Healthy Homes Asia

by Phillip Day

"Intensive research ... has convinced me that the human organism can protect itself against infection virtually completely by proper nutrition." - Dr B P Sandler

Essential nutrient

Vitamin C is an essential nutrient for the human body. Science describes it chemically as 2-oxo-L-threo-hexono-1,4-lactone-2,3-enediol, or L-ascorbic acid, L-ascorbate or C6H8O6 - take your pick. It has a molecular mass of 176.14 grams and is so named for its active properties in fighting scurvy (a meaning ‘no' and scorbutus ‘scurvy').

Vitamin C is a form of sugar acid that appears white to yellow in a crystal or powder form and is water-soluble. It is found most famously in citrus fruits but also in leafy greens, a staple ingredient used to fortify foods, and is familiar to many as a childhood vitamin supplement, one of the most important for your continued wellbeing.

Humans cannot generate vitamin C

It is unfortunate then, that while it is synthesised internally by all but a few mammals, humans suffer from a genetic deficiency which prevents us from generating vitamin C in our bodies. Whereas most mammals can synthesise this vital nutrient with glucose produced from glycogen by enzymes in the liver,[1] our only hope of getting C is through our diet. An associate of Pauling's, Dr Matthias Rath, comments:

"Animals don't get heart attacks because they produce vitamin C in their bodies, which protects their blood vessel walls. In humans, unable to produce vitamin C (a condition known as hypoascorbemia), dietary vitamin deficiency weakens these walls. Cardiovascular disease is an early form of scurvy. Clinical studies document that optimum daily intakes of vitamins and other essential nutrients halt and reverse coronary heart disease naturally.

The single most important difference between the metabolism of human beings and most other living species is the dramatic difference in the body pool of vitamin C. The body reservoir of vitamin C in people is on average 10 to 100 times lower than the vitamin C levels in animals."[2]

Humans absorb C Lucky for us, the human body is an astounding system with a remarkable capacity for self-regulation and correction. DNA itself is a three-out-of-four, error-correcting digital code with stop and start bits to parse the assembly instructions of every protein of an organism.

Unlike the 4,000 or so species of mammal which produce vitamin C internally, the human genetic code compensates for our defect by having red blood cells specifically designed for increased absorption of C. Haemoglobin is able to absorb the oxidised version of the nutrient, deoxidise it in the cell, then transport the active ‘antioxidant' to where it is most needed.[3]

Red blood cells ensure our bodies are kept adequately supplied, and are even able to recycle the nutrient to some degree. There's just one hitch. We've got to eat or drink vitamin C to get it into the system in the first place. What a disappointment, then, that our peers don't do more to ensure everyone is fully briefed.

Cooking kills it

When was the last time someone told you on TV that cooking destroys vitamin C? Never.

How many times on TV has a ‘celebrity' chef shown you more inventive ways to murder your food with heat? Five times a night, and they swear at you for getting it wrong.

So what percentage of see-no-evil, hear-no-evil humanity goes through an entire British, American and Australian winter cooking everything and ending up sicker than Gordon Ramsey's dog? The vast majority.

How many are destined to end up dying of a disease not even their livestock are dying from? The vast majority.

How many will be talked into taking ‘life-saving' drugs and other redundant nostrums before they finally expire? The vast majority.

Room for a little improvement, wouldn't you say?

Not just an acid

Dr Tim O'Shea writes:

"Most sources equate vitamin C with ascorbic acid, as though they were the same thing. They're not. Ascorbic acid is an isolate, a fraction, a distillate of naturally occurring vitamin C. In addition to ascorbic acid, vitamin C must include rutin, bioflavonoids, Factor K, Factor J, Factor P, Tyrosinase, Ascorbinogen, In addition, mineral co-factors must be available in proper amounts. If any of these parts are missing, there is no vitamin C, no vitamin activity. When some of them are present, the body will draw on its own stores to make up the differences, so that the whole vitamin may be present. Only then will vitamin activity take place, provided that all other conditions and co-factors are present. Ascorbic acid is described merely as the "antioxidant wrapper" portion of vitamin C; ascorbic acid protects the functional parts of the vitamin from rapid oxidation or breakdown."[4]

It's a complex

So vitamin C is a complex. The ascorbic acid and ascorbate (an ion of ascorbic acid) are required for a variety of essential metabolic functions. They help metabolise fats and proteins and aid recovery from wounds. In addition to vitamin E and two amino acids, lysine and proline, vitamin C is vital for the creation of collagen, the chief protein in soft and connective tissue throughout the body.

Vitamin C, therefore, helps provide us with skin, hair, corneas, tendons, muscles, ligaments, bones, organs, cartilage, and the basis for the very structure of our cells. Without it we simply fall apart, which is scurvy.

