How do French Eat What They Want and Stay Slim & Healthy

From HealthAssistBlog

If you actually want to say "goodbye" to your belly, you should take a lesson from the French.

Despite a diet stuffed with cream, butter, cheese and meat, just 11 percent of French adults are obese[3], compared with America’s 33 percent[2]. The French live longer too, and have lower death rates from coronary heart disease. They don’t diet and they don’t spend hours panting round the gym.

Here are several solutions for the notorious “French paradox” – the riddle of how a nation of alcohol-quaffing, croissant-munching gourmands stays healthy and slim, while a disproportionate number of health-obsessed Americans are obese and at cardiovascular risk.

1 Food for pleasure – savor the flavor

Joy is a wonderful anti-aging remedy, isn’t it? French enjoy and savor their food, they are are more gourmets than gluttons. They tend to taste foods individually rather than piling a number of foods on the fork at once.

Americans have a different relationship with food that often excludes joy and pleasure and makes us eat more. It is quite common to observe how people gulp down hamburgers and fries while typing on their laptops, driving the car, talking on cell phones, reading the newspaper or watching TV. Unlike a majority of Americans, French are eating until they are sufficed, not stuffed.

The unhurried approach to eating extends even to France’s Big Mac generation. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found ‘from observations in McDonald’s[4], that the French take longer to eat than Americans.’

In an international study[1], populations were surveyed with questions dealing with beliefs about the dietЦhealth link, their concerns about food, and many other items. The group associating food most with health and least with pleasure was the Americans, and the group most pleasure-oriented and least health-oriented was the French.

2 Small portion size

Size does matter. If food is moderately palatable, people tend to consume what is put in front of them and generally consume more when offered more food.

Partly, the French paradox can be explained by the fact that French portion sizes are notably smaller than American portions. And although the French diet is rich in butter, cream, pastry and cheese, the research demonstrates they consume fewer calories, resulting in decreased number of overweight and obese people.

For example, the standard size individual portion of yogurt in France is 125 grams; the standard size in America – 225 grams. A joint French-American team of scientists from France’s CNRS (national scientific research institute) and the University of Pennsylvania set out to test their hypothesis that the French eat less and a smaller portions, compared with Americans. Researchers weighed portions at 11 similar restaurants in Paris and Philadelphia and found that:

• The average portion size in Paris was 25 percent smaller than in Philadelphia (277 grams versus 346 grams).
• Chinese restaurants in Philadelphia served dishes that were 72 percent larger than in Parisian Chinese food restaurants.
• A candy bar in Philadelphia was 41 percent larger than the same candy bar in Paris.
• A soft drink was 53 percent larger and a hot dog was 63 percent larger in Philadelphia than in France.

3 Red wine

France produces more wine than any other country, only Italy is close. The French habit of moderate red wine drinking with a meal is probably the most known French paradox contributor[5]. Indeed, Louis Pasteur (a French chemist and microbiologist), said: “Wine is the healthiest and most hygienic of drinks.” It is well established now that moderate alcohol drinkers live longer than abstainers or heavy drinkers.

Antioxidants called flavonoids, natural chemical compounds found in red wine, may promote health benefits to the heart and blood vessels. Red grapes are one of the richest sources of flavonoids, which may make red wine more heart-healthy than white wine, beer, or other spirits. However, research indicates that red grape juice is markedly less potent than wine in conferring health benefits. It is suggested that something in the winemaking process changes the polyphenols’ properties.

4 French tend to aim for food quality over quantity

Surely, most French people do not go to the markets every day and lots of people actually buy their foodstuff in supermarkets. However, open-air markets are very popular in France, and it is customary for people to buy their produce there. It is common for French to buy cheese from the fromagerie, bread from the bakery, meat from the boucherie, and fruits and vegetables from the open-air market. It is more time-consuming and sometimes more expensive than at the grocery store, but the products are fresher and of better quality.

Frozen sections in American grocery stores are much bigger than in France. The market for prepared food is not as large in France and TV dinners do not reside in French diet also. In the US open-air markets, butchers and bakeries are not common, and most Americans simply have no alternative to a grocery store.

