Does Bacterial Food Safety Equal Health-Giving Food?
Have you noticed that almost every “fresh” fruit and vegetable juice you consume is no longer fresh, does not taste that good, and is absent of most of its nutrient value? They look fresh! But they have been pasteurized or irradiated under the mandates created by health-department officials to eliminate microbes. Health-officials are pushing to mandate that all fresh produce be irradiated in the name of food-safety. What does that mean to us as consumers? Let’s take a look at a different view on food-safety that will come as a paradigm-shift for most of you. It is likely to change your perspective on nature, the environment and life. . Hopefully, you will develop a new trust and faith that relaxes and eliminates fears that have been conditioned into most of us since birth, extolled by theorists to academics, and on to the media and government.
The birth of food-safety. Around 1890 Louis Pasteur made it popular to blame molds and bacteria for disease because he proved that heat-processing slowed food-spoilage and lengthened shelf-life. This concept became an economic boon for the food industry. During the following century, as a direct result, the prevailing medical theory was that bacteria and viruses were the cause of disease. Since then, besides pasteurization other methods have been developed to annihilate microbes in food. These methods include irradiation, freezing, chemical additives and washes, such as ascorbic acid, chlorine and hydrogen peroxide. All of these processes slow food-spoilage for particular foods and give them false appearances of freshness. Now, over a century later, we continually wage an immeasurable war against bacteria and viruses in our kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, restaurants, schools, supermarkets, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, and inside and outside of our bodies. Naming only a few, we use antibacterial mouth-washes, soaps, douches. air-fresheners, dish cloths, towels, diapers, treated toys, and rugs. It’s time to evaluate the results and cost of this continual, and continually escalating war. The estimated cost for antibacterial products per household is $3,000 per year. In the battle against bacteria, federal, state and county agencies in the U.S.A. spend an estimated 4 trillion dollars per year (estimates I gained from Center for Disease Control, federal and county figures published currently on the internet). That's approximately an astounding $10,000 for every American household. This figure, combined with the average expenditure per household, raises the total household expenditure for social bacterial warfare to $13,000 yearly. Many families could pay their mortgages in a few years with that money.
What is food-safety? In the broadest sense, it is the ideal that food is not only health-giving but also harmless.
Copyright 2005 Aajonus Vonderplanitz, All Rights Reserved To health officials it means food without “pathogens” (def: any agent capable of producing disease).
Does food have health-giving properties? Many scientists, famous and not, have proved that vitamins and enzymes are paramount to proper bodily functions and good health, and that deficiencies manifest in diseases.
Does using antibacterial technologies interfere with the health-giving properties of food? Research throughout the world shows that heat-treatment of food alters, damages, or destroys many vitamins at the standard pasteurization temperature of 161° F. (65° C.). Also that all enzymes are destroyed at 122° F. (50° C.). Furthermore, the actual temperature that cripples some vitamins and enzymes is as low as 104° F. (39° C.) The loss of mineral-utilization due to cauterization (burn-sealed by heat or caustic substance) by heat-treatment is significant. Many scientists have proved that heat-processing renders toxins from proteins and fats in food, such as heterocyclic amines (an organic caustic compound formed from ammonia) and lipid-peroxides (an oily oxidizing organic compound), which have been observed to cause cancer in laboratory animals. Therefore pasteurization can be said to actually destroy many of the health-giving properties in food. Research demonstrates that exposing food to high intensity gamma radiation affects the activity of key enzymes and causes the depletion of radiation-sensitive essential nutrients such as: the amino acids l-cysteine, l-histidine, and l-tryptophan. Other nutrients such as vitamins B1, B 2, B3, B6, B12, folic acid, vitamin C, E, K; the omega-3, 6 and 9 unsaturated essential fatty acids are affected. Some irradiated minerals in food actually become toxically radioactive. Radiation destroys the health-giving properties of food as well as its use being a cause of public hazard. My laboratory and practical experiments proved that ascorbic acid can cause irritability and depression. The lab-technician with whom I worked observed that ascorbic acid causes nerve lesions throughout the body, including the areas of the brain and spinal cord. He observed, as well, that hydrogen-peroxide burns tissue along with destroying bacteria. All chemicals have proven side-effects, immediate or long-term. Chemical destruction of bacteria in our food results in poisoning. Freezing food alters, damages, or destroys all enzymes as well as many vitamins. All of the methods to eliminate bacteria in food rob us of nutrients and create more toxins. Consequently, we must measure which is the greater risk: the low-risk of developing bacterial food-contamination, or from developing diseases fro processed food deficiencies and toxicity.
