of the natural diet of man and are not necessary to health and life. Man did not become a grain eater until late in his history.
2. Grain products are best omitted from the diet entirely, especially from the diets of infants and children.
3. When grains are eaten, only the whole and unprocessed grain should be used.

4. In any case, grains, breads, and cereals should form but a small amount of the diet and should be properly balanced and combined with an abundance of green vegetables.

And The Winner Is...

The last group of food items is Fruits and Vegetables. As a student of Life Science, you know that these food items should actually make up 90% to 100% of your daily diet. The Basic Four Food Group diet plan instructs its followers to eat four servings of fruits and vegetables daily. A serving is either one piece of fresh fruit or one fresh vegetable or one-half cup of cooked fruits or vegetables.

Fruits and vegetables are included in the Basic Four Food diet plan in order to supply the needed vitamin A and vitamin C requirements. The developers of the Basic Four Food Group diet plan also advise people to make sure that one of these servings is a dark green or dark yellow vegetable in order to get sufficient amounts of vitamin A into the diet.

There is nothing wrong with these suggestions, except that cooked vegetables or fruits are not healthful, nor are four servings of fresh fruits and vegetables a sufficient amount of food for a person following a healthy diet. Fruits and vegetables should not be merely eaten as vitamin insurance, or to get specific nutrients. They should be included in the diet because they are most suited to man’s digestive physiology and have the highest health-promoting qualities of all foods.

Until only very recently, traditional nutritionists and government spokesmen have always downplayed the importance of fruits and vegetables in the diet. The only worthwhile qualities that these foods had, according to these people, were their vitamin C and vitamin A contents.

Vegetables were mere side-dressing to the bread and meat diet of so many people, and fruits were something for dessert or to bake into pies. For many people today, this attitude toward fresh vegetables and fruits as second-rate foods still exists. To suggest that a complete meal can be made on fruits alone, or upon only one fruit, brings raised eyebrows and disbelieving looks.

Yet students of Life Science and Natural Hygiene have long known that a diet that consists almost entirely of fresh, raw foods from this last food group (Fruits and Vegetables) is not only satisfying but conducive to the highest state of health.

Dr. Shelton strongly advises that “the bulk of each meal should consist of fresh fruits or fresh green vegetables.” This is so for four reasons, according to Dr. Shelton:

1. It prevents the overeating of concentrated foods.
2. It assures an abundant supply of minerals.
3. It provides the highest quality of vitamins.
4. It insures the needed bulk that is necessary for normal peristalsis.

Of course, if your meals should consist chiefly of fresh fruits or vegetables, then the four serving amounts of this food group recommended by the Basic Four diet plan is an absurdly low amount. A person on a well-established all-fruit-and-vegetable diet might eat 20 or more such “servings instead of the four servings suggested by the USDA.

And this brings us to the next question about the Basic Four Food Group Diet plan: Are servings or measured amounts a good way to manage your diet?

Second Helpings, Anyone?

The woman was surrounded by notebooks, cookbooks, measuring cups, and food scales. She was chopping up a raw carrot and weighing the amounts on a scale and then looking at a diet chart.

“I know I’m supposed to have one serving of a yellow vegetable today, but I don’t know if I should eat four ounces of carrots or a half-cup of cut carrots,” she said to me as I visited her.

“Why don’t you eat the whole carrot and just get it over with?” I joked.

She looked serious. “No, I’m going to do this by the book,” she said. “Okay, what’s next?” she asked as she reached for her diet plan. “Let’s see ... four leaves of lettuce or two stalks of celery make one serving of green vegetables”

I left her with her charts and measuring cups. I wondered if she ever figured out what she was supposed to have for lunch before it got to be suppertime.

Do you also try to “eat by the book?” Many diets today, including the Basic Four Food Group diet plan, are arranged into groups and categories and serving amounts. You can eat one serving of this and two servings of that, and three ounces of meat or eight ounces of milk.

Eating by serving amounts is like making love with a stopwatch, and just about as necessary.

If you are eating the proper and natural foods suited for our physiological constitution and biological heritage, then forget all about servings and helpings and quantities. Eat when you’re hungry, eat until you’re satisfied, and don’t eat again until you’re hungry again.