5 Home-cooking tradition

Regardless of their social background, the French cook more than the Americans. French food is real food – prepared in the kitchen, with time taken to choose, buy and prepare meals. Home cooking provides a better control of food, and reduces preservatives, trans fat, sugar and salt consumption.

6 “No snacking” habit

Americans who snack on sweets and refined carbohydrates raise their glycemic load and, in turn, their risk of heart disease. The French tend to snack much less than Americans, instead, they try to eat more regularly. If they do snack, the French often choose fresh fruits between meals.

7 Water vs sodas

Beverage preferences also come into play. French drink a lot of bottled water instead of sodas.

According to the statistics[6], French consume on average 52 litres of soft drinks per person annually compared with 216 litres per person in the United States. On the other hand the intake of bottled water is very high in France (147 litres per person) and low in the US (46.8 litres per person)[7].

8 Walking – naturally active life

The French arenТt prone to rushing to the gym, however they are more physically active by simply walking a lot. Daily walking is part of French people lifestyle. Their streets are much more walker friendly than in the US and are full of pedestrians, because many people use cars only for longer travels. People, especially in cities, walk or use public transportation. They have to climb the long flights of metro stairs.

9 Self-discipline

It’s true that the French deny themselves very little when it comes to food. But they also eat very little of it: a piece of dark chocolate after a meal, as opposed to a large piece (or two) of cake. They know that denial isn’t healthy, but it has to be moderated.

The French have a culture of caution after a period of excess. Eating more one day makes them be more careful the next. Thay would rather trade off with a few lighter meals, than dieting.

So the French paradox is more than just the protective nature of the red wine or lower intake of calories. Most probably itТs a culture of being physically active, savoring reasonable portions of healthy foods with the addition of small amounts of high-fat foods for flavor, and a philosophy of balance and moderation. And I try to follow this philosophy to stay slender and healthy for as long as I can.

Butter IS Best!!!

MARGARINE OR BUTTER?

by Dr H.H.Nehrlich

Margarine was invented in France at the instigation of Napoleon III who wanted to find a cheap substitute for butter to feed the poor, the soldiers and the other ‘common’ people. When first marketed sales were slow as margarine was in direct competition with butter and it looked and tasted inferior. The main advantage seemed to be that it spread easily straight out of the cool house (later the refrigerator). However, in the early fifties when the "Cholesterol Bogeyman" was invented by Dr.Ancel Keyes, things began to improve. Margarine was then marketed as a health food. Eating it promised a longer life free of heart and blood vessel disease.

Today, the propaganda continues and supermarket shelves are overflowing with many different kinds of margarine. Shelf life is very long and it still spreads easily straight from the fridge. However, while in the early days it was made from whale oil, tallow or lard (and thus had considerable nutritional value), today it starts its life as cheap vegetable oil (often pesticide-soaked cottonseed oil); it is processed aggressively by repeated heating to extreme temperatures, by the addition of toxic chemicals and coloring agents. It is degummed, bleached and deodorized. However, during processing several undesirable things happen: While adding hydrogen gas to the oil mixture in order to ‘hydrogenate’ it, meaning to chemically change it into a more solid state, the natural cis configuration of fatty acids is changed to an unnatural ‘trans’ configuration. These high trans fat margarines have a higher melting point and practically keep forever. Since our bodies are not able to deal with these trans-fats properly the ‘funny fats’ or ‘phony fats’ do much serious damage to cell membranes, blood cells, blood vessels and they interfere with prostaglandin production. When trans fats are ingested the body responds by mounting an immune defensive reaction, practically creating a state of war in the system. As long ago as 1974 it was proven that margarine is a significant cause of atherosclerosis (blood vessel disease), high blood pressure and cancer. In Germany, trans fats are limited by law to less than 1% in any food, including fast foods. In Australia, some products contain over 40% trans fats.

