Are there many people who have this nutritional deficit? In fact, all population of developed countries whose diet is so good according to scientific recommendations suffers from the lack of nutrients.
Less developed countries are striving to reach this nutritional "wellness". Even food can be prestigious. But it does not mean that the prestige coincides with healthiness...
Recently French scientists made an experiment that has a particular interest for naturists: they put the data on chemical composition of regular French foods in memory of the computer. The computer "knew" the prescribed scientific norms of protein, fat, carbohydrates (sugar and starch), vitamins and minerals (macro- and microelements). The task of the machine was to determine if French diet provides not only tasty cuisine but is also healthy and meets the requirements of nutritional science. In the first variant the number of calories recommended for an average
adult Frenchman was 2500, in the second variant daily intake made up 2000 calories for senior people. In the first case despite all efforts the wise computer managed to cover only 80 per cent of all nutritional needs of an average person. In the second case - only 50 per cent...
It doesn't mean that only French cuisine is so bad. Let us better think of those who don't have such a great variety of products and therefore have even less vitamins and microelements in their diet. What kind of health do we want to have when each year we produce more refined foods that contain less vitamins and fiber? Fibrous substances (unassimilable polysaccharides) were previously depreciatingly called "ballast substances". Even now the promotions of black bread, which contains a little bit more fiber (bran), is almost ineffective.
The current textbooks for medical institutes recommend 25 gram fiber for an adult person pro day. They claim that the daily intake of this amount is enough for health. But it is already clear for the scientists that this number must be tripled. According to the data of Proctology Institute of Health Ministry, about 40 per cent of adult able-bodied citizens suffer from constipations due to low fiber intake. That is why such diseases as diverticulosis, polyposis, carcinoma of large intestine, hiatal hernia and hemorrhoids are quite common among population. Moreover, the fiber deficit contributes to arteriosclerosis, diabetes and gallstone disease.
Stay in the drugstore for some time and try to listen to what people ask for. You'll notice that it will be mostly buckthorn bark and other laxatives. The production and the sale of wheat bran as a food additive have just begun. It is still necessary to set hygienic requirements for such products and educate people how to use them correctly. Nutritional science believes that it is important to introduce a complex program on food vitaminization. Vitamin additives, convenience and prepared foods are supposed to improve health of the nation. But is it reasonable first to refuse healthy and natural food, which contains all nutritional elements, and then try to correct this mistake?
So, the sentence passed by scientists on nutrition of civilized people deals with three aspects: the food fails to provide enough vitamins, minerals and fiber (called also cellulose). Naturists found the easiest solution of this problem. Not waiting for realization of scientific recommendations they returned to the natural food; and their basic diet elements are raw salads that solve the deficit problem of these three components. Raw food contains in abundance those substances that are insufficient in the diet of modern civilized people.
However, we eat what has been traditionally offered by agriculture and food industry for centuries. And we will do so until we feel the need for change. Naturopaths (or natural hygienists as they call themselves) believe that nutritional recommendations made by mass media have the only purpose to sell a product. American naturist H. Shelton writes in "Orthotrophy" that this harmful propaganda makes people blind and makes them as before cook food to satisfy their gustatory senses. He regarded these recommendations as a crime.
Vegetarians, who keep sometimes also half-raw diet, and raw foodists do not confirm the basic principles of world "orthodox" nutritional science. Instead, they prove the opposite. What does the science do when attacked by "inconvenient facts"? It tries to defend its old attitudes! For example, a professor from Nutritional Institute of Academy of Medical Science, writing about statistical data on adult vegetarians in the USA notes that 2 % of them suffer from hypertension (while among people of the same age on "normal" diet there are 26 % of hypertensive patients! ) and tries to scare the reader with vegetarian diet, deliberately presenting it as a standard diet which has no variations. He claims that unlike vegetarian nutrition "scientific diet" can be individualized and adjusted to the unique body of every individual.
The professor writes: "Often people simply imitate the lifestyle of one or another long-liver. For example, they become vegetarians referring to the experience of Leo Tolstoy and other famous people. But one should consider that longevity could result from happy coincidence of individual qualities of the body and the chosen type of diet..."
All this means only one thing: does it worth risking? But don't we know that in the USA even in 1970
there were three millions of vegetarians according to national statistics? Three millions of "happy coincidences"? This is statistical data that should be taken into consideration, and then we can leave alone Leo Tolstoy and Bernard Show.
Alexander Chuprun, 1991
|