Eating by specified serving amounts is an artificial and meaningless practice. The Basic Four Food Group diet plan recommends these serving amounts so that the person will be “assured” of getting all the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients needed. If you are eating a biologically-correct diet, then such concerns are not needed.

According to Dr. Shelton, “Fresh, uncooked fruits, nuts, and vegetables will supply the body with a super abundance of the known and unknown vitamins, all the minerals, studied and unstudied, with fine sugars, easily-digested fats, and proteins of the highest grade.” You don’t need to eat one serving from this group or two servings from that group.

Just so long as all of your “servings” come from the fresh and wholesome fruit and vegetable group, then eat what you desire and don’t be afraid to reach for “second helpings.”

Does The Four Food Plan Work?

To complete our evaluation of the USDA Four Food Group diet plan, we should see how well or how poorly it delivers what it promises: a balanced and complete diet that satisfies our basic nutritional needs.

Here is one meal that supposedly furnishes “all of the serving amounts for one day,” as recommended by this diet plan:

The “Complete” Nutritional Meal

1. Two cheeseburgers
2. A milkshake
3. One order of french fried potatoes
4. A hot apple turnover

Here’s how this meal breaks down into serving amounts and food groups:

1. Meat Group - Two servings of hamburger patties
2. Milk Group - One serving of cheese and one of milk
3. Bread Group - Four servings of hamburger buns
4. Fruit and Vegetable - Four servings, with one of potatoes, one of apple filling, and two for the lettuce, tomatoes, and onions on the cheeseburgers.

And there you have it. A fast food meal that “meets” all the requirements for one day of nutrition as described by the Four Food Group diet plan.

Of course the USDA did not actually mean that we should eat fast food and junk food to meet their serving requirements, but please note that they did not recommend that such foods not be eaten.

This is another major shortcoming of the Four Food Group Diet plan—there are no provisions for eliminating the really harmful and destructive foods (salt, sugar, cooked fats, white flour, etc.) that are such a large part of the typical diet, and no provisions are made for proper food combining.

Like so many other diets, the Four Food Group diet plan concentrates entirely on what we should eat and how much, and ignores the harmful foods that we should avoid. The best thing that can be said for the Four Food Group approach to nutrition is that it is simple and easy to understand. Even children can divide the foods they eat into basic categories and serving amounts.

But if the categories are all wrong and, the serving amounts are totally meaningless, then what does it matter if anyone can understand the diet plan?

Let’s look at an even easier-to-understand “Basic Four Food Group” diet plan that follows the rules for optimum nutrition.

The Life Science Basic Four Food Group Diet

If you want to divide your diet up into categories and serving amounts, let’s apply your knowledge of an optimum diet to do so. Here are the four food groups that a Life Scientist should be concerned with:

1. Fresh and dried fruits.
2. Raw vegetables (excluding onions, garlic, hot peppers).
3. Raw nuts and seeds.
4. Sprouted grains and legumes.

For Group One (fresh and dried fruits), eat an abundance of servings. Remember that dried fruits are four-times as concentrated as fresh fruits and eat accordingly. Don’t eat servings from this group with any servings from the other three food groups, and combine fruits properly.

For Group Two (raw vegetables), eat a moderate amount of servings. Do not include the irritating vegetables from the onion or hot pepper families, and do not “overeat” from this lower calorie group so that you neglect servings of fresh fruit.

For Group Three (nuts and seeds), eat no more than three to four ounces daily. When eating a serving from this group, make sure you also include servings from Group Two (raw vegetables) as digestion, and assimilation and nutritional benefits are improved when nuts and leafy vegetables are eaten together.

For Group Four (sprouts), eat these at your option and to your taste. Eat other sprouts (lentil, wheat, and other legumes) in more moderate amounts if eaten at all.

Let true hunger dictate the number of “servings” you eat from each of these groups. I suggest you eat no foods that are not in these groups, and avoid all meat, dairy, and processed food products.

You will satisfy all of your nutritional needs if you eat a calorie-sufficient amount of foods from these four groups. Don’t weigh or measure your food and don’t be concerned with serving amounts. Eat food as it is packaged by nature and in amounts according to hunger. You will never make a mistake.