Place a tub of margarine outside your house and you will find that no animals or insects show any interest. As to the health claims made – this cocktail of damaged, unnatural oils with a high content of toxic chemicals is in no way conducive to good health. As to its alleged positive effects on cholesterol: Some margarines do lower cholesterol in some people, however, the benefits of lowering cholesterol have been – to put it mildly- obscenely overstated.

BUTTER has been used for centuries. Because is a saturated fat, it is very stable. It also is totally natural, nutrient-rich product made up of a mix of many different fatty acids. It contains antimicrobial and antifungal substances as well as a very potent anti-cancer agent called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Butter contains lecithin and antioxidants including Vitamins A and E, also selenium. All are strong health-promoting nutrients.

Butter contains cholesterol, also a powerful antioxidant, which protects against heart disease (Yes, that is true!). Butter contains nearly 500 different fatty acids; each has its own role in nourishing the body. Thus, the nutrients in butter protect against heart disease, cancer and other degenerative diseases.

Butter helps to protect the thyroid gland as it contains iodine, it fights fat storage through CLA, and butter contains several growth factors and plays a critical role in the development of the nervous system and the brain. All the nutrients in butter make it an essential food, capable of supplying many of our daily nutrient needs.

Butter is not man-made, it is natural, of extremely high biological value and –compared to margarine-in a league that’s light years ahead. Butter can be made from just about any milk, e.g. buffalo, goat, sheep, camel…. In Canada and many parts of Europe goat butter is available in stores.

Butter tastes good, looks good and it sustains life.

Now you know. Margarine or butter – the choice is yours!

[Dr Nehrlich practices Chiropractic and Clinical (Orthomolecular) Nutrition in Bongaree, Bribie Island Queensland. He is chapter leader of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a worldwide organization whose goal it is to tell people the truth about Nutrition and Health.]

Old-fashioned can openers save energy and money.

From TheDailyGreen;

It may not seem like a big energy user, but consider whether you really need to be using electricity to open the occasional can. Unless you have arthritis or are disabled, you can probably get by easily with a hand-crank model, and therefore reduce your environmental impact.

Electric can openers require more resources to build, and take up more space in landfills than old-fashioned models. Typical 175-watt brands use .01 to .18 kWh per month, for an energy cost of about one cent. That doesn’t sound like much, but if every person in America used one, that would be 36 to 648 million kWh of power, costing us $36 million.

Ironically, most people have to own both types of can openers anyway, because they need to be able to open cans during emergencies, when the power might be out, or just want something to take on picnics or out camping. Modern hand-crank openers are often ergonomically designed for comfort and efficiency, and are often just as fast as electrics, so they are a smart choice.

Read more: thedailygreen.com

I have never owned an electric can opener. About a month ago I began grinding my own coffee, by hand.  And it no longer causes any muscle fatigue…though it still renders me wide awake way before the coffee gets ready. Funny thing is, I enjoy the coffee more.

Sweet Marias for all things that matter about great coffee.

Throw That Non-Stick Cookware Away!

Old-Fashioned, lasts forever, black iron for frying and sautéing is the best anyway! It’s cheap, easy to care for, cooks like a dream…what more could you ask for? I love my grandmothers skillets she handed down to me, they are over 100 years old, and cook beautifully. I have a solid iron waffle maker too that I love (Thank you, Bim Willow!) that makes great waffles, real crispy!

From The Good Human;

What Teflon Is And Why You Should Avoid It.

You know you used it growing up even though your mom’s pans were all beat up and flaking. You know you have used it around your own house, and you know that restaurants use it to cook your food with. You may have even heard it was bad for you. But do you know why and just how bad?

Teflon is the trademarked name for Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). This chemical, which makes things “non-stick” in its use here, should be classified as a “likely carcinogen” (cancer-causing substance) according to some advisers to the EPA. You would think that that should be enough to get the EPA to ban its use in tons of products, but alas no…they have just decided that the companies using Teflon should make it less likely to break down. Huh? Yep, in effect, everybody can keep using Teflon as long as they figure out a way to keep it from leeching into everything that it is used in…cookware, clothes, pizza boxes, microwave popcorn bags, etc. And companies have until 2015 to do so. I can’t wait to see what type of chemical they come up with to make it “safer” and what that new chemical will do to us.

