by Michael Murray, N.D. and Joseph Pizzorno, N.D.
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| Apples that you see available at other times of the year have been in cold storage or imported from different parts of the World.
Whenever possible, it is strongly encouraged to buy organic fruit. To ensure that the fruit is organic, the fruit will contain a federal certified organic foods label. Nonorganic apples are sprayed with many dangerous chemicals, one of them being alar. Furthermore, nonorganic apples are often waxed to prolong their freshness. |
| In fact, coconuts and peanuts account for roughly 94 percent of the world's nut production. One of the main reasons is that coconuts and peanuts provide oils that are among the leading ingredients of cooking oils, margarines, and shortening.
As more Americans seek healthier food choices, nut and seed consumption is on the rise. Nuts and seeds, like the other plant foods discussed in previous chapters, are rich not only in their nutrient content but also in their phyto-chemical content. |
Phyllis A. Balch, CNC
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 In order to focus on selected information from the outside World, certain brain regions must be activated while others are inhibited. The signals to these regions must be switched through a tiny brain area known as the locus ceruleus, which transmits information via a Chemical messenger called norepinephrine. If anything goes wrong anywhere along the way, ADD or ADHD can result. Sugar consumption blunts the brain's responsiveness to norepinephrine and contributes to the problem. |
| Native to southern Asia and an important ingredient in Asian cuisine, bitter melon is cultivated in warm-weather regions throughout the World. Although the seeds, leaves, and vines of bitter melon all have been used in herbal medicine, the fruit— which looks like a cucumber with bumps—is the primary part of the plant used medicinally.
EVIDENCE OF BENEFIT
Bitter melon is a useful agent for treating infections caused by retroviruses, and is being investigated as a source of chemicals that can be used to prevent the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). |
| It is cultivated in warm climates around the World and is used extensively as an ornamental tree in California. The leaves can be harvested at any time of year and distilled for their essential oil. A closely related plant, Eucalyptus macrorryncha, is a good source of rutin, a bioflavonoid widely recommended for strengthening blood vessels.
EVIDENCE OF BENEFIT
Eucalyptus contains the Chemical eucalyptol, which has decongestant and antiseptic properties. A tea made from
Espinheira santa is a pain reliever and a muscle relaxant that is good for back pain, arthritis, and rheumatism. |
| When using ephedra as a weight-loss aid, it is important to remember that caffeine or ephedrine alone will not stim-
The Truth about Ephedra
Ephedra has been used for thousands of years by people all over the World. However, the herb's safety has been called into question because of at least one death associated with herbal stimulants purported to contain ephedra. This death is a sad example of what can happen when a Chemical derivative is used in place of the whole herb. |
T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. and Thomas M. Campbell II
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 Burkitt was awarded the prestigious Bower Award, the richest award in the World next to the Nobel Prize. He invited me to speak at his award ceremony at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, only two months before his unfortunate passing. He offered his opinion that our China Study was the most significant work on diet and health in the World at that time.
Dietary fiber is exclusively found in plant-based foods. This material, which gives rigidity to the cell walls of plants, comes in thousands of different Chemical variations. It is mostly made of highly complex carbohydrate molecules. |
| It was an obvious sequel to my own life on the farm and I was happy to believe that the American diet was the best in the World. Through these formative years, I encountered a recurring theme: we were supposedly eating the right foods, especially plenty of high-quality animal protein.
Much of my early career was spent working with two of the most toxic chemicals ever discovered, dioxin and aflatoxin. I initially worked at MIT, where I was assigned a chicken feed puzzle. |
| These principles should inform the way we do science, the way we treat the sick, the way we feed ourselves, the way we think about health and the way we perceive the World.
PRINCIPLE #1
Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
To illustrate this principle I only need to take you through the biochemical perspective of a meal. Let's say you prepare sauteed spinach with ginger and whole grain ravioli shells stuffed with butternut squash and spices, topped with a walnut tomato sauce. |
| He offered his opinion that our China Study was the most significant work on diet and health in the World at that time.