Questions & Answers

A simple question. If the Basic Four food group diet is as bad as you say, then just why is it so popular? It seems like that even with big business interests and government propaganda that people would discover the truth about nutrition.

That’s a very interesting point. After all, we would like to think that the common man has the necessary intelligence and discrimination to know when he is being lied to.

It is a mistake to think that our country’s dietary ills can be blamed entirely on the Basic Four Food Group diet plan. Actually, very few people follow any sort of diet plan—good or bad!

You’ll notice that the Basic Four diet is very, very similar to what the average person eats anyway—a lot of meat and protein, dairy products, refined flours and breads, and so on. Actually, if you just added a fifth group called Salt, Fats, and Junk Foods then you would have the twentieth-century United States diet pinpointed.

That is why the Basic Four diet approach to nutrition has held sway. There was already a strongly established base of support. People eat like that anyway, and so they think the government and the food industries are giving them good advice.

Everybody’s the same: We all like to be told that what we are already doing is right and correct, even if it will eventually kill us in our relative youth.

You talk about the Basic Four diet plan as if everybody in the country knew about it. I’m sixty-three years old, and this is the first time I’ve ever had this concept explained to me. Aren’t you exaggerating about how widespread this notion is?

At the age of sixty-three, you may never have been exposed to this nutritional scheme, but ask your children and grandchildren. They will have heard about the Basic Four Food Groups because it is used as indoctrination for elementary school children. This is the standard, proscribed approach to teaching health and nutrition to school children.

What can we do then? Can we get our schools to teach another approach to nutrition?

Perhaps we are depending too much on public schools. It would probably be far better to leave nutrition teaching out of the curriculum entirely since the traditional and conservative approach to this subject that is always taken by schools simply perpetuates misinformation and institutionalizes error.

Don’t forget that schools teach children what parents want them to know! What do you think the reaction would be if a teacher told a classroom of eight-year-olds that milk was not only unnecessary for health and growth, but actually harmful? The parents would have the teacher’s scalp if their children were taught any nutritional information that conflicted with the family’s normal eating practices.

That’s why the Basic Four diet will be taught in our public school system for some time to come: It simply reflects the traditional diet eaten in this country. It doesn’t “rock the boat” and it is a nonthreatening approach to nutrition.

Never mind that it is a completely wrong approach or that it perpetuates ignorance which will undermine the health of every person who follows its advice. It’s what we’re used to, and heaven help the person or teacher who is courageous enough to expose its fallacies, dangers, and lies.

As a parent, you can only work mightily to overcome the nutritional propaganda and nonsense thrown out in the name of education. Please teach your children and grandchildren the sensible alternatives to the Basic Four diet plan.

Article #1: Should We Drink Milk? by Dr. Alec Burton

Hygienists have always adopted the position that milk is for infants, mother’s milk that is, and that this is the normal practice among all mammals. During the initial phase of life it is the invariable practice of all mammalian species to take the milk of their mothers following which they are weaned. Then they spend the remainder of their life sustained by other foods. Man, on the contrary, teaches that milk is an ideal food, essentially cow’s milk, and that after mother has performed her nursing, the cow should take over. In his feeding of infants, man has produced all types of formulae and means to usurp the natural habit of breast-feeding. Man even includes milk in the diet of his mammalian pets.

Many women regard breast-feeding as culturally regressive and primitive, something one should abandon as quickly as possible. They say it ruins their figure, that their breasts become atonic and pendulous. Such remarks are unfounded and other factors are responsible yet seldom considered.

It is normal in Nature for the mammal to breast-feed well past the time the infant obtains a mouth full of teeth, not just a few teeth but all teeth. Species of apes nurse for six or seven months although their first teeth have appeared at the end of three months. With mammals there is a wide variation in the transition period and in many weaning takes place over a long period of time.

However, should milk constitute an integral part of the diet after weaning? Is milk a normal food for adults? The answer to both these questions is an unequivocal no!

Milk and milk products such as cheese and yogurt are viewed with suspicion by Hygienists. What are the unfavorable attributes of milk? Today milk is very much a processed product. It is pasteurized, homogenized, sterilized and otherwise treated to render it “safe.” All these processes greatly impair its nutritional value.