See, within two to five minutes on a stove, cookware coated with Teflon can exceed temperatures at which the coating breaks apart and emits toxic particles and gases linked to thousands of pet bird deaths and an unknown number of human illnesses each year. Sounds safe, right? From the Environmental Working Group:

“In new tests conducted by a university food safety professor, a generic non-stick frying pan preheated on a conventional, electric stovetop burner reached 736°F in three minutes and 20 seconds, with temperatures still rising when the tests were terminated. A Teflon pan reached 721°F in just five minutes under the same test conditions (See Figure 1), as measured by a commercially available infrared thermometer. DuPont studies show that the Teflon offgases toxic particulates at 446°F. At 680°F Teflon pans release at least six toxic gases, including two carcinogens, two global pollutants, and MFA, a chemical lethal to humans at low doses. At temperatures that DuPont scientists claim are reached on stovetop drip pans (1000°F), non-stick coatings break down to a chemical warfare agent known as PFIB, and a chemical analog of the WWII nerve gas phosgene.“

Well that certainly sounds safe, no? A few years back we switched to stainless steel pots and pans and have not looked back. They might take a little bit longer to clean up, but it is worth it knowing I am not cooking any additional chemicals into my food, never mind releasing more dangerous gases into the air. If you have pans coated with Teflon, I would really advise you to get rid of them and buy stainless steel or cast iron ones; even the cheap ones from Target or somewhere like that are better than using the ones coated with Teflon. Multiple studies have shown how toxic this stuff is…would you like a side of polytetrafluoroethylene or perfluorooctanoic acid with your eggs? Did not think so.

GMOs Aren’t Safe! Don’t Let Obama Put GMO Boosters in Charge of Food Safety!

Genetically modified foods are not safe. The only reason they’re in our food supply is because government bureaucrats with ties to industry suppressed or manipulated scientific research and deprived consumers of the information they need to make informed choices about whether or not to eat genetically modified foods.

Now, the Obama Administration is putting two notorious biotech bullies in charge of food safety! Former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor has been appointed as a senior advisor to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety. And, rBGH-using dairy farmer and Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff is rumored to be President Obama’s choice for Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Wolfe spearheaded anti-consumer legislation in Pennsylvania that would have taken away the rights of consumers to know whether their milk and dairy products were contaminated with Monsanto’s (now Eli Lilly’s) genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).

Please use the form below to send a message to President Obama, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (oversees FDA) demanding Michael Taylor’s resignation, and letting them know that you oppose Dennis Wolff’s appointment.

Please sign the petition! GMOs Aren’t Safe! Don’t Let Obama Put GMO Boosters in Charge of Food Safety!

>>Learn More and sign the petition!!

Why Butter Is Better

by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD

When the fabricated food folks and apologists for the corporate farm realized that they couldn’t block America’s growing interest in diet and nutrition, a movement that would ultimately put an end to America’s biggest and most monopolistic industries, they infiltrated the movement and put a few sinister twists on information going out to the public. Item number one in the disinformation campaign was the assertion that naturally saturated fats from animal sources are the root cause of the current heart disease and cancer plague. Butter bore the brunt of the attack, and was accused of terrible crimes. The Diet Dictocrats told us that it was better to switch to polyunsaturated margarine and most Americans did. Butter all but disappeared from our tables, shunned as a miscreant.

This would come as a surprise to many people around the globe who have valued butter for its life-sustaining properties for millennia. When Dr. Weston Price studied native diets in the 1930’s he found that butter was a staple in the diets of many supremely healthy peoples.  Isolated Swiss villagers placed a bowl of butter on their church altars, set a wick in it, and let it burn throughout the year as a sign of divinity in the butter. Arab groups also put a high value on butter, especially deep yellow-orange butter from livestock feeding on green grass in the spring and fall. American folk wisdom recognized that children raised on butter were robust and sturdy; but that children given skim milk during their growing years were pale and thin, with "pinched" faces.