Is there an imagined or real risk of bacterial food-poisoning? There are several astute scientists challenging the postulate that bacteria is a threat. Before the Los Angeles County Medical Milk Commission, Dr. Marc Harmon, a dentist, stated that in his medical education and career he was trained to blame disease and decay on bacteria and virus. He stated that the genocide of microbes has not reduced dental decay any more than it has disease in general. Disease continues to increase at an astounding rate. Science, medicine and technology have waged a fantastic war against microbes while tooth-decay and other diseases continue to overwhelm and devastate our
Dr. Harmon concluded that the war against microbes is futile toward eradicating disease. Jon Monroe, Director, New Science, tried in a project “to avoid diseases caused by viruses. The assumption was that viruses were pathogens and should be avoided.” But each of the subjects became depressed. With the reintroduction of virus, the depression-symptoms disappeared along with the return of colds and flu. Monroe learned that “viruses can carry information from one individual to another and from one species to another. They are in reality, pathways within the environment for all living things to share critical information. They probably play a crucial role in...cross species symbiosis” (def: unlike organisms living harmoniously together). Joel Weinstock, a gastroenterologist who heads a research team at University of Iowa, said, "We're the first population never to experience [gut] worms. He asked six patients with intractable inflammatory bowel-disease to quaff worm-eggs in a liquid solution, specifically the eggs of Trichurissuis, a whipworm (parasite that looks like a whip) normally found in pigs. Within about two weeks, five of the six patients went into remission - for up to five months. The patients were begging for more parasites. Interestingly, Weinstock noted that intestinal problems are increasing in animals as well. Pigs, which are now raised in clean pens, are getting sick. So are some species of captive monkeys that are kept too clean. The micro-science that studies “pathogens” is relatively new (50 years) and obviously flawed. New research (20 years) has been and is being performed proving that “pathogens” are responsible for reversal of cancer, and possibly for cancer prevention. Dr. K Brooks Low of Yale University reported that he has used salmonella (a genus of bacteria believed to cause food-poisoning) to shrink tumors and reverse cancer. As part of her doctoral studies in Toronto, Canada, Dr. Sara Arab (now a clinical fellow in Medical Genetics) injected verotoxin (bacterial byproduct) from E.coli (a genus of bacteria found in bowels and feces also believed to cause food-poisoning) directly into human astrocytoma (malignant tumors of the brain) that had been grown in mice. After a single injection, within 7-15 days both the tumors and their blood vessels completely dissolved. Bacteria and virus are naturally present in the company of degenerative tissue but not the cause of degenerative tissue. They are the cleanup-crew for degenerative tissue. Do you blame vultures, crows and worms for the death of the dying carcasses they find and feed on? Louis Pasteur, on his deathbed, rejected his work against microbes by stating that the environment that hosts microbes is the problem, not the microbes.
What about all of those reports of people dying from food-poisoning?! I have seen many medical reports that stated microbial food-poisoning as cause of death. In every case, the reports described symptoms of anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction) rather than food-poisoning. In a very rare case does a sufferer actually die of what might be termed food-poisoning. She or he dies from dehydration and/or excessive bleeding, caused by, in an infinitesimal number of cases, a ruptured stomach or bowel from violent vomiting or diarrhea. Copyright 2005 Aajonus Vonderplanitz, All Rights Reserved Anaphylaxis is caused by any foreign substance that causes traumatic allergic reactions. Anaphylaxis is very common with injected antibiotics and vaccines. Basically, those people reported as having died of bacterial food poisoning actually died of the medical treatment with antibiotics and/or other medication. The moral is, if I contracted a detoxification in the form of vomiting or diarrhea my chances of living are great if I let it run its course, as with a cold or flu, and stay completely away from medical treatment and advice.
