Arden Anderson - Food Plague: Could Our Daily Bread be Our Most Life Threatening Exposure

FoodPlague

Couldour daily bread be our most life threatening exposure?

ArdenAndersen, D.O., M.S.P.H., Ph.D.

Text copyright 2013 ArdenAndersen

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-0-9893264-1-4

My thanks and appreciation to Dr. Don Huber, Professor Emeritus PurdueUniversity and Colonel U.S. Army (Ret.) for his tireless quest for truth,science and most importantly truth in science. Had it not been for his work,teaching and presentation, much of this information would still be locked awayfrom public awareness. Thank you to Michele and Beth for their enthusiasticassistance in editing and revising.

ArdenAndersen is uniquely multifaceted as both a holistic physician and a soil andcrop consultant. He holds a bachelors of Science in agriculture from theUniversity of Arizona; a masters of science in public health from the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida; doctor ofosteopathic medicine from Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona,California; Ph.D. from Clayton University, St. Louis, Missouri. He is residencytrained in Occupational Medicine, board certified in Public Health andProlotherapy, and a certified Cenegenics trained physician.

He hastraveled the world to teach soil and crop nutrition and consult biologicalfertilizer and farm management companies seeking to produce nutrient dense,high brix foods. He was invited to speak by the Ministry of Agriculture andMinistry of Trade of South Africa at the annual allFresh Conference. He hastestified in front of the New Zealand Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture;the New South Wales shadow committee on agriculture and the Victorian committeeassessing approval of GMO crops in Victoria. He has consulted small and largefarming operations in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, SouthAfrica, Europe and the British Isles. His book, The Anatomy of Life andEnergy in Agriculture, published in 1989 brought the concept of nutrientdense food to the discussion table. In 2012 he was awarded the Eco-AgricultureLifetime Achievement Award. While many people talk about food quality from aphilosophical perspective, Dr. Andersen grounds it in the scientific arenawhere food quality relates to actual nutrient density or quantity of minerals,vitamins, antioxidants and plant secondary metabolites with its directcorrelation to human health and environmental regeneration.

His medical practice is both an extension of and the foundation for hisagricultural teaching and consultation. It is nutritionally based incorporatingthe best of conventional and alternative medicine along with environmental andoccupational health connections. He was nominated for the Grand RapidsMagazine Medicine Hall of Fame in 2000. His medical practice includes adistinctive career as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. When hespeaks about nutrition and food quality, he speaks not only as a nutritionallybased physician, but as an expert in actually producing that food. He haswritten many articles on the subjects of health and agriculture. Dr. Andersenhas recorded numerous CDs and video seminars. His books include RealMedicine, Real Health, Science in Agriculture, The Anatomy ofLife and Energy in Agriculture and Applied Body Electronics. Hismost recent, Food Plague, elegantly and realistically links modern foodto human suffering and illness. Food Plague exemplifies Dr. Andersensextensive and multifaceted understanding of health at all levels.

Tableof Contents

There are core issues that I believe are defining problems for thefuture of our society. These are the declining nutrient values of our food,genetic engineering of our foods and its collateral damage and the emerginginvasive biomolecular matrix consequent to the first two core issues. Thereare then a number of peripheral food health and safety issues includingantibiotics and growth hormones, pesticides and endocrine disruptors, A1 vs. A2milk, wild vs. farm raised fish, grass fed vs. grain fed beef, organic vs. notorganic foods, sanitation, pathogens and parasites, and finally theenvironmental consequences of the modern agricultural industry.

Certainly, all this information, well documented in the scientificliterature, can be quite disheartening or downright depressing, evenfrightening. If one is simply left with that information, he/she would feellost for what to do, how to respond, how to live a healthy life. In physics,there is the principle that for every force there is an equal and oppositeforce. With that in mind, I will disperse throughout this book and concludewith the counter force, which, fundamentally is about nutrition, of truesustainability - sustainability that actually does sustain the earth and everyliving creature, including humans, indefinitely. Nature provides the rules andthe means for such sustainability if one just learns the rules and abides bytheir enforcement. Nature is truly our teacher and our protector in thisendeavor. Nature is also the great cleanser sending ever stronger forces toclear out defects and aberrations in living systems from diseases to insectpests, droughts to floods. The longer we choose to remain outside of herrules, the greater and more violent will be the battle.

The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan and The Makers Dietby Jordan Rubin are great places to start thinking about diet and health. FoodPlague looks deeper into the whys and wherefores of food and health and theunderlying issues that make food what it is or is not. Healthcare providersand consumers alike need to be more than just on board with the latest in diet,exercise and lifestyle. The best paleo or low glycemic diet in the world is nobetter than the quality of the foods that went into the animals and/or thequality of the soil that grows the animal foods and the fruits and vegetablesthe consumer eats. Physicians, nutritionists and consumers need to know whatis behind food quality or toxicity and that simply having food that iscertified organic, biodynamic, naturally grown or grass fed does not guaranteethe product is nutritionally sound, clean or healthful.

Further, urban and suburban consumers apply more pesticides per landarea than do farmers in the name of green lawns and weed-free sidewalks not tomention the household insecticides and landscape algaecides applied carteblanche. Healthcare professionals and consumers alike need to know that thereare viable non-toxic options that actually result in prettier landscapes, moreresilient and economical lawns and turf, all without the environmental or illhealth consequences. As such, I will explain some of the basic science behindinsect, microorganism and weed behavior; why are they here, what do they meanand how do we correct them. Your lawn, lake and garden are not pesticidedeficient, they are nutrient deficient.

Food Plague addresses these issues and more giving the consumer theknowledge and resources to make a difference in their own health as well as theoverall industry via their votes at the grocery store.

Food is medicine, good or bad. Like all medicines, where there aredifferences in the quality of synthesis, the specific molecular tweakingcorrelating to why one medicine works better or poorer than another medicinefor the same malady, so too foods vary considerably in their quality ofgrowing, nutrient value, digestibility, assimilability, their satiation value,their medicinal value and what potential side effects they carry. This bookis intended to help the reader see food for what it is; sustenance, for what itis supposed to do for the consumer; supply nutrition, and foods potential darkside as a deadly killer.

Historically the only potential dark side to food was inadvertentlygetting a potentially poisonous plant, such as a mushroom or berry, getting acontaminating organism due to poor food preservation, or having a rare, butserious anaphylactic allergic reaction such as with peanuts. Today, we have amuch more complex and deceiving danger in our food chain. Like the 1973 movie SoylentGreen, all is not well nor truthfully revealed regarding our modern foodsupply.