Does butter cause disease? On the contrary, butter protects us against many diseases.

Butter & Heart Disease

Heart disease was rare in America at the turn of the century. Between 1920 and 1960, the incidence of heart disease rose precipitously to become America’s number one killer. During the same period butter consumption plummeted from eighteen pounds per person per year to four. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in statistics to conclude that butter is not a cause. Actually butter contains many nutrients that protect us from heart disease. First among these is vitamin A which is needed for the health of the thyroid and adrenal glands, both of which play a role in maintaining the proper functioning of the heart and cardiovascular system. Abnormalities of the heart and larger blood vessels occur in babies born to vitamin A deficient mothers. Butter is America’s best and most easily absorbed source of vitamin A.

Butter contains lecithin, a substance that assists in the proper assimilation and metabolism of cholesterol and other fat constituents.

Butter also contains a number of anti-oxidants that protect against the kind of free radical damage that weakens the arteries. Vitamin A and vitamin E found in butter both play a strong anti-oxidant role. Butter is a very rich source of selenium, a vital anti-oxidant–containing more per gram than herring or wheat germ.

Butter is also a good dietary source cholesterol. What?? Cholesterol an anti-oxidant?? Yes indeed, cholesterol is a potent anti-oxidant that is flooded into the blood when we take in too many harmful free-radicals–usually from damaged and rancid fats in margarine and highly processed vegetable oils. A Medical Research Council survey showed that men eating butter ran half the risk of developing heart disease as those using margarine.

Butter & Cancer

In the 1940’s research indicated that increased fat intake caused cancer. The abandonment of butter accelerated; margarine–formerly a poor man’s food– was accepted by the well-to-do. But there was a small problem with the way this research was presented to the public. The popular press neglected to stress that fact that the "saturated" fats used in these experiments were not naturally saturated fats but partially hydrogenated or hardened fats–the kind found mostly in margarine but not in butter. Researchers stated–they may have even believed it–that there was no difference between naturally saturated fats in butter and artificially hardened fats in margarine and shortening. So butter was tarred with the black brush of the fabricated fats, and in such a way that the villains got passed off as heroes.

Actually many of the saturated fats in butter have strong anti-cancer properties. Butter is rich in short and medium chain fatty acid chains that have strong anti-tumor effects. Butter also contains conjugated linoleic acid which gives excellent protection against cancer.

Vitamin A and the anti-oxidants in butter–vitamin E, selenium and cholesterol–protect against cancer as well as heart disease.

Butter & the Immune System

Vitamin A found in butter is essential to a healthy immune system; short and medium chain fatty acids also have immune system strengthening properties. But hydrogenated fats and an excess of long chain fatty acids found in polyunsaturated oils and many butter substitutes both have a deleterious effect on the immune system.

Butter & Arthritis

The Wulzen or "anti-stiffness" factor is a nutrient unique to butter. Dutch researcher Wulzen found that it protects against calcification of the joints–degenerative arthritis–as well as hardening of the arteries, cataracts and calcification of the pineal gland. Unfortunately this vital substance is destroyed during pasteurization. Calves fed pasteurized milk or skim milk develop joint stiffness and do not thrive. Their symptoms are reversed when raw butterfat is added to the diet.

Butter & Osteoporosis

Vitamins A and D in butter are essential to the proper absorption of calcium and hence necessary for strong bones and teeth. The plague of osteoporosis in milk-drinking western nations may be due to the fact that most people choose skim milk over whole, thinking it is good for them. Butter also has anti-carcigenic effects, that is, it protects against tooth decay.

Butter & the Thyroid Gland

Butter is a good source of iodine, in highly absorbable form. Butter consumption prevents goiter in mountainous areas where seafood is not available. In addition, vitamin A in butter is essential for proper functioning of the thyroid gland.

