In 1949, two companies alone sold 30,000 bakers 10,000,000 pounds of chemicals. They are used as substitutes for milk, butter, eggs, essential oils and organic materials.
At the very least the nutritive contents of bread is reduced by this, and who knows what further damage done? Such appalling facts are what make the whole problem so incredible, but people must know and face these facts and begin to act on them. Dr. Carlson, supported many others, holds that the eating of whole- wheat bread without any adulteration would solve many food and health problems. He writes that the demand for white bread is an ancient snobbery of the Roman Empire, when the classes ate white and the slaves ate dark bread. Also it has been found that an unadulterated loaf of the highest quality costs a bakery only 1/2 cent more to produce, and it would be a boon to both consumer and farmer alike, since it would use up the surplus milk and wheat in the U.S.A., now unused for human nutrition.
FRUIT AND VEGETABLES:
A food packer added thiouria to his peaches to make them look fresher. A shipment thus brightened up went out. Another peach-packer added the same chemical, but asked for a test of the fruit before shipment to the market. Rats were fed the fruit and all died within a few hours! Learning by chance of the other shipment sent out, a mad search for the poisoned fruit ensued. Fortunately all the peaches, still bright and still deadly, were intercepted before being eaten. “Other similar episodes have not ended so happily,” adds Chairman Delaney.
The insecticide DDT has been widely used, but it has only been recently discovered that it is stored in the body and has a cumulative and serious effects on the liver. Chlordane, first used commercially in 1947, another insecticide for the use on fruits and vegetables, is declared to be 4 or 5 times more poisonous that DDT, by Dr. A.J. Lehman, Director of the FDA pharmacological division. One million pounds of it was sold in the first nine months of its use for fruits and vegetables.
Dr. Carles S. Cameron, medical and scientific director of the American Cancer Society, declared that it is by no means sure that the residue of arsenic sprays on foodstuffs does not cause cancer. Eighty million pounds of arsenicals used yearly in the U.S.A. justifies investigation, in his opinion.
Selenium, another fruit and vegetable spray, has been shown to produce cirrhosis of the liver which develops into cancer when 3/1,000,000 parts are taken with food. And many other insecticides are in use whose safety has never even been tested.
SOFT DRINKS:
The chemicals, especially phosphoric acid, used in soft drinks, should not be used. The Naval Medical Research Institute (U.S.A.) discovered that a human tooth put in soft drinks containing this chemical lost its enamel in 24 hours! Soft drinks, including so-called “fruit drinks”, ate increasingly advertized and sold, they are not free from dangerous chemicals.
SALT:
Adulteration of salt has continued for decades. A salt substitute, for those on low salt diet, containing lithium chloride – killed three before it could be withdrawn from the market.
Mr. Delaneys article states: “This potentially lethal situation is due to a curious loophole in our present laws,” adding that the FDA laws must be changed – but the last time the FDA was amended it took 5 years! Open opposition to such legislation is rare, it is like coming out in favour of sin; but undercover opposition by vested interests might persuade Congress even now to let the matter die or emasculate it. He points out that women played an important part in compelling the pre-testing of drugs.
The General Federation of Womens Clubs in the U.S.A. exerted enormous pressure, and can do it again. The pre-testing of drugs amendment went through at the last moment, helped also by the dreadful news that 100 persons had been killed by drinking “elixir of sulfanilamide” into which a solvent used as an anti- freeze in motor car radiators, had been introduced! After this any unscrupulous adulteration seemed a possibility. There is no legal way to prevent such a thing happening to food. It almost happened when thiouria was added to peaches. No words of caution would seem to be too strong and Mr. Delaney and others suggest that until laws can be changed the following precautions can be taken for safetys sake:-
(1) Housewives should not ask for the products warned against: white bread; anything containing DDT; artificial fruit or other soft drinks; chemically preserved, dried, tinned or glassed foods, etc.; and fresh fruits and vegetables should be thoroughly washed in clean water before eating or cooking them.
(2) Labels should be carefully read and products containing chemicals carefully avoided.
(3) Complete and exact labeling on food containers giving the proportions of ingredients, should be demanded and nothing bought that is not so labeled.
(4) Clean markets containing well washed fruits and vegetables should be demanded.
(5) Whole grains, clean and unadulterated, alone should be bought.
These suggestions could all be advantageously followed in India, where many of the food markets in the cities are a disgrace to the nation; and where practice of food adulteration is increasing, and the sale of foreign adulterated food goes on.
In The New Statesman and Nation (Oct. 18, 1952) “Food We Never Eat” by Stephen W. Pollok, brings out that one thing which the Third International Crop Protection Congress, held at Paris in September, disclosed was that “nature fights back when cornered”; and he writes:
One fact emerged clearly from the Paris congress: that man, in his fight against crop pets, neglects the precarious balance of nature … at his own grave risk.
Also, an eminent French plant pathologist thought that the chief “lesson to be learned from the interchange of views of 600 guardians of crops” from 40 countries, was that man may “fatally interfere with the balance of nature.” Theosophy has long warned against this and taught:
Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as one of her creators and make obeisance.
(The Voice of the Silence p.15)
Theosophy is naturally against such wickedness as the adulteration of food. It always gives the spiritual point of view on every problem which is also and ultimately always the most practical one. It is a false and dangerous notion in the minds of many that the spiritual view of things is an impractical one; for the spiritual view is ever the long time, natural, view, which sees the underlying unity and interdependence of all things and looks to the permanent benefit of all. Those whose vision is so limited and whose calculations are so superficial that they look only to partial, quick and temporary results are not the benefactors of themselves or their follows. The food and health problem illustrates this in the most convincing manner for all who will think it through.
William Q. Judge, a great Theosophist, wrote in his Notes on the Bhagavad Gita:-
The question never is of kinds of food, but of fitness for each particular case. The main thing to be observed is to keep the body efficient as an instrument for the soul who inhabits it, by whatever means and food may be found necessary for that purpose. Here, like and dislike are set aside and only the purpose of soul is considered.
Calcutta