Organic
Connections JULY–AUG 2008
The magazine of Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality
Dr. Arden Andersen
How We Can Restore Real Nutritional Content to Our Food
Nan Kathryn Fuchs
The Vital Importance of Calcium-Magnesium Balance
Organic To Go
America’s First Certified-Organic Fast-Food Restaurant
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For more product information, visit www.petergillham.com. Organic Life Vitamins is available through Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality: 800.446.7462.
A new vision of health begins in the soil
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e named this magazine Organic Connections because of our belief that life is interconnected. We don’t live in isolation from our neighbors, our fellow humans across the planet or from the environment. The principle of cause and effect applies in each of these areas and is just beginning to be recognized on a global basis. In this issue, Dr. Arden Andersen explains that “the microorganisms in the soil determine how a crop is going to grow, which then determines how we’re going to grow with the nutrition from that crop. At the same time, how we farm and manage the plant has to do with what goes on with the rain forest and what goes on with the oceans. It’s all connected.” The implications of what Dr. Andersen discusses are enormous. Environmental awareness and positive action needs to go far beyond recycling and conservation. Life on this planet depends upon nutrition. It’s why we eat. Many of us understand that petrochemical fertilizers and toxic chemical sprays are not good for the environment or for our bodies. As a result, organic produce is becoming increasingly popular (though the vast majority of food is still produced “conventionally”). But did you know that a large quantity of the agricultural nitrogen-based chemical compounds applied to fields become gases that escape into the atmosphere? These are greenhouse gases with far greater potency than simple carbon dioxide. Elevated levels of these gases have been directly linked to stratospheric ozone depletion and other serious environmental problems. Agricultural fertilizer adds to global air pollution and climate change. But that’s the bad news. The good news is that, as Dr. Andersen says, “We have the technology.” Food can be grown without chemical fertilizers and with far greater nutrient content (nutrient density). A corn crop, for example, fertilized with gravel dust (rocks contain minerals that can “remineralize” the soil), when compared with the same type of corn grown nearby using chemicals, yielded 28 percent more protein, 47 percent more calcium, 57 percent more phosphorus, 60 percent more magnesium and 90 percent more potassium. Nutrient-dense foods are healthier, more vibrant, have exceptional flavor and last longer. (For more on this, check out www.remineralize.org.) That’s something positive we can all connect with.
In this issue
or•gan•ic |ôr ganʹik| denoting a relation between elements of something such that they fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole: the organic unity of the integral work of art • characterized by continuous or natural development: companies expand as much by acquisition as by organic growth.
4 Nutrition Detective Noted author and nutritionist Nan Kathryn Fuchs, PhD, discusses the relationship between the minerals calcium and magnesium and why their balance is so critical to our health.
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7 Organic To Go Putting a new healthy spin on convenience food, Organic To Go is America’s first certified-organic fast-food restaurant.
9 Dr. Arden Andersen Both a medical doctor and a world leader in sustainable agriculture, Dr. Arden Andersen believes that health begins with healthy soil and is helping to lead an agricultural revolution that will improve our bodily health and the health of the environment by restoring real nutritional content to our food.
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Ken Whitman publisher
Organic Connections is published by Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality 2530 N. Ontario Street, Burbank, CA 91504-2512 National Office (800) 446-7462 • www.petergillham.com For a free subscription, e-mail info@petergillham.com. Statements made in this magazine have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. © 2008 Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality. All rights reserved.
A portion of the profits from the sale of
Natural Calm ® and Organic Life Vitamins™ goes to our Natural Revitalization environmental action initiative addressing global warming, which helps fund Conservation International (www.conservation.org) and Remineralize the Earth (www.remineralize.org).
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Nan Kathryn Fuchs, PhD
N Nan Kathryn Fuchs, PhD, is a noted author and veteran nutritionist. Her books include The Nutrition Detective, Overcoming the Legacy of Overeating, User’s Guide to Calcium & Magnesium, and The Health Detective’s 456 Most Powerful Healing Secrets. She is also the author of the widely read monthly Women’s Health Letter.