Last but not least, vitamin C strengthens the piping of our cardiovascular system, and its deficiency is one of the chief factors in the leading cause of disease death today, heart disease, which destroys one in every two and half of us (if you can picture such a creature).

And in 50% of those deaths, Andrew Saul reminds us, the first symptom is death.[5] An adequate level of vitamin C in the diet, therefore, is vital over the long-term. Failure to do this gets you dead. Badly.

What is it good for?

Like a good Toyota, you get your mileage with vitamin C. It's a powerful antihistamine, antiviral, antitoxin, and Halle Berry uses the powdered stuff mixed with water to exfoliate her First Division visage. And, as if all that's not good enough, vitamin C acts as a particularly effective antioxidant, neutralising cell-damaging free radicals or oxidative elements in the body.

As we age, we slowly oxidise (biologically ‘rust'). An antioxidant is a type of molecule able to slow down or prevent this oxidation process. Oxidation itself is a chemical reaction crucial to life, but one that can be damaging too.

The body employs various reducing agents and enzymes in order to control this vital but potentially harmful system. If not properly controlled, oxidation releases adverse levels of peroxides and free radicals which damage the cell and its DNA. Antioxidants like vitamin C stop these reactions by removing the free radicals and becoming oxidised themselves.

If there are more free radicals than the antioxidants and enzymes can control, the body suffers oxidative stress, which can induce diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and chronic inflammatory diseases. Vitamin C is a major player in preventing this from occurring.

Linus Pauling PhD, often known as the ‘Father of Vitamin C' and twice awarded the Nobel Prize, declared that large intakes of up to 10 g of vitamin C each day aids anti-cancer activity within the body. It also assists in repairing damaged arteries and removing arterial plaque for heart disease sufferers. Pauling was largely derided for making these statements, and we'll examine the controversies in a minute, yet he lived into his nineties.

Today, much higher doses of C complex are used by many practitioners for cancer/heart/stroke patients in nutritional therapy who believe Pauling was right, and that the popular nutrient is indispensable to the body in its fight to regain health.

Dietary sources of vitamin C - fruit and veg

Vitamin C is found in abundance in fruits and vegetables, and also in some meats. Rose hips, blackcurrant, peppers, kiwi, guava, broccoli, and nature's most maligned Christmas treat, the Brussels sprout, are all high in vitamin C.

Not only are these foods packed with nutrients in their organic form (unlike meat), they are low in fat and do not need to be cooked to be eaten. If you wish to destroy all the nutrients, enzymes and vitamin C that make fruit and vegetables healthy in the first place, simply fire up the pan and cook ‘em.

Bioflavonoids

Dr Albert Szent-Gyorgi, 1937 Nobel laureate for his isolation of vitamin C, later found other factors intrinsic to the action of C. Originally believed to be a single nutrient, Vitamin C became the subject of further testing by Szent-Gyorgi, who fought long and hard to have the co-factor (bio)flavonoids included.

Bioflavonoids are derived from plant pigments known as flavonols and flavones and are found in many of the same fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C. Szent-Gyorgi argued that they were essential to human health and coined the new bioflavonoids ‘Vitamin P'. Though they are widely accepted today for their health benefits and are available in hydroxylated and methoxylated forms, the term ‘Vitamin P' was less well received by our medical czars.

Bioflavonoids have great antioxidant properties but in a different way to C. While the body welcomes ascorbic acid and the ascorbates, it recognises bioflavonoids as a foreign compound and acts quickly to flush them from the system. This increases levels of uric acid and serves to expel excess free radicals and other toxins from the body, aiding in the antioxidant process.

While different kinds of bioflavonoid help the body in different ways, all are extremely useful. Those found in citrus fruits increase the absorption of vitamin C in our cells, aid blood vessel permeability and blood flow, and exhibit anti-allergy, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and anti-cancer properties.

In a nutshell? Bioflavonoids are seriously good for you.

Meat

Certain meats also contain vitamin C. This is because some animals have high internal levels of C which build up in certain tissues. Liver is the best source of meat for C, but loses up to 100% of its C content when cooked. Unfortunately, the muscles that make up the bulk of western carnivorous diets also happen to be the cuts of meat with the lowest concentrations of vitamin C. We don't like to eat meat raw. Carnivores do.

In 1928, the Arctic anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson emulated the Inuit diet to test a theory. Despite having almost no plant material in their diet, the native people avoided scurvy while European explorers suffered heavily. Both ate meat-based diets. Living exclusively on only lightly cooked meat for a year without any ill-effects, Stefansson was able to prove that cooking the meat destroyed specific nutrients within, later discovered to be vitamin C.