Besides all this, strong evidence indicates that gastric juice of adults does not contain rennin, an enzyme abundant in the stomach of infants which initiates the digestion of milk. The protein and fat of milk is constituted in such a way that enzymes of the human digestive tract fail to digest it adequately—some of the elements are absorbed intact and cause trouble.

Milk also contains a high content of cholesterol and so has been a factor in the development of coronary artery disease. Many people observe the quick action taken by the body when milk is consumed; much mucus is secreted or diseases associated with the mucous membranes—asthma, sinusitis, bronchitis, etc.—are aggravated. Milk is said to be a “mucus forming” food. While I don’t favor this description, I do suggest that the presence of milk and milk products in the body may occasion greater mucosal activity.

Milk is often considered a major source of the vital element calcium: the myth is that if we don’t drink milk, our teeth will fall out and our bones collapse, or some such nonsense. The fact is that calcium is abundant in Nature. Most of the foods (fruits, vegetables and nuts) we recommend are excellent sources of calcium. It would have to be a very poor diet indeed that did not supply half a gram of calcium daily. A good Hygienic diet provides over one gram.

It is extremely doubtful that we can utilize any of the calcium in milk in any event. The calcium in milk is bound to its protein complement, casein. Without the key enzyme, rennin, neither casein nor its nutrient complement, calcium, can be used in the digestive system.

Milk forms no part of the normal diet of man after the period of infancy and therefore our advice is—don’t drink milk or eat milk products.

Reprinted from the Hygienic Review

Article #2: Hygienic Considerations in the Selections of Foods by Ralph C. Cinque, D.C.

The selection of foods for optimum health requires that many factors be considered, including nutrient content, ease of mastication, deglutition, digestion, absorption and assimilation, presence or absence of irritants, the amount of vegetable fiber (which could be too little in the case of refined foods, or too much in the case of mature kale), gustatory satisfaction to the unperverted taste, and the effect on blood alkalinity. An ideal food would contain a broad array of nutrients, would be delicious, would contain a moderate amount of fiber, would be easy to eat and digest in the raw state, would possess no irritants or digestive antagonists and would leave an alkaline ash after metabolism. Applying these criteria, we find that there are virtually no perfect foods. Most fruits and vegetables, for example, contain at least minute amounts of oxalic acid, which is a mild irritant and which has a binding effect on calcium.

Tannic acid is contained in the skins of some nuts (particularly almonds) and this, too, is a mild irritant. Lettuce is said to contain lactucarium, a mildly toxic alkaloid with soporific effects. This is particularly true of head lettuce. Beans contain trypsin inhibitors, aflatoxins and purine bodies which raise serum uric acid levels. Grains contain much phytic acid which binds minerals like zinc and iron, impairing their utilization by the body. It should be obvious that perfect foods (like perfect health) are a theoretical ideal, not a reality.

From a Hygienic standpoint, there are three major tenets that guide us in the selection of foods. These tenets enable us to construct a diet that is philosophically and physiologically ideal for the human species. We will admit beforehand that due to various anatomical and physiological weaknesses and defects, not everyone can adhere to the philosophical dietary ideal with complete success. However, before alterations and deletions are made, it is important that we determine what constitutes an ideal diet, a truly natural diet, and then be guided accordingly. Our three major tenets are that:

1. Whole foods are superior to fragmented and refined foods.
2. Raw foods are superior to cooked foods.
3. Plant foods are superior to animal foods.

These three principles summarize Hygienic philosophy regarding food selection, and we will expound upon each in turn.