Dietary fiber is exclusively found in plant-based foods. This material, which gives rigidity to the cell walls of plants, comes in thousands of different Chemical variations. It is mostly made of highly complex carbohydrate molecules. We digest very little or no fiber. Nonetheless, fiber, having few or no calories itself, helps dilute the caloric density of our diets, creates a sense of fullness and helps to shut down appetite, among other things. |
Paul Pitchford
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 Since World War II and the advent of Chemical farming and food processing, the soil and food of much of the World have been depleted of minerals and other nutrients. Our food, whether of vegetable or animal origin, is not only deficient in nutrients but also full of pollutants and farm chemicals. The science of modern nutrition teaches that minerals are a basis for the formation of vitamins, enzymes, and proteins. |
| Finding a high-quality source of water is becoming a difficult task in the modern World. As rain water falls through the atmosphere, it encounters the thick band of pollution that now encircles the Earth. It picks up smoke, dust, germs, lead, strontium 90, minerals, and a host of chemicals. A generation or two ago, rain water was considered a good source of drinking water. Now we can no longer recommend drinking unfiltered rain or snow water. This suggestion is based not only on scientific data about atmospheric pollution but on the testimonials of many who have had adverse reactions. |
| When one is guided by idealistic motives, such as choosing a diet because it is more humane—because it does not promote the killing of animals (vegetarian) or does not oppress Third World peoples (avoiding multinational-corporation products)—then there seem to be not only fewer problems with transition but a healthier attitude, which in turn enables better judgment regarding future dietary choices.
When a new diet is adopted, one can expect some reactions as the biochemical processes within each cell change. |
Peter Radetsky
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 We've grown up in a Chemical World," Kilburn says. "So it's not conceivable to us that it's dangerous. It's like mistrusting our home. And having lived through the entire campaign against cigarette smoking, I realize how tough it can be. If we think that the tobacco companies fight hard and can be vicious, add up all the petrochemical companies and Chemical production and you're looking at a far more gigantic goliath.
"But the battle against the tobacco companies offers more hope than anything else that we can do something about chemicals, despite far greater complexity and far larger targets. |
| Whether because of the rose-pesticide exposure or because of what Kiessig describes as "a long series of exposures to everyday chemicals and allergens," today the World is for them a hostile place. As with Helen Keplinger, substances in the environment that most of us take for granted, that we encounter daily without batting an eye, often without even being aware of them, make their life hellish. The short list includes chemicals like formaldehyde and Chemical products such as pesticides, solvents, food coloring, and perfumes. Molds drive them crazy. Certain foods are virtually intolerable. |
| And there is the overwhelming influence of the pharmaceutical companies, the fragrance companies, the Chemical companies, the very industrial basis of the developed World. The DuPont slogan — "Better Living Through Chemistry" — might just as well characterize this country's economy. A disease based on the contention that chemicals are bad for us threatens to unravel the fabric of our civilization — and the enormous profits gleaned from it. |
| They acquired a high susceptibility because of constant day-in and day-out exposure to chemicals, especially in the period since World War Two."
Moreover, these unconventional allergies involved unconventional symptoms — neurological symptoms, psychological symptoms — such as depression, confusion, fatigue, irritability, loss of coordination. But like conventional allergies, allergies to chemicals could be at least partially alleviated by avoiding the irritant. |
| The fact that it works has made the Environmental Health Center a mecca for chemically sensitive people all over the World. Rea and his colleagues have studied and treated over thirty thousand MCS patients. Rick and Lynn Kiessig travel to Dallas from the San Francisco Bay Area, with their son William, in tow. Annabelle Brausieck makes the five-hour trip from Wimberley; so does Sue Pitman. In fact, the presence of the clinic is one of the reasons chemically sensitive people settle in the area in the first place. |
| We've got to make a change toward a chemically free World that is profitable. There are numerous examples of chasing toxic materials out of the Chemical stream and increasing its profitability. An important one occurred in Salt Lake City when I was a medical student. The local copper refinery determined that the sulfur dioxide in the air, which was polluting the Salt Lake Valley and even killing trees and dairy cattle, could be removed by distilling it into water and making sulfuric acid. |
Grace Ross Lewis
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 Garlic was used by the British during World Wars I and II to prevent gangrene and treat infections.
88. Is it true that chemicals in dark beer make it healthier for a person to drink than light beer?
Dark beers are very high in flavinoids. These contain some vitamin-like compounds that researchers claim make platelets less likely to clot.