Is microbe genocide a rational pursuit? The idea of eradicating microbes like salmonella is ludicrous because they are ubiquitous. At University of Utah John R. Roth, Professor of biology, has studied salmonella for 40 years. “[Salmonella] is mostly reported as a pathogen but...[lives beneficially] as part of the gut flora.” He believes that the idea of banishing it is absurd. "Salmonella is distributed pretty widely," he says. "Sometimes it makes a mistake and gets across the gut wall...This is an irritation at the gut wall...Symptoms can range from a loose stool to more flu like symptoms.” The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the Arkansas Children's Hospital did a recent study of 50 Arkansas homes where infected children lived. They found salmonella-concentrations in 38% of the homes; on doorsteps, vacuum cleaners, the refrigerator, and a pet lizard. (Richmond Times Dispatch, July 19, 1999; Salmonella Bacteria Often Lurks Close By.)
There are simply no hard figures about how many cases of food-poisoning occur each year. For example, among 270 million Americans, confirmed cases of Salmonella enteritis (“S. enteritis”) in humans is estimated at about 40,000 cases a year. Yet the media regularly carries estimates dispatched by health departments, such as the Centers for Disease Control (“CDC”), of total cases ranging from 800,000 to 4 million. Recently these were revised downward to around 300,000, prompting farmers to joke that two more reports might eradicate it completely. (L.A.Times, Jan. 5, 2000, The Great Egg Panic.)
Peter Barton Hutt, a former chief counsel for the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), now a lecturer on food-safety at Harvard University, is a long-standing critic of the numbers. "The statistics are all over the place," he says, "because none of them are any good. They are all wild guesses. What people do is gather statistics of reported cases and extrapolate from there. It then all depends on what multiple you choose." The CDC in Atlanta insists, however, that it has gone to a lot of effort refining the multiplier of 38 that it uses in extrapolating its estimates. However, British food-safety advisor Richard North who wrote his doctoral thesis on the British S. enteritis crisis and now works as a food-safety advisor, dwells less on the numbers of cases than on the severity of cases. "If cases are unreported, then the people who suffered cannot have been that terribly bothered, can they?" he asks. So, to inflate the figures 38 times seems like an act of alarmism to fuel some prejudicial agenda or view. Rick Berman, Executive Director, Guest Choice Network, Washington D.C. said, “For nearly three decades, [CDC] has been whipping up fear over food while remaining virtually unchallenged by the press or the scientific community. By generating more heat than light, [CDC] helps create fear...over...food products.” Los Angeles Times researcher Emily Green says, “My foray through salmonella literature going back to World War II did reveal a remarkable phenomenon. In the last 12 years, what was perfectly legitimate speculation by CDC doctors concerning the possible origin of S. enteritis somehow transmogrified into fact once it reached the pages of political reports. It should be stressed that CDC speculation concerning S. enteritis remains unproved. This is not surprising. Scientific and medical journals are not tablets of stone. Much of what appears in them is guesswork. A process of tossing up and shooting down guesses is how science works. This also explains the recent turnaround over cholesterol in eggs [now viewed by the scientific community as benign].”
