by
Morton Walker, D.P.M.
Extract from: The Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients

Catastrophic is how most health educators probably would describe the lack of wellbeing and vigor of people residing in Western industrialized nations. The World Health Organization classifies the United States as the twentieth healthiest nation. About one-fifth of all Americans suffer from some form of degenerative disease such as arthritis, glaucoma, emphysema, kidney disease, liver cirrhosis, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, asthma, or some other serious illness.

In all parts of the industrialized world, heart disease and cancer together are claiming the lives of nearly 75 percent of populations despite monumental advances in science. While diverse opinions exist for such negative statistics relating to human health, we do know with certainty that just a century ago many of the illnesses affecting us today were either rare or nonexistent.

The subsequent questions relating to the conundrum of industrialized populations which deserve answers are: why are people who live under the umbrella of technology so sick? What are we doing wrong? How may we correct our inadequacies? If found, can the answer be enlisted quickly? Answers to these questions make up the bulk of the information offered in this article.

A Historical Perpective on Health and Nutrition

The lifestyles of our ancestors kept them free from the modern maladies that currently plague people. Yes, there was much less environmental pollution in the past, and the food quality was definitely fresher and more nourishing then. It’s logical to conclude that the consumption of fresh and more nourishing food is a factor in the retention of good health.

Even today, we see that people who reside in isolated areas and eat a somewhat primitive diet that’s less refined routinely live to be octogenarians (80+ years of age). A lifespan to one hundred years of age and beyond is not so infrequent. There is no secret to the centenarians’ longevity. The one common denominator shared by long-lived cultures such as the Ecuadorian Vilcabambans of the high Andes, the Georgians of the new Russia, and the Hunzas on the steppes of Pakistan is their consumption and absorption of massive amounts of "living" enzyme-rich, nutrient-dense foods, most of all including large amounts of vegetation.

In November 1982, I was the medical journalist who reported findings by a scientific expedition which spent two weeks in Ecuador investigating the centenarians of Vilcabamba. During this period I saw that Los Viejos (the old ones) took in from five to fifteen times the amount of nutrients as are eaten by most North Americans twenty years ago and definitely today. The food and water consumption of those old ones had been monitored and measured diligently then by the expedition’s investigators, and my wife Joan recorded their findings. She was the scientists’ secretary, who also gathered hair tissue samples from the elderly subjects being examined.

Upon our return to the United States two weeks later, Joan and I provided soil, food, water, and the hair tissue samples of Los Viejos for laboratory analysis by Mineralab, Inc., located in Hayward, California. The president of Mineralab then was the renown wholistic physician, Garry F. Gordon, M.D., D.O., now of Payson, Arizona. From Dr. Gordon’s evaluations I was able to confirm that Los Viejos remained inordinately healthy and long-lived because they usually consumed great quantities of water drawn from pristine mountain streams, at least twelve servings of organically-grown vegetables, fresh-picked fruits, whole grains, and various lactofermented foods which had been predigested by a variety of microorganisms. In the modern lexicon, nutritionists currently call such beneficial bacteria probiotics.

As a result of explorations among the Vilcabambans, I subsequently wrote and saw published nine clinical journal and magazine articles plus a small book about their practices. My journalistic efforts revealed that the long-lived inhabitants of Vilcabamba truly are what they eat and drink. The content of their hair tissues exactly matched what they took into their mouths. Those several long-ago laboratory analyses undertaken by Dr. Garry Gordon had proven this. Based on his findings Dr. Gordon now utilizes a product called Perfect FoodÔ to clinically supply concentrated nutrition for his patients. The accumulated informations about the old ones of Vilcabamba I had uncovered at the time are published in my 1983 46-page, perfect-bound mongraph, Secrets of Long Life.1

The Status of Modern-Day Health

It’s estimated by the United States Department of Agriculture that less than 91Ú2 percent of the American adult population consumes five or more servings of fresh fruits and vegetables daily. Yet, almost every major health organization, including the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the American Dietetics Association, and the American Heart Association have advised that eating five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables per day is the public’s best protection against degenerative diseases.

While in appointed office, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, M.D., had recommended consuming a minimum of five fruit and vegetable servings each day. In no way can such an eating program be carried out and still conform to today’s convenience-oriented, fast-food and fast-paced society. Rather, men and women from all walks of life continue to run in pursuit of disease-producing practices.

From their measurements, nutritionists tell us that an adult living in North America or Europe consumes approximately 4.8 pounds of food daily. In an eighty-year lifetime, therefore, about 70 tons of edibles pass through the average person’s stomach—an immense quantity to consume and process. It’s no wonder that some folk with nutrient absorption problems or other gastrointestinal difficulties are adversely affected by environmental pollutants such as automobile exhaust, excessive sun, factory particulates, cigarette smoke, plus additional sources of atherogens, carcinogens, and allergens.

So we already know some answers to why high-tech populations come down with massive amounts of illnesses. The technology under which they live does nothing to preserve their health; instead, it actually adds pollutants and has their physical selves succumb to immune system weaknesses. Even so, inadequacies in sick people can be corrected and still viable consumers can take the required steps to prevent physical, emotional, and mental breakdowns. And they can do it speedily. The corrective action demanded is that one must ingest the best available nutrition.

Corrective Treatment and/or Preventive Maintenance

A method exists by which people may acquire full servings of the most excellent food on the face of the Earth. Corrective treatment and/or preventive maintenance can be gained by ingesting fruits and vegetables in the form of green superfood drinks and caplets. Such green superfoods are far superior in nourishment potential than any individual or collective vitamin and/or mineral pill.

A researcher at the University of Minnesota who specializes in studying the effects of enzymes that ward off cancer, Lee Wattenberg, Ph.D., has confirmed the value of taking in quantities of green superfoods each day. Dr. Wattenberg’s confirmation regarding the value of green superfoods was delivered in conjunction with the following summarizing statement. He said:

"Every vegetable, every fruit, has literally hundreds of constituents—any protection is likely due to a combination rather than a single chemical."2

Green drinks are the superfoods that may be considered nutritional life insurance when they are taken as green food powder added to liquid or as green food powder incorporated into caplets. Just such green superfoods should be taken daily with a diet that includes as many other superfoods as possible such as leafy greens, spirulina, cayenne pepper, garlic, onions, most types of seeds, turmeric, wheat grass and many others.3

As the means of reinforcing Dr. Wattenberg’s quote about green, superfoods, internationally known lecturer and researcher in the field of optimal human health and nutrition, Sam Graci of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada, concurs. He says:4

Trying to make one chemical into a pill is counterproductive as a quick-fix formula. Do not look for someone to cram a garden full of phytochemicals into a pill. Get them the old-fashioned way, one meal at a time! Vitamin-mineral supplements have their place in this dietary strategy, but they can never take the place of nature’s powerful bounty of nutrients found in Superfoods.


References

1. Walker, M. Secrets of Long Life. (Port Chester, New York: Devin-Adair Publishing, Inc., 1983).

2. Graci, S. The Power of Superfoods. (Scarborough, Ontario, Canada: Prentice Hall Canada, 1997), p. 41.

3. Heinerman, J. Nature’s Super Medicines: The Seven Essential Ingredients for Optimal Health. (Paramus, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1997).

4. Op cit., Graci, S., p. 41.

5. Stanford, R. What Your Aura Tells Me. (New York City: Pocket Books, 1977), pp. 34 & 35.

© Copyright 2001 by Dr. Morton Walker

 © 1983-2002 Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients
All Rights Reserved.