89. What is the story on Olestra®?
Olestra® is a fat replacer food additive. It is a sucrose polyester that can be used in place of fat without adding calories. |
| More cultures of the World drink tea than any other beverage. The tea that is most popular and with which we are most familiar is obtained from the leaves of an evergreen tree. Other teas are produced from herbs, flowers, and roots. Some people have allergies to these teas. For instance, chamomile is a plant cousin of ragweed and could produce an allergic reaction. Tea leaves contain fluoride, which is beneficial to our teeth. Polyphenols, chemicals considered to be anticancer and heart disease, are also abundant. |
Phyllis A. Balch, CNC
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 Almost any substance can cause an allergic reaction in someone, somewhere in the World, but the most common allergens are pollen, dust, certain metals (especially nickel), some cosmetics, lanolin, dust mites, animal hair, insect venom, some common drugs (such as penicillin and aspirin), some food additives (such as benzoic acid and sulfur dioxide), animal dander, and chemicals found in soap, washing powder, cleaning supplies, and many other chemicals.
Many people are allergic to mold. Molds are microscopic living organisms, neither animal nor insect, that thrive where no other life form can. |
| Cataracts are the number one cause of blindness in the World, although the vast majority of cataract conditions can be successfully treated with surgery. Occasionally, a cataract may swell and cause secondary glaucoma.
The most common form of cataract is the senile cataract, which typically affects people over sixty-five. This type of cataract is often caused by free radical damage. Exposure to ultraviolet rays and low-level radiation from x-rays leads to the formation of reactive Chemical fragments in the eye's lens. The resistance of the lens begins to decline in older people. |
| Aromatherapy uses the sense of smell to enrich our experience of the World. Smell plays a significant role in our daily perceptions and how we react physically, emotionally, and mentally to what is going on around us. Various scents help us orient ourselves to the season of the year, our location, and situations of danger. Essential oils not only affect the physical but also the mental and emotional aspects of our lives. The inhalation of certain essential oils has been associated with the release of brain chemicals that simulate various emotions. |
| In our chemically polluted and stress-filled World, our nutritional requirements have been increasing, but the number of calories we require has been decreasing, as our general level of physical activity has declined. This means we are faced with needing somehow to get more nutrients from less food. At the same time, many of our foods are depleted of certain nutrients. Modern farming practices have resulted in soils that are lacking in selenium and other nutrients.
Harvesting and shipping practices are dictated not by nutritional considerations but by marketing demands. |
| Air pollution almost certainly has thinned the protective ozone layer above the earth, allowing dangerous radiation from the sun's rays to cause cancers, birth defects, and other injuries to humans throughout the World.
Smog is a type of large-scale air pollution caused by Chemical reactions in the air between different pollutants from vehicle exhaust and industrial sources. Smog can have a different specific cause depending on location, wind, and weather, but the effect is essentially the same. Smog becomes a real problem when a phenomenon known as temperature inversion occurs. |
Leslie Taylor, ND
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 Some of these drugs are simply a Chemical or chemicals extracted from plant materials and put into a capsule, tablet, or liquid. One such example is the plant Chemical called cynarin, which occurs naturally in the common artichoke plant. In Germany, a cynarin drug is manufactured and sold to treat hypertension, liver disorders, and high cholesterol levels. The drug is simply this single Chemical, or an artichoke liquid extract, that has been concentrated and chemically manipulated to contain a specific amount of this one chemical; such a preparation is called a standardized extract. |
| American scientists were motivated to try to copy this Chemical in the laboratory during World War II when the world's main tropical tree farms fell into the hands of the Japanese and the natural bark was in short supply—during which time American troops in the tropics were dropping like flies to malaria. Scientists were able to make an exact copy of the Chemical in the laboratory without using any natural bark to start with, and a synthesized drug was created. Because it was a Chemical occurring in nature and not a new one, it could not be patented by any one drug company. |
| The flower petals and fleshy flower bottoms are eaten as a vegetable throughout the World, which has led to its commercial cultivation in
TRIBAL AND HERBAL MEDICINE USES
PLANT CHEMICALS
Artichoke has plant chemicals in it that help lower cholesterol and protect the liver. many parts of South and North America (chiefly California) as well as in Europe. The artichoke was used as a food and medicine by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; in Rome, the artichoke was an important menu item at feasts. |
| TRIBAL AND HERBAL MEDICINE USES
Virtually all parts of the fedegoso plant are used in herbal medicine systems around the World.
PLANT CHEMICALS
BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES AND CLINICAL RESEARCH
Fedegoso has been used as natural medicine in the rainforest and other tropical areas for centuries. Its roots, leaves, flowers, and seeds have been employed in herbal medicine around the World. In Peru, the roots are considered a diuretic, and a decoction is made for fevers. The seeds are brewed into a coffee-like beverage for asthma, and a flower infusion is used for bronchitis in the Peruvian Amazon. |
| Ayahuasca is a phytochemically rich combination of plants brewed by Indian shamans to connect to the spirit World. Through a series of reactions among chemicals from several plants working together, a hallucinogenic plant extract is created. While clavo huasca is not itself a hallucinogen, the ayahuasca brew also can be quite purgative—causing vomiting and diarrhea. Clavo huasca is sometimes added to the brew or taken simultaneously to help reduce these effects.