The Superiority of Whole Foods

The fact that whole natural foods are superior to refined foods such as white sugar, white flour, polished rice, requires no substantiation to the readers of this article. However we must emphasize that any fragmenting of whole food destroys nutrients and lessens the suitability of that food as an article of diet. Whole carrots contain more complete nourishment than carrot juice. Brown rice is better food than rice polishings. Whole wheat is superior to wheat germ. Consider the following experiment conducted by Weston A. Price, D.D.S., the renowned author of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

“Three cages of rats were placed on wheat diets. The first cage received whole wheat, freshly ground, the second received a white flour product, and the third was given a mixture of bran and wheat germ. The amounts of each ash, of calcium as the oxide, and of phosphorus as the pentoxide and the amounts of iron and copper present in the diet were tabulated. Clinically, it was found that there was a marked difference in the

physical developments of these rats. The rats in the first group, receiving the entire grain product, developed fully and reproduced normally at three months of age. These rats had very mild dispositions and could be picked up by the ear or tail without danger of their biting. The rats fed upon white flour were markedly undersized. Their hair came out in large patches and they had very ugly dispositions, so ugly that they threatened to spring through the cage wall at us when we came to look at them. These rats had tooth decay and they were unable to reproduce. The rats fed upon bran and wheat germ did not show tooth decay, but they were considerably undersized and they lacked energy. The wheat germ was purchased from the miller and hence was not freshly ground. The wheat given to the first group was obtained whole and ground while fresh in a hand mill. It is of interest that notwithstanding the great increase in calcium, phosphorus, iron and copper present in the foods of the last group, the rats did not mature normally, as did those in the first group. This may have been due in large part to the fact that the material was not freshly ground, and as a result they could not obtain a normal vitamin content from the embryo of the grain due to its oxidation. This is further indicated by the fact that the rats in this group did not reproduce, probably due in considerable part to a lack of vitamins B and E which were lost by oxidation of the embryo or germ fat.”

This account demonstrates how important it is to distinguish between the nutrient content of a food and its overall biological effect. It has been shown repeatedly that eating wheat bran impedes iron absorption, despite the fact that it contains abundant iron. This may be the result of mechanical factors, or, perhaps it is the result of the high phytate content of the bran. In any case, it proves that foods cannot be evaluated solely on the basis of mathematical tables of nutrient analysis.

At first glance fragmented foods may seem to be more nourishing than whole foods. Dried apricots, for example, score much higher in calcium and iron than do fresh apricots. Quite obviously, if we extract the water from the apricots, we can triple or quardruple the number of fruits we are comparing, and thereby score higher nutrient values. This seeming enhancement is, of course, a figment of the mind. Whole foods offer the most complete nutrition. Powdered whey is a nutritional shadow of whole milk. Extracted chlorophyll is a lifeless fraction of green leaves. Lecithin granules are a denatured fragment of soybeans. These various extracts and concentrates are inferior to the whole natural foods they supposedly improve upon. Processing incurs drastic nutrient losses as a result of heat, oxidation, chemicals, and enzymatic destruction. It is correct to say that these foods have been devitalized. Only whole natural foods contain the amount and proportion of nutrients that the body requires. Only whole natural foods are acceptable in a Hygienic diet.

The Superiority of Raw Foods

Although some foods seem to be rendered more digestible by cooking, it is a fact that most foods are rendered less digestible. Furthermore, any food that is difficult to eat and digest uncooked is not a normal constituent of humanity’s natural diet. Cooking partially or totally destroys the nutrient content of food. Water-soluble vitamins, like ascorbic acid and pantothenic acid, are particularly susceptible to thermal destruction, but it is to some extent true of all vitamins. What may be more important, however, is the fact that cooking alters the proportions of the various vitamins contained in foods. For example, cooking alters the natural ratio between thiamine and niacin in foods. This occurs because thiamine is readily destroyed by moist heat, whereas niacin is more resistant. Therefore, cooking not only lowers the vitamin content of foods, it also modifies vitamin ratios, which are a very important feature of whole foods.

Minerals may be rendered nonusable by the body as a result of cooking. A good example of this is the effect that pasteurization has upon milk. The complex organic salts of calcium and magnesium, in conjunction with carbon and phosphorus, are decomposed by heat, resulting in the precipitation of insoluble calcium phosphate salts. These inor-

ganic salts are not assimilable by the body. This is one of the reasons why dental decay has reached epidemic proportions among milk-guzzling Americans.

Cooking tends to deaminize proteins and denature their secondary and tertiary configurations. With the exception of egg whites and certain dried legumes, they are rendered more difficult to digest by cooking. Subjecting fats to heat, produces toxic cyclic hydrocarbons and free fatty acids, both of which are highly irritating. Heated fats and oils have been shown, by countless experiments, to be highly carcinogenic. No informed person will consume heated fats in any form.