Milk

Human milk also contains useful amounts of C for breast-feeding babies. Mums who have good levels in their own bodies produce milk twice as fortified with the nutrient than found in raw cow's or goat's milk. Once pasteurised, milk loses most of its C content.

Although baby formulas boast that they are fortified with vitamins and just as good as breast milk, the heating and storage that goes with such products wrecks the vitamin C content. Formula well fortified with vitamin C might well contain very little after transit, storage and heating. Nature knows best.

Supplements

Diets being what they are these days, not everyone chooses to get their vitamin C through eating raw fruit and veg, nor chomping lightly cooked slivers of liver. Many choose the world's most popular vitamin supplement instead - you guessed it, vitamin C. Available in caplets, powders, capsules, multivitamin and antioxidant formulations, C supplements are many and varied. If you choose to take a vitamin C supplement, ensure your intake is spread throughout the day to maximise absorption and that the supplement contains bioflavonoids to aid vitamin C metabolism. Steven Hickey PhD writes:

"An individual who wanted protection from, say, the common cold by taking vitamin C, would raise their blood levels more effectively by taking divided doses or slow-release formulations.... If a single dose of vitamin C raises blood levels for about six hours or one quarter of the day, the subject is unprotected for the other three quarters of the time.... The biochemical data supports Pauling's hypothesis that, for a large proportion of the population, the optimal dose of vitamin C is several grams a day.... A single megadose tablet will only raise blood levels for a short period and is likely to be therapeutically ineffective. The aim is to raise plasma levels consistently and this requires either multiple tablets taken at short intervals throughout the day, or the use of slow-release formulations." [6]

Conclusion

Although the levels of vitamin C in food depend on the type of plant, the soil it grew in, freshness, how it was stored or prepared, etc., the following guidelines will ensure a good dietary intake of vitamin C can be achieved.

Raw food rocks! Cooking and heating destroys many of the active components of vitamin C. If you boil a saucepan of vegetables for too long you risk having more vitamin C in the pan water than the food. Copper cooking vessels also reduce the C content of your food.

Fresh is best! As food is stored, the vitamin C content gradually decomposes. An orange in your lounge fruit bowl will lose 50% of its vitamin C content in two weeks. The fresher the food, the more vitamin C it will retain. Correct storage in a cool place, such as a refrigerator, also helps maintain vitamin C content.

Fruit and veg! A diet comprising 80% plant-based, organic fruits and vegetables with 60%-plus consumed raw is the way to go. Vegetable juices are highly recommended - more so than fruit juices, which contain concentrated sugar and acid. Patients recovering from serious illness would do well to keep their raw food ratio high, and vegetable juices enable them to achieve this quickly and effortlessly.

Resources

The Essential Guide to Vitamin C by Phillip Day and Nick Cockayne

Vitamin C Complex plus Bioflavonoids (400 g tub)

Footnotes [1] Bánhegyi G, Mándl J "The hepatic glycogenoreticular system", Pathol Oncol Res 7 (2): 2001, pp.107-110

[2] Rath, M Why Animals Don't Get Heart Attacks - But People Do! MR Publishing, 2000, p.10

[3] How Humans Make Up For An 'Inborn' Vitamin C Deficiency.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080320120726.htm

[4] www.thedoctorwithin.com

[5] www.orthomolecular.org

[6] Hickey S and H Roberts Ascorbate, Lulu, 2004

[7] The New England Journal of Medicine, 7th February 1991

What can 18 months of vege juice do?

Dr Andrew Saul, author of the books Fire Your Doctor! How to be Independently Healthy and Doctor Yourself: Natural Healing that Works and one of the leading authorities featured in the eye-opening documentary Food Matters, shares his personal experience of how a near 80-year old woman, overweight, bent over, worn out and weighted down with cares and osteoarthritis transformed into a tall, slender, lump-free, wrinkle-free, arthritis-free woman in 18 months.

How? Food, primarily juicing raw vegetables.

Why juice? Because it guarantees a higher nutritional intake. It's easier to get more vege nutrition into your body via juice than trying to eat mountains of raw veges, which daunts even the most committed at times.

But don't believe us; read Dr Saul's first hand account of the woman he says sounds like Dracula.

by Phillip Day

Our mission is to get a willing public to move to a more natural way of living. One of the key indicators of a healthy diet is its nutrient content, and the most prevalent factor in this is whether the food has been corrupted through the cooking process or not.

What cooked-to-raw ratio are you currently living on?

Diet is the No. 1 cause of disease. Eat as much raw food as possible, which is organic and know where it comes from, ideally as close to where you live as possible.

What the experts say

Remember when you were doing chemistry at school and the teacher set you an assignment? You took material, heated it with a Bunsen burner and created new substances. The same goes for food.

There is a HUGE amount of rubbish written about how raw food is no better for you than cooked food. Food expert Wai Genriiu disagrees: "Most of these new substances come from proteins reacting with carbohydrates. Some of these substances cause cancer or brain diseases and impair neurotransmitter function and metabolism."

The work of Dr Paul Kouchakoff demonstrates that the immune system responds to cooked food as a toxin if the ratio of cooked to raw is more than 1:1. This means aiming for a diet that is 55% or more raw food to relieve any digestive leukocytosis. Cooked food can produce inflammation due to immune reaction. Grains are notorious for this (they break down into sugar). Dropping grains of all sorts for a few weeks can often see rapid reversal of reflux, arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis and other problems.

What to eat?

The recipes contained in my book Food for Thought are best regarded as transition meals as you move the family over to a more healthy/raw way of eating. This will include securing a reliable source of genuine organic produce grown in properly tended soils which come with all the requisite payload of enzymes, vitamins, minerals and fats. In short, your kitchen's going to look different, sunshine.

Juicing veggies, adding phytofood green mixes such as Green Qi (www.neways.com) or Nature's Living Superfood (ours) gets nutrition into the body in a hurry. Remember that the top six causes of disease death in the western cultures are all diseases of chronic malnutrition.

A lady asked me the other day what, in my view, is the leading cause of death. I said without hesitation - diet, and in particular, cooked food. Who discusses it in the newspapers or on TV? Quite the opposite, in fact. Every night there's some celebrity chef on every channel showing us more inventive ways of murdering our food. NOWHERE do we hear the scientific fact that cooking kills enzymes, corrupts fats, destroys vitamin C, wrecks proteins, and creates toxic by-products from the cooking process that DO YOU IN, one mouthful at a time. I'll tell you how sophisticated we are. We're all driving around BMWs, Mazdas and Toyotas and dying of malnutrition diseases not even an aardvark dies from. Go figure, as they say in Las Vegas.

Organic versus commercial

And here's another subject over which fatuous wars rage. Let me simplify. I'm a farmer's boy and I know this problem first-hand. Would you rather eat food which has been grown in minerally exhausted commercial soils, farmed year in and year out, where only the bare minimum of mineralization (fertiliser) is put back into the soil (usually nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK))? Not if you know what's good for you.

Commercially grown produce will often be drenched in fungicides, pesticides and larvicides to kill bugs because the crops in question are so sick they have no natural defences of their own so they get attacked. That's the purpose of bugs: to attack and consume sick plants. And that's the purpose of bugs in your body: to attack and consume sick tissue. Healthy plants can look after themselves, sick plants cannot. A good percentage of these so-called healthy commercial foods these days are also increasingly genetically modified. Now you can have fish genes in tomatoes. Why stop there? Why not put zebra genes into roosters? Now you can have four-legged chickens with their own barcodes. Who thinks any of this is a good idea?

Why not eat food grown in organically tended, mineral-rich soils where the plants are robust and healthy enough to fight their own battles. No GMO. No fungicides. Food as God intended. Do your own research and come to your own conclusions. In the end it's your body and you'll become the sum total of everything you've ever done to yourself. Is it really hard to accept? Healthy food makes healthy bodies, sick food doesn't.

And there's another thing. How long has it taken your food to get to you? This has a major impact on the food's nutritive content. In a perfect world (which we do not live in), you'd grow the stuff in your back garden, harvest it and have it on the table by nightfall. These days a multi-trillion dollar industry (the food industry) has interposed itself between the plucking of the apple and the eating of it, and we'd better wake up to the scandals going on with this one. Geoffrey Cannon's The Politics of Food and UK veteran news reporter John Humphrys' The Great Food Gamble are two excellent titles which leap off my shelves as I write. I cover such tales of woe as they break in my monthly EClub bulletin.

Summary

Diet is the No. 1 cause of disease. Eat food which is organic and know where it comes from. My wife Samantha and I get a regular delivery from UK organic food suppliers Riverford (www.riverford.co.uk). This stuff is grown locally and turns up with the dirt still on it, so the best we can do is not flame it to death. Get skilled at putting salads together which taste great. You can be very adventurous with raw: seeds, nuts, fruit, etc. Many examples are given in Food for Thought but become an expert on all aspects of raw food cuisine and branch out on your own.

Get familiar with the world's leading raw food sites. Here are two of my favourites:

David Wolfe at www.davidwolfe.com and The Fresh Network

Naked Vegetables Rule, OK?