Why do Health Departments Condemn and Rob Us Of Natural Foods? The common assumption and false premise is that microbes labeled “pathogens” are only harmful and must be eradicated. Compound that with the common assumption and false premise that if a substance is toxic at any level, it is toxic at all levels. Consider insulin, for instance. At one level insulin allows excess carbohydrates to be converted to stored sugar (glycogen) for proper utilization at another time. Too much insulin causes all carbohydrates and blood sugar to be converted into glycogen, causing the body to suffer shock that resembles seizures, which may result in respiratory and/or heart failure and/or brain damage. Consequently, we are faced with a perspective of Nature, including our bodies, that is inherently endangered no matter what we do. And we must make war within ourselves to survive and thrive. Zero exposure to “pathogens” cannot be proved, yet people believe in it. And, basically, zero exposure to “pathogens” is not possible because they are ubiquitous. Making threshold-extrapolations to generate quantitative risk estimates is pseudo science. Using the impossible criteria of zero-exposure to bacteria, to estimate risk, is pseudo science. Existing regulatory policy is based on a "better safe than sorry” premise. But in the real world of everyday practicalities where commonsense decisions are needed, it is a morally bankrupt philosophy. There is nothing “better" about the illusion of “food-safety" when it results in people using scapegoats - “pathogens” - instead of scientifically verifiable causes of actual harm. Add to this, the false premise that the elderly, infants and the infirm are more susceptible to harm from “pathogens.” Considering one individual's rights to absolute protection over the well-being of others is poor social planning. Especially if the protection for the minority harms the majority. But, again, the risk to these groups is scientific speculation. I have witnessed approximately 34 cases from these so-called risk-groups in which an amount of bacterial rich, aged (rotten) raw food was consumed and successfully utilized to regain health of bowels, digestion, liver and glands, and in many cases to reverse disease. It worked favorably in all situations with only 6 experiencing minor loose bowels, or nausea and/or vomiting. Those people considered their discomfort well worth the eventual beneficial results. The Chinese, using rotten eggs, and the Eskimo, using rotten raw fish were cultures that Copyright 2005 Aajonus Vonderplanitz, All Rights Reserved successfully used high-bacteria food as remedies and disease-prevention.
If bacteria and virus are not the problem, why are we trying to eradicate them? Government regulators are not responding to what is actually harming people. They pander to what merely frightens people and themselves? Health departments are overcrowded with individuals prejudiced against microorganisms labeled “pathogen,” and have based their raw food restrictions on speculative scientific data. They are one- sided on the “pathogen” and bacterial food-poisoning controversies. With new existing contradictory data that tends to indicate that even pasteurization does not provide food-safety nor prevent diseases, but cause disease, their adherence to such a mind-set does not make rational sense, nor good judgment. People and their fears have always been at the heart of the risk problem -- fears of loss, fears of injury, above all, fears of the unknown.
Special interests There is one more equation in this problem, and that is the food-industry wants pasteurization and irradiation because their products will have longer shelf-life, reducing costs by slowing spoilage. They care much more about their costs and profits than our health. So they encourage government officials to pass laws mandating compulsive pasteurization and irradiation. They can always blame the government for producing and supplying a less healthy and toxic product.
Conclusion To have passed laws against “pathogenic” existence in food is not only impractical it is harmful. Over a period of decades this nutrient-destruction can actually cause more disease than the possible rare incident of fatal bacterial food-contamination. By depriving people of fresh raw unpasteurized and non-irradiated food, hasn’t government condemned people to a higher risk of disease? The public has a right to choose what is best for them. Government, fueled by science with its vacillating conclusions with every new change in theoretical and technological approaches, does not have the right to deprive people of choices. The public has a right to easily obtain any God-given natural food with all of its bacteria. As a nutritionist for over 30 years, I have observed that 90% of all diseases, including cancer, have been reversed by eating raw foods and refusing medical therapies. The father of the Hippocratic Oath said it best when he taught, “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.”
Our food’s future If we don’t do something about it now, we will not be able to buy any health giving fresh produce, meat, seafood, or poultry in the markets. Write a letter every month to the U.S. President, FDA, your governor, state and local county health-department officials, demanding that they return and preserve your right to have fresh food with all of Nature’s bacteria and nutrients, non-chemically treated, non-irradiated and unpasteurized. Form groups that will meet each month to accomplish this task together while enjoying and celebrating a banquet of fresh foods.