Cooking causes a great loss of the soluble minerals in foods and drives off part of the food into the air as gases (this is particularly true of sulphur and iodine). Cooking softens vegetable fiber which may hamper intestinal motility and promote fermentation and putrefaction. Although cooking adds to the palatability of some foods (e.g., yams, asparagus, zucchini, grains), most foods are rendered less palatable by cooking, which gives rise to the use of unwholesome flavorings, condiments, dressings, etc.

On the basis of these considerations and others, a diet, in order to be considered Hygienic, would have to consist of at least predominantly uncooked foods.

The Superiority of Plant Foods

This category could also be designated the detrimental effects of animal foods. All animal products (with the exception of mother’s milk) have certain negative features which make their dietary use questionable. Consider, first of all, the effect that animal foods have upon protein consumption. Even modest use of meat, fish, eggs and dairy foods tends to create a protein overload and this is one of the most dangerous dietary excesses. Research has shown that high-protein diets actually promote aging and early degeneration. Too much protein exerts a tremendous burden upon the liver and kidneys. It also leaves acid residues in the blood and tissues which must be neutralized by sacrificing indispensable alkaline mineral reserves. The process of aging is characterized by the transfer of calcium from the bones to the soft tissues, that is, to the arteries (arteriosclerosis), to the ureters (kidney stones), to the skin (wrinkles), to the joints (osteoarthritis), to the valves of the heart (producing frozen shoulder) and to other sites. This, course, leaves the skeleton osteoporotic, leading to the development of stooped posture, a kyphotic spine, spontaneous fractures and other maladies that are so common to the elderly. High-protein diets (due to the accumulation of phosphoric, sulphuric, uric and other acids) accelerate this demineralization of bone and bring about calcific deposits on the soft tissues.

One could argue that nuts and seeds contain as much protein as meats, eggs, etc., and therefore they are as likely to create an excess. However, most people are easily satisfied eating a few ounces of nuts or seeds every day, whereas few people will eat just a few ounces of yogurt. Restaurants serve up to a pound of meat at a sitting, along with other foods. Cottage and ricotta cheese is eaten in huge quantities, even by vegetarians. The simple truth is that animal proteins tend to promote overeating moreso than do plant proteins.

The relationship between high-protein diets and cancer has been clearly established by studying both animal and human populations. Remember that cancerous cells are characterized by run-away protein synthesis and rapid cellular division. Protein synthesis is accelerated by increased protein intake, so it is not surprising to discover that cancer bears a close tie to excess protein. There is a direct correlation between the amount of protein in the diet and the incidence of cancer on a worldwide basis. Americans, Australians and West Europeans, who ingest the largest amounts of protein, also have the greatest incidence of cancer, whereas the rural Chinese, the East Indians and native peoples of Latin America have the lowest cancer incidence. This is no casual relationship and it cannot be written off by blaming it on the “stress of modern life.”

Animal products are loaded with the worst kind of fat—saturated, cholesterol-laden animal fat. A mountain of evidence has been accumulated relating high animal fat intakes with the development of cardiovascular disease (which is characterized by the deposition of saturated fat and cholesterol in the intimal layer of arteries), and many different maligancies including breast cancer, colon and rectal cancers, and cancer of the liver. Even such diverse conditions as multiple sclerosis and diabetes have been related to the consumption of animal fats. As we have already stated, heated animal fats have been shown to be even more carcinogenic, and considering that Americans take all of their flesh, milk and eggs well cooked, it’s no wonder that one in four eventually succumbs to cancer. Pandemically, those peoples who subsist on low-fat, low-protein, largely vegetarian, unrefined diets demonstrate the greatest resistance to cancer. The incidence of cancer and heart disease among the American Seventh Day Adventists is approximately half the national average. This is quite remarkable considering that only about half of this group are thought to be vegetarian.