Butter & Gastrointestinal Health

Butterfat contains glycospingolipids, a special category of fatty acids that protect against gastro-intestinal infection, especially in the very young and the elderly. For this reason, children who drink skim milk have diarrhea at rates three to five times greater than children who drink whole milk. Cholesterol in butterfat promotes health of the intestinal wall and protects against cancer of the colon. Short and medium chain fatty acids protect against pathogens and have strong anti-fungal effects. Butter thus has an important role to play in the treatment of candida overgrowth.

Butter & Weight Gain

The notion that butter causes weight gain is a sad misconception. The short and medium chain fatty acids in butter are not stored in the adipose tissue, but are used for quick energy. Fat tissue in humans is composed mainly of longer chain fatty acids. These come from olive oil and polyunsaturated oils as well as from refined carbohydrates. Because butter is rich in nutrients, it confers a feeling of satisfaction when consumed. Can it be that consumption of margarine and other butter substitutes results in cravings and bingeing because these highly fabricated products don’t give the body what it needs?.

Butter for Growth & Development

Many factors in butter ensure optimal growth of children. Chief among them is vitamin A. Individuals who have been deprived of sufficient vitamin A during gestation tend to have narrow faces and skeletal structure, small palates and crowded teeth.  Extreme vitamin A deprivation results in blindness, skeletal problems and other birth defects.  Individuals receiving optimal vitamin A from the time of conception have broad handsome faces, strong straight teeth, and excellent bone structure. Vitamin A also plays an important role in the development of the sex characteristics. Calves fed butter substitutes sicken and die before reaching maturity.

The X factor, discovered by Dr. Weston Price (and now believed to be vitamin K₂), is also essential for optimum growth. It is only present in butterfat from cows on green pasture.  Cholesterol found in butterfat plays an important role in the development of the brain and nervous system. Mother’s milk is high in cholesterol and contains over 50 percent of its calories as butterfat. Low fat diets have been linked to failure to thrive in children –yet low-fat diets are often recommended for youngsters! Children need the many factors in butter and other animal fats for optimal development.

Beyond Margarine

It’s no longer a secret that the margarine Americans have been spreading on their toast, and the hydrogenated fats they eat in commercial baked goods like cookies and crackers, is the chief culprit in our current plague of cancer and heart disease. But mainline nutrition writers continue to denigrate butter–recommending new fangled tub spreads instead. These may not contain hydrogenated fats but they are composed of highly processed rancid vegetable oils, soy protein isolate and a host of additives. A glitzy cookbook called Butter Busters promotes butter buds, made from maltodextrin, a carbohydrate derived from corn, along with dozens of other highly processed so-called low-fat commercial products.

Who benefits from the propaganda blitz against butter? The list is a long one and includes orthodox medicine, hospitals, the drug companies and food processors. But the chief beneficiary is the large corporate farm and the cartels that buy their products–chiefly cotton, corn and soy–America’s three main crops, which are usually grown as monocultures on large farms, requiring extensive use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. All three–soy, cotton and corn–can be used to make both margarine and the new designer spreads. In order to make these products acceptable to the up-scale consumer, food processors and agribusiness see to it that they are promoted as health foods. We are fools to believe them.

The best butter you can eat is raw, organic butter because pasteurization destroys nutrients.

Butter, Vitamin D and the X-Factor of Dr Price : by Royal Lee

Dr. Royal Lee – scientist, inventor and nutrition researcher – is probably best known as the founder of Standard Process Laboratories, which specializes in the formulation of natural vitamins derived from food sources. This article, from the Lee Foundation for nutritional Research, comes from the collection of Joseph Connolly, late husband of Patricia Connolly and one of the founders of the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation.

The special nutritional factors present in butter as known up to 1942 are without question. It was shown that butter has the following characteristics of superiority over other fats and oleomargarine imitations:

The nation’s best source of vitamin A

Unit for unit, the vitamin A in butter was three times as effective as the vitamin A in fish liver oils. The natural vitamin D in butter was found 100 times as effective as the common commercial form of D (viosterol). Butter, prescribed by physicians as a remedy for tuberculosis, psoriasis, xerophthalmia, dental caries, and in preventing rickets, has been promptly effective.

