Food Matters Part 1

I have over the years really tried to evaluate the quality of the food I ingest, not just amounts. I have read up on quite a few methods to nutrition, taken what I thought was most valuable and left what I didn't think worked in my life. It's been a few years though....my habits have slipped, I have forgotten some key points, and so when I turned on Netflix to watch something as I was on the treadmill, I was intrigued by the food documentaries 'Food Matters' and 'Food Inc.'.

For myself, and anyone else who may be interested, I wanted to record the most profound take-aways from those documentaries here, starting with Food Matters.

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” ― Hippocrates (you know, from the Hippocratic oath). Yet what we find in our Western society today is that 'Nutritional care from our doctors is like asking for Chow Mein at a French Restaurant, it's not on the menu, they don't know how to make it, so you won't get it.'  Until the early 1900s, it was strongly believed by the medical community that the body can heal itself if receiving proper nutrition.

Only 6% of medical doctors graduate with some nutrition education, and even that is not thorough, the belief nutrition can be a therapy to the body's illnesses/deficiencies is not taught to doctors.


The US National Library of Medicine (operated by the U.S. Government) refuses to index most any journals/publications (essentially burying the documents) on nutritional healing and vitamin therapy. For example, for about the last at least 40 years, published studies on the success Vitamin C therapy have been mostly ignored or attacked by the medical community.

Vasilios Frankos, Ph.D., Director of FDA's (also operated by the U.S. Government) Division of Dietary Supplement Programs, says, "Vitamins are not dangerous unless you get too much of them," he says. "More is not necessarily better with supplements." Their site goes on to say, 'the National Academy of Sciences has established upper limits of intake that it recommends not be exceeded during any given day.'

In Vitamin C (intravenous) trials to treat cancer in the 1970s, they gave up to 100 times the upper limit of intake with no adverse effect. 

For over 30 years a doctor/researcher has looked for, asked his students to look for, asked his colleagues to look for a significant link between Vitamin C and kidney stones, as propagated by the US National Institute for Health and even Harvard Medical school, without finding any conclusive evidence for that claim.

In the last 23 years there have been only 10 deaths in the U.S. that have been linked, inconclusively, to vitamin over usage. In the last 23 years there have been 2.4+ million deaths in the U.S. from pharmaceutical deaths (directly linked) from drugs that were found to be properly prescribed, proper dosage taken, no misuse from the patient, and the death was directly linked to an expected side effect.

Pharmaceuticals are expected to be a $1.1 + trillion business around the globe in 2014, a third of that from the U.S.

Industry standards say acceptable death rates from proper usage of drugs (expected side effects) is 10,000 per year. The death rate of prostate cancer every year is 9000. (U.S. statistics)

Deaths every year: from Cancer 300,000+, from Cardiovascular disease 250,000+, from routine medical care (drug side effects, infection in hospital, during surgery, etc.) 200,000+.

The drug approval system in place by the FDA is that you have to prove in two drug trials that the drug is more effective than a placebo. They do not limit how many times you can trial the drug to get two successful trials.

Drug trials typically run on a couple hundred people, a couple thousand if you run several trials. Drugs are tested on less than 0.07% of the population, and less than 0.2% of the approximate amount of users of the drugs.

Every day we don't eat the amount of nutrients, vitamins and minerals that are required for our bodies, our bodies go into a deficit. Recommended Daily Values/Allowances (RDV/RDAs) for vitamins are based on a calculated societal norm of daily deficiency, does not take into account recovering from prolonged, built up deficiencies.

Vitamins in high doses have successfully treated (with detoxification methods as well in some cases) cancer, cardiovascular disease, epilepsy, viral infections, depression.

Niacin/Vitamin B3, at a high dose has been as successful (sometimes more successful) as antidepressants, without side effects like suicidal thoughts. 2 handfuls of cashews have the same positive impact as a prozac.

Need to also detox or good nutrients will be blocked from absorption. Best way to detox is lots of water.  Vitamin C is also an anti-toxin. Also, releasing toxins through our body's natural waste system is important, eating foods high in fibre that keep us regular. Can also take natural/herbal supplements to clean out your colon. Be very sure to get from trust worthy source, not sold as a weight loss technique, and take as directed.

Wow, and that's just a glimpse of the information I got from that documentary. It's on Netflix, I highly suggest watching!