Clavo huasca is also widely regarded as an aphrodisiac for both men and women in Peruvian herbal medicine today. |
| In herbal medicine throughout the World today, suma is considered a tonic and an adaptogen. The herbal definition of an adaptogen is a plant that increases the body's resistance to adverse influences by a wide range of physical, Chemical, and biochemical factors and has a normalizing or restorative effect on the body as a whole. |
Joseph E. Mario
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 Used for over 3000 years in Persia, Greece, Arabia (the Father of Foods), to Spain and the new World. A Nitrogen-fixing legume with roots going down to 100-125 feet into the soil in search for Minerals and nutrients. One of the richest sources of total food power, with Protein, Vitamins, and Minerals in proper balance. Contains Phytoestrogen plant hormones having similar effects to Estrogen, increases size and weight, with greater feed efficiency. For Chemical balance. Mild diuretic, nervine, stimulant, tonic, deodorizer. |
| This process of transgressive construction and regressive destruction of molecules represents all the basic particles and objects of the known World, precursing life and energy.
BRAIN BLOOD BARRIER (BBB) aprotective double shield to toxins, chemicals, and drugs affecting our emotions, thought patterns, and other vital Brain functions. |
| The SKIN The largest body organ, dynamic, versatile and ingenious nine pound organ of two square yards, the essential seal and filter protecting the aqueous purity ofthe biodynamic tissues, the internal cellularprocesses, from the harsh bombarding stress ofheat, moisture, dust, debris, dirt, infections, and injury from the outside World. This organ processes drugs and chemicals like the liver does; and is amajor Immune organ, also called the "third kidney", which has about 3000 pores/stomas per square exhaling wastes; and which if disordered afflicts skin rashes. |
| Once touted as a cure for World malnutrition, but since neglected. (Barley and Sorghum have similar recessive genes that increase Protein content, as yet not found in wheat or rice).
East Africa farmers have improved their Com crop 60-70-100% with companion-planting of Napier Grass, better and cheaper than pesticides, which sticky exudate is favorite food for the historic pest Stem Borer insect, which thus becomes entrapped and disintegrates. Another companion plant, Desmodium, releases a Chemical repellant for the Striga plant pest, freeing weeding hours (New Scientist, 2/3/2001). |
Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D.
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 The Powers of Your Brain Are Virtually Limitless
Your brain is the most complex and capable entity in the universe, far more chemically intricate and variegated than any star, and vastly more capable of fact storage and random information access than the world's most sophisticated computer. In fact, the brain is so complex that mankind will, in all probability, never fully understand it. It's been said that if the brain were simple enough to be understood, we would be so simple that we couldn't.
As incredibly powerful as our brains are, their full capacity remains untapped. |
Robert Sampson, M.D. & Patricia Hughes, B.S.N.
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 Robert's Introduction
Imagine a World where everything around you makes you sick. Your food, clothing, and shelter produce symptoms that may affect any organ in your body. Even low levels of chemicals that do not affect other people trigger reactions in you. Your life becomes a constant struggle to protect yourself from toxins that are everywhere around you. This is the World of someone with environmental illness. Breaking Out of Environmental Illness tells the story of how Patricia and I became trapped in that World and how we liberated ourselves from it. |
| My life became a matter of trying to survive in what had become a dangerous and toxic World. I wondered how many other people failed to recognize symptoms of Chemical sensitivity and instead attributed their "dis-ease" to aging or other causes.
Even as I considered the origin of the strange sensitivities that my body had developed, I tried to carry on with my life. Attempting to lessen my symptoms, I reduced Chemical exposures in my office at the child guidance center as much as possible. |
| Nancy Sokol Green, author of Poisoning Our Children: Surviving in a Toxic World, writes that a bake-out can increase out-gassing by 400 percent and reduce chemicals by 25 percent, (p. 99) After a bake-out, it is important to air the building out well before reentering it.
Our trips to Great Barrington now were basically to try to make the house habitable again and to go to the jobs we had taken to pay for this lifestyle that no longer worked. We brought an electric, oil-filled, radiant heater to heat the first-floor bathroom and left it on while we were gone. |
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