Butter carries vitamin E in sufficient quantity to prevent deficiency reactions. Since that time, new and important evidence has accumulated which indicates other nutritional functions supplied by butter. This evidence appears to revolve around the physiological ramifications of the effects of the vitamin E complex. Up to the present, vitamin E has been considered a tocopherol, and its function analyzed as nothing more than a physiological anti-oxidant.

It now appears evident that the real vitamin E is that factor in the E complex that is being protected from oxidation by the tocopherol group, and that the same mistake has been made in attributing E activity to tocopherols as in the case of the promotion of pure viosterol as vitamin D, ascorbic acid as vitamin C, niacin as the anti-pellagra vitamin, pyridoxine as B6, or folic acid as the anti-pernicious anemia fraction of liver. In each case the isolation of one factor as the “vitamin” in question has embarrassed the discoverer, in his assumption that he had discovered the “pot of gold” at the rainbow’s end, by the attribution of vitamin activity to some synthetic or pure crystalline component of a natural complex. No reasonable student of nutrition can today deny the axiom that all vitamins are complexes and cannot exert their normal physiological effect other than as the complete complex, as found in natural foods.

The true vitamin E is found in the chromatin material of the germinal tissues of plant and animal, and in young plants that are in a state of rapid growth. It seems to be a phospholipid carrying a special fatty acid in combination that has heretofore traveled under the cognomen of vitamin F. (Vitamin F was first discovered as a part of the wheat germ oil vitamin complex; at least the term vitamin F was first used to designate the essential fatty acid fraction.)

The fact that an unsaturated fatty acid as vitamin F is a part of the E complex, probably in molecular combination, explains the close relationship between the two vitamins in their synergistic support of cell division in reproduction, in maintenance of epithelium (where cell division is also predominant), and in kidney and liver metabolism, both epithelial activities. It explains the fact that both are factors in calcium metabolism, vitamin E deficiency resulting in bone resorption8 just as vitamin F deficiency results in less calcium available to bone.

Tocopherol administration in excess also results in bone-calcium loss, just as is caused by a deficiency of vitamin E. So again we have more evidence that tocopherol is NOT the vitamin E, but rather a protector that can in excess reduce the availability of traces of the real vitamin. Now, just what IS the real function of the real vitamin E complex?

…A factor in young grass is apparently the same one as described by Dr. Weston A. Price, in the second edition of his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, which he called “Activator X” and was found only in butter from cows fed spring grass. “Activator X” seemed very susceptible to oxidation, being lost in the butter within a few months after its production. “Activator X” was shown to promote calcification and health of bones and teeth in human patients. It inhibited the growth of the caries bacillus (facto-bacillus acidophilus) completely, one test showing 680,000 salivary bacterial count before the use of “Activator X” and none after.

[Research shows] that this grass factor SUPPORTS THE DIFFERENTIATION OF SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT. Animals not getting the grass factor (but getting TOCOPHEROL) required 23% MORE time to become sexually mature.

It is highly interesting to find that tests of oleomargarine feeding to human subjects in comparison with commercial butter (having relatively low content of the fragile “X’ factor), HAD THE SAME EFFECT of failing to bring out the secondary sex characteristics: not only a delay, but a failure to promote sex changes in toto. Here are the results for children with ages up to 17 years:

160 Children were fed oleo, 107 butter, over a period of two years.

Average gain in weight on oleo for girls, 8.2 pounds. Yearly average growth in height, 2.2 inches. Girls on butter gained 6.3 pounds per year, grew 0.9 of an inch. Boys on oleo grew 2.2 inches per year, gained 8.1 pounds. On butter, boys gained 6.7 pounds, grew 1.6 inches.

A characteristic effect of castration of the child is a stimulation of growth and greater height. The investigators say the results vindicated oleo. What do YOU say?