From the time she could talk, Nan Kathryn Fuchs was always asking, “Why?” Even as a child, she would dig and persist until she found answers that made sense. This unrelenting curiosity followed her into life; when colleagues and others were simply accepting information because it “came from authority” or some such, Dr. Fuchs did not. Again, she would doggedly ask questions until she received satisfactory answers. This distinctive style is why she is now known as “The Nutrition Detective”—and why she was one of the very first to release the real facts about the calcium-magnesium balance. Today, the true information on the crucial relationship between calcium and magnesium is finally starting to be circulated and noticed. The fact of the matter is that the body cannot absorb calcium without a proper balance of magnesium, and an overabundance of calcium in the body can lead to numerous health issues. But Dr. Nan Kathryn Fuchs happened upon this information back in the 1980s and took what at the time was a brave stand; when
The Nutrition Detective Speaks
calcium deficiency was being touted as the “big concern” by doctors and nutritionists alike with no mention of magnesium, Dr. Fuchs, along with only a very few other voices in the storm, flew right into the teeth of that campaign. “The first time anything that I wrote appeared in print was with my first book, The Nutrition Detective, which came out in 1985,” Dr. Fuchs told Organic Connections. “I struggled with the decision to write about the calcium controversy because it was such a big subject and it was so opposed to what everybody was saying. And here I was, this little thirty-something nutritionist in Southern California, saying all of these doctors and scientists were wrong. But Dr. Guy Abraham had good science to back up everything he said, and that of course was what I relied on. Turned out he was right.” Dr. Fuchs had been studying with research gynecologist and endocrinologist Guy Abraham, MD, and it was he who first imparted to her this then revolutionary set of facts. “Dr. Abraham was the person
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around Los Angeles. “I delivered incense from China and little packets of herb teas to various bookstores,” she recalled. In 1972 she founded Environmental Massage, a holistic approach to stress management; then in 1976 she co-founded one of the first holistic centers in the country: Baraka Holistic Center in Santa Monica, California. In the following years she obtained a degree in nutrition and settled down as a practicing nutritionist for the next two decades. However, Dr. Fuchs has always considered herself to be first a writer and second a nutritionist, and at this point in her life writing has firmly taken over. She now imparts useful information and advice through her books and her monthly Women’s Health Letter. While the newsletter itself is by paid subscription, anyone can sign up on the website (www.womenshealthletter.com) and receive free weekly health alerts, which she describes as “my take on something current in the news.” Recent examples include the dangers of plastic water bottles and the way to read organic food labels.
I find it particularly disturbing to hear doctors and so-called health writers saying that we need 1,500 milligrams of calcium daily, and then allowing the consumer to believe that this means they should take 1,500 milligrams of supplemental calcium without regard to their diet.
who defined the different subsets of PMS and the nutrient deficiencies that were responsible for them,” she said. “And two of these—PMS ending in depression and PMS with mood swings and anxiety—were both concerned with lower levels of magnesium as compared with calcium.” Nan Kathryn Fuchs had already lived a life very much on her own terms. Just a short time earlier, from the late sixties to early seventies, she had had a business called The Herb Lady, in which she drove a Volkswagen Bus painted with leaves and big purple letters
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In the books, newsletters and scientific papers she has authored and co-authored throughout the years, she has never stopped fighting against the misinformation about calcium—and for very good reason. Although the truth is now being circulated, calcium is still broadly promoted in ignorance of magnesium; so there continues to be an uphill battle. “In balancing out calcium and magnesium, it comes down to what you’ve done in the past to know what you need to do in the future,” Dr. Fuchs explained. “But the organic connections
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majority of Americans eat a lot of dairy and don’t eat a lot of foods high in magnesium, like whole grains, nuts and seeds, and dark green leafy vegetables. I find it particularly disturbing to hear doctors and so-called health writers saying that we need 1,500 milligrams of calcium daily, and then allowing the consumer to believe that this means they should take 1,500 milligrams of supplemental calcium without regard to their diet. And that’s what’s happening— people have been taking huge amounts of calcium and getting themselves into trouble ever since calcium began being promoted.”
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Of course, once a person understands this information they will want to strike a proper balance between these two minerals. Dr. Fuchs explained that when the equilibrium has been thrown off over time by the intake of high amounts of calcium through the diet and additionally through supplements, a person needs to “go overboard” in the other direction and take a lot more magnesium. Once the balance has been achieved, they can settle out. The simplest way to find the right level of magnesium is the “bowel test” method described in Dr. Fuchs’ book User’s Guide to
It’s hard not to get enough calcium even if you’re a vegan and eating a healthy diet. If you’re not eating a healthy diet, it’s very easy to get too much calcium and not enough magnesium.
Muscle cramping, fibromyalgia (nonspecific muscle pain), heart palpitations and heart disease as well as premenstrual symptoms (PMS) can all result from excessive calcium, according to Dr. Fuchs. And what happens to calcium that can’t be absorbed? “Unabsorbed calcium gets into the arteries and becomes atherosclerosis [a form of arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries)] or into the joints and becomes arthritis.” An overbalance of calcium can also lead to osteoporosis, as a high intake of calcium causes bones to be brittle, whereas magnesium forms bones that are strong and flexible. “Let’s use chalk and ivory to illustrate this bone-building phenomenon,” said Dr. Fuchs. “Chalk is pure calcium carbonate, one of the forms of calcium added to many osteoporosis supplements. Ivory, on the other hand, contains calcium with magnesium. If you took a three-inch-long thin piece of chalk and dropped it, it would break. The same size piece of ivory would bounce. Do you want your bones to be more like chalk or ivory?” In today’s dietary world, it is not at all difficult to overbalance calcium. Dr. Fuchs pointed out that there are 300 milligrams of calcium in just a small container of yogurt. There is also a good quantity of calcium in cheese, which many people snack on. “It’s hard not to get enough calcium even if you’re a vegan and eating a healthy diet. If you’re not eating a healthy diet, it’s very easy to get too much calcium and not enough magnesium.” 6 organic connections
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Calcium & Magnesium. A person can simply add supplemental magnesium to their diet, up to 1,000 milligrams per day (best broken down into two or three smaller doses during the day), till they have comfortably loose stools. Regarding the correct level of calcium, in the same book Dr. Fuchs discusses the fact that calcium absorption is even more important than the amount of calcium taken. For this reason, a person should first evaluate his or her diet and discover what kind of calcium and how much calcium he or she is already ingesting, and then become somewhat educated on absorbable forms of calcium so that it does enter the body correctly. Dr. Fuchs recommends that calcium intake be limited to no more than 500 milligrams daily, which, she points out, is the amount found in many healthy meals. Magnesium Deficiency
As with others in her field, Dr. Fuchs’ research and treating of patients over the years has also led her to discover much information about the body’s need for magnesium and the proliferation of magnesium deficiencies. “I found when I was practicing that there were a lot of women—and men too, but mostly women—who were constipated,” she told OC. “And they were under stress, and stress causes the body to utilize more magnesium and become magnesium deficient. I don’t know very many women who are not stressed. Men may be also, but certainly women are. So I would just start them off with more magnesium
for their constipation and their constipation would go away. But so did other things—so did arrhythmias, so did headaches—and they were able to get rid of the pain from exercising or overexercising more quickly. So if you can take one nutrient and have many, many different reactions clear up, then you know you’re onto something important.” Dr. Fuchs further explains in User’s Guide to Calcium & Magnesium that all muscles contain, and need more magnesium than, calcium. Calcium causes muscles to contract while magnesium helps them to relax, and the heart is a muscle that relies on this combination of relaxing and contracting. Magnesium is vitally important in relieving all muscle-related conditions, including arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), headaches, muscle cramps, muscle pains and restless leg syndrome. Magnesium is necessary for many bodily functions. “On its own, magnesium helps ‘turn on’ hundreds of enzymes,” Dr. Fuchs said. “These enzymes enable the carbohydrates (starches and sugars) and fats in your diet to be used as energy. Magnesium also helps regulate nerve cell function, allowing your nervous system to relax.” Magnesium plays a key role in mood and sleep, and even provides a boost against depression and fatigue. Interestingly, a major symptom of magnesium deficiency, one which many women experience especially just prior to the menstrual cycle, is chocolate cravings. “Chocolate is higher in magnesium than any other food on the planet,” Dr. Fuchs explained. “Chapter 20 of my book Overcoming the Legacy of Overeating is about overcoming chocolate cravings and the magnesium solution. I can’t tell you how much that has helped people, because calcium overload and low magnesium frequently results in craving chocolate, which is high in magnesium.” Dr. Nan Kathryn Fuchs, the Nutrition Detective, continues daily to dig for the facts about calcium, magnesium and endless other subjects affecting our nutrition and lifestyle. We thank her for sharing with us some of her hard-won findings. To find out more about Dr. Nan Kathryn Fuchs, her books, her newsletter and her free weekly health alerts, please visit www.womenshealthletter.com.
America’s First Organically Certified Fast-Food Restaurant
W While the US may be known for its supersized burgers, fries and sugary shakes, and while a large percentage of the population is suffering the dietary consequences of frequent patronage, there is a bright star on the horizon. Thanks to 30-year veteran entrepreneur Jason Brown of Seattle, the face of fast fare is changing radically. “Organic food is a passion. I lived in Boulder, Colorado,
in the seventies and really enjoyed the pioneering days of organic and natural food,” Brown told Organic Connections. “A few years back I was gainfully unemployed, as I had sold my last company, and I had these great people that I wanted to continue to work with that were the founding team of the prior company. So we spent a great deal of time thinking and talking, and after a few months we came up with the whole concept of Organic To Go.” And what a concept! Based in Seattle, Organic To Go is the nation’s first fastcasual café chain to be USDA certified as an organic retailer, with operations in Seattle, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego. Organic To Go’s food is now available in over 170 locations, including 33 cafés, more than 120 wholesale outlets, 14 universities, and 11 kiosks at Los Angeles International Airport with one also at San Diego International Airport. All Organic To Go fare is made with organic ingredients whenever possible, with emphasis on locally grown sources, and is always natural and free of harmful chemicals. The company has expanded quickly. It was only back in April 2004 that Brown, compelled by two fast-growing trends—organic and natural products and takeout food service—gathered a small group of his colleagues for brainstorming. By January 2005 the company’s first two locations had opened in Washington, and in February 2007 the company went public. By November 2007, they had reached close to their present number of locations and were expanding at 65 percent per year. A key part of the Organic To Go business model is to give on-the-go businesspeople and professionals an alternative to the nutritionally devoid food normally available. “Simply put, we’re a business company,” Brown said. “We feed people where they work, go for higher education at universities, as well as in airports. People are excited to have an alternative where they can eat food that is grown without the use of pesticides, and without antibiotics and hormones. But at the end of the day, people eat Organic To Go food because it’s delicious.” organic connections
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Jason R. Brown—CEO
Chef Greg Atkinson
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Organic To Go was created with a threepronged strategy: to open cafés inside large buildings or corporate headquarters, to have “grab & go” locations (more like stores) in other areas such as airports and universities, and to also offer full-service corporate catering. The company feels that if consumers— especially educated people—are given a choice, they will care about organic and natural ingredients. At this time, Organic To Go is the only certified-organic fast-casual café chain in the US and the only alternative to conventional fast food. Of course, the centerpiece of the Organic To Go offering is their food. The sandwich menu includes such temptations as linecaught albacore tuna salad, curried chicken salad, caprese tomato mozzarella, grilled garden vegetables, and Mom’s meatloaf.
The company is able to maintain a comfortable price point through a strategy they call “hub and spoke.” What this means is that food at each location is prepared in a central commissary both for the café and for catering. Not only is this cost effective but it maintains a level of quality throughout their various offerings. Brown was a natural to lead the company to such success. Prior to founding Organic To Go, he founded and served as CEO of Custom Nutrition Services, a custom supplement program that provided consumers with personalized vitamin solutions. Brown also developed awardwinning packaging concepts for the first antibiotic- and hormone-free salmon farms in New Zealand and created a distribution company for the salmon and other innovative products.
Their pizzas are made with organic flour, pizza sauce and mozzarella, with toppings such as fresh organic veggies or organic pepperoni. From their hot entrées one can choose barbeque beef, organic pot roast, tri-tip steak, grilled wild salmon, or tofu garden veggie stir-fry, among many others. There are also wraps, soups, a salad bar, pastries, coffees, and a healthy list of breakfast items. Obviously a key to Organic To Go’s success is the freshness of ingredients. So how do they maintain that freshness? The answer lies in their “just-in-time” inventory system. Items such as lettuce, vegetables and meats arrive just before preparation and when delivered are still very fresh—in fact, significantly fresher than the same ingredients normally available in grocery stores. The company’s mission doesn’t stop at their ingredients, however. They also use sustainable practices in their kitchens and cafés, utilizing items ranging from biodegradable to-go cartons to a new fleet of hybrid delivery cars.
In addition to Jason Brown, the company’s board of directors includes organic luminaries Peter Meehan, co-founder of Newman’s Own Organics, and Hass Hassan, founder of several natural market chains and currently on the board of directors of Whole Foods Market. The menu is created by world-renowned chef and author Greg Atkinson, a leader for over 25 years in sustainable and organic food and its preparation. Atkinson is a charter member of the Seattle Chefs Collaborative as well as being a Certified Culinary Professional with the International Association of Culinary Professionals. The company’s future is poised for expansion into business areas throughout the country, including the as yet untapped East Coast. “It feels good to get other people to try and consume really high quality food,” Brown said, “and I think it’s a powerful message, a powerful opportunity, to be able to build a company that benefits society and also performs financially for its shareholders.”
Arden Andersen, PhD, DO The Root of Good Nutrition
One doesn’t find too many individuals like Dr. Arden Andersen. Not only is he an accomplished physician but he is also a world leader in the field of sustainable agriculture. He knows better than anyone that many of the health issues he is routinely seeing in his practice begin way down in the soil in which our food is grown. And in both cases, he is extremely well versed in what to do.
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Finally friends were asking me, ‘Why don’t farmers that grow the food, including much you go to medical school?’ So I finally did, of the ‘organically certified’ food.” Why has