Flesh, fish, yogurt and cheese contain various putrefactive products resulting from their bacterial decomposition. Putting partially-spoiled food in the body can hardly be considered a Hygienic practice, despite the arguments of the fermented food enthusiasts. Flesh also contains considerable quantities of the end products of metabolism (like uric acid) which are held up in the tissues at the time of death. These wastes are poisonous, irritating and burdensome to the body. Consider the fact that animal products tend to be reservoirs for pesticides, herbicides, and various other drugs and inorganic contaminants—there are many good reasons to avoid using them. Certainly, a Hygienic diet would contain no more than small amounts of animal food—better yet, none.

There are just five classes of foods that meet all the criteria established by our three, major, tenets. These are: fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and sprouts. A diet comprised of these foods would abound in every nutrient known to be required by humans, with the exception of vitamin B-12, and most people apparently derive enough of this from bacterial synthesis in the intestines. However, we should note that soil bacteria also produces B-12 on the surface of roots so that adding stringy roots grown in organic soil (with abundant microbial activity) to the diet would constitute a pre-made plant source of B-12 that would be a perfectly acceptable addition to a Hygienic diet. Supermarket vegetables would not be adequate for this purpose.

We should note, in closing, that adding to the diet some cooked food (like baked potatoes and brown rice) or limited amounts of animal foods (such as uncooked, un-salted cheese), although not strictly Hygienic, may be required in some pathological conditions. Certain people would experience a drastic and undesirable weight loss were they to make an immediate transition to a 100% uncooked, all-plant food diet. For these people, eating a baked potato now and then represents not a mere compromise but rather a necessary modification of their Hygienic regimen.

Quoting Dr. Alec Burton, “We must adapt the system to the needs of the individual and not adapt the individual to the needs of the system.” With this acknowledged let us state, in conclusion, that a diet, in order to be considered Hygienic, would have to consist predominantly (if not exclusively) of uncooked foods, of vegetable origin, eaten whole.

Reprinted from Dr. Shelton's Hygienic Review.

Article #3: Eat Your Heart Out, Galloping Gourmet by Cary Fowler

Al Krebs of the Agribusiness Accountability Project tells a story about a scene from a popular TV show. “A Fernwood, Ohio, housewife is preparing a packaged pineapple filling pie for her family. As she pours the rather grotesque contents of a can of pineapple filling into the pie pan her sister Kathy, who is watching the process, wonders aloud where the pineapple is.”

“The housewife reads the contents as they appear on the label. Amidst the various acids and flavorings and sugar, no mention is made of pineapple except in the advertising on the label.”

“She pauses and, looking at her sister questioningly, remarks: ‘I don’t see any pineapple listed here.’ Kathy replied: ‘They don’t make food out of food anymore.’ The housewife asked: ‘What do they do with food, if they don’t make food out of it?’”

That’s a good question! Eating is a personal activity all people share. At its core, eating is an emotional experience tying us to our home and upbringing and to the larger society and time in which we live. Yet today, control over nourishment is slipping from our fingers. Decisions about the type, form and quality of food we eat are no longer ours to make.

Control over our nation’s food system has shifted from people like you and me to an economically-concentrated food industry. The dazzling array of food products available at the modern supermarket gives the impression of a vibrant, competitive food industry. We naturally assume that such products as Wyler soup mixes, Borden cheeses, Drake’s cookies, Wise potato chips, Cracker Jacks, Bama jellies, ReaLemon and Kava coffee are made by separate companies, while in fact they are just a few of the many products made by one corporation—Borden.

Likewise, Maxwell House, Brim, Yuban and Sanka coffees, Post cereals, Stove-Top stuffing, Calumet baking powder, Bisquick, Shake ‘n Bake, Jell-O, Cool-Whip, Baker’s Chocolate and Kool-Aid are all made by General Foods, who also owns Burger Chef. Heinz’s 57 varieties have mushroomed to over 1,200.

Of the 1,500 new items made available to the supermarket chains by such corporations each year only a few will reach your grocer’s shelf—those that are highly advertised, those with fast turnover and those with the most attractive profit margins. Competition for shelf space is fierce. Initial decisions about what we will have to eat are made by the supermarket chains when they divvy up their shelf space. And these decisions are based on different values than we ourselves would apply to such a crucial matter as what we eat.

More often than not, the result is one row of fresh fruits and vegetables and ten or twelve rows of boxes and cans. The magazine of the world’s largest agribusiness company, the Dutch-based Unilever Corporation (Lipton tea, Good Humor ice cream, Wish Bone salad dressing, Mrs. Butter-worth’s syrup, Imperial margarine and others) bluntly sized things up when it conceded that “... the return on investment in the basic nutrition business isn’t exactly promising.” This goes a long way towards explaining why the airwaves are full of commercials for french fries and potato chips rather than raw potatoes for baking at home.

Will an Apple a Day Keep the Doctor Away?

As control over our food system has changed hands, alarming shifts in consumption patterns have occurred. From 1950 to 1970 per capita consumption of fresh fruit dropped 26%. Americans ate more sugar than vegetables by weight in 1970. Soft drink sales doubled. Fortunately, a recent study showed that salad bars are becoming increasingly popular, creating a new demand for fresh vegetables, but people still don’t eat enough of them, considering that they usually cook those that aren’t in their salads.

A Department, of Agriculture study has concluded that better diets might reduce diabetes problems by 50 percent, heart disease by 20 percent, obesity by 80 percent, alcoholism by 33 percent and intestinal cancer by 20 percent. Recently studies have linked as much as 50 percent of the cases of hyperactivity in children to the heavy doses of synthetic colorings and flavorings in food.

The Divorce of Food from Nutrition

The individual should scarcely shoulder all the blame for the declining quality of the American diet. Few people with proper regard for “food the way Mother used to cook it” could be accused of having demanded the kinds of food they now eat. The deterioration of food and the divorce of food from nutrition parallels the growth in corporate control over food production and distribution. .Today nearly 75 percent of all food manufacturing assets are controlled by just 50 corporations.

Local, small farmers who once supplied our towns and cities with truly delicious produce have been pushed out of business. Today’s supermarket produce, shipped-in from huge corporate farms in Florida or California, is a far cry in quality, taste and price from the locally-grown products we once had.

Our relation to food is no longer our relation to nature or even to local farmers and neighborhood grocery stores. We relate to food through the new suppliers. Food (most of it, that is) may still come from the good earthy but only after it has passed through the fingers of a General Foods or a Del Monte. Food has thus become just another commodity to be manufactured, altered, packaged and sold like toothpaste or razor blades. Food is no longer simply food.

Manufacturers use television to teach us that certain foods, like other commodities, can “add life,” make you an Olympic athlete or help your love life. By falsely attributing such capabilities to food in order to self high-profit items, the crucial, age-old link between food and our true physical needs has been severed. Shall our food provide nutrition or shall it “add life?” Why should we make our own spaghetti sauce when we can buy the brand that will “take you back to old Italy?”

The modern American diet evidences a deep-seated frustration and no small degree of confusion about food and its proper place in our lives. The way in which people prepare and serve food says a lot about how they regard themselves and others. It tells us something about the spirit of a society and the quality of life, for food is life.

Golden arches, colonels, doughboys and a host of other gimmicks have partially succeeded in distracting us from what is happening to our food. But for those of us who can remember what a truly good meal tasted like, and can remember the warmth and intimacy which came with sitting down at the table to enjoy it with family or friends, a silent anger remains at the travesty. The, temple, we sense, has been profaned by the money changers.

Living and eating are forever a matter of politics. We can have any kind of food policy and any kind of agricultural program we want. We can decide to eat only hamburgers and sugar, throw our good food in the ocean, starve the poor and save one or two family farmers to use as museum exhibits.

Or we can decide that food, being a necessity, should also be a right, that we need family farmers to produce good food and we don’t need the middle men engaged in destroying and polluting it. We might even decide we don’t ed to have ourselves and our children indoctrinated by commercials which teach us “good” buying habits in the place of good eating habits.

Jim Hightower, author of Eat Your Heart Out, got right to the point when he said: “Food cannot be assembled like a telephone and there is no reason it should be. If anything ought to be real in our lives, ought to be left to nature rather than being simulated by corporate technicians, it is food. Monopolisitic conglomerates cannot make our telephones work; why should they be arrogant enough to think that they can handle dinner? More to the point, why should we be dumb enough to let them?”

Reprinted from a pamphlet by Agricultural Marketing Project