… We all are what we are – men, women, white, black or yellow – simply because our growth and development is guided every minute by certain chemical factors in our cells, reproduced exactly in the chromosome, the real blueprints of our bodies. These factors – determinants to the geneticist – are protected by wrappings or insulating layers of a fatty nature that prevent the enzymatic digestion or damage, otherwise inevitable, to which these factors are exposed. It is well known that chromosomes are destroyed and liquefied in vitamin E complex deficiency.

These determinants even seem to be secreted into the mouth in the saliva (that probably is how it happens that salivary gland cells have extraordinarily large chromosomes) to start the alteration of food factors into tissue as quickly as possible. It is quite analogous to the attachment to a lot of incoming steel as it enters a factory, of the blueprints that direct how it is to be processed to become the finished product….

It is obvious that any interference by vitamin or other deficiency with the determinant cycle will delay or impair the normal plan of development.

Do you wonder that your instincts demand butter over oleo?

Do you wonder that since yellow butter contains more “Activator X” than pale butter, people prefer the yellow kind that comes from spring grass feeding to the cow?

It is very interesting to note how nutritional experts and “scientists” have always been found to exstole oleomargarine as equal to butter as a food. As far back as 1886, when oleo was first made, before vitamins were thought of, scientists testified that oleo was equal to butter in food value. They are still testifying, without knowing what new factors might still be found in butter which cause people to prefer it to oleo (over any period of time) even after milk and butter flavors have been added to oleo to create the best possible imitation of real butter.

Animal tests have shown oleo to better advantage than such human feeding tests as reported by Drs. Leichenger, Eisenberg and Carlson. This is, no doubt, because milk proteins have always been used in any test diet along with oleo. Milk proteins carry the trace factors peculiar to milk that oleo lacks, and these cushion the deficiency reactions. The tests are about as honest scientifically as those on aluminum salts in baking powder, where the animals given the toxic aluminum salts were also fed an antidote “sodium silicate’’ under the guise of “mineral supplement.” Dr. H. J. Deuel, testifying before the House Committee on Agriculture in connection with hearings on oleomargarine in 1948, was quizzed on this point.

Oleo has other drawbacks. It is a synthetic product, being hydrogenated vegetable fat. The hydrogenation destroys all associated vitamins or phospholipids. As it comes from the hydrogenator, it is admittedly unfit for food, has a vile odor and must be “refined.” The oleo, after the bad odors have been removed, and after flavoring with milk products to imitate butter, must then be preserved with a poisonous chemical, sodium benzoate, to keep it from again developing a bad flavor.

The use of sodium benzoate as a preservative in oleomargarine is brought to light in testimony before the official hearings on the oleomargarine tax repeal. … Note should be made that natural foodstuffs, such as butter, contain naturally occurring anti-oxidants such as the protector of vitamin E, alpha tocopherol. Presence of this anti-oxidant in butter makes it unnecessary to add synthetic and poisonous preservatives such as sodium benzoate. Oleo, however, being a synthetic product, is lacking in these natural preservatives; hence the necessity for the addition of the chemicals. No doubt the addition of vitamin E to oleo would preserve the product far better than the sodium benzoate. Vitamin E, however, is far more expensive than sodium benzoate, which explains the use of the latter instead.

Such poisonous preservatives are not commonly permitted in foods, but the flour industry and the oleo industry seem to be specially favored. It is well known that Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, the first head of the Food and Drug Administration, lost his job in 1912 because he refused to be “reached” by food manufacturers like the oleo people, who could not exist without special permission to violate the law. When he told the entire sordid story of the unspeakable corruption and malignant chicanery that exists in the food and drug operations in Washington in his book,The History of a Crime Against the Pure Food Law, and published it at his own expense in 1930, little attention was paid to the matter by the newspapers. Since his death a year later, the books have been eliminated from circulation, and his still-surviving widow, by her ownership of the copyright, is “sitting on the lid” by refusing to permit reproduction or quotation of any part of the book.
The penalties for using a synthetic, imitation, chemically-embalmed substitute for butter seem to be quite drastic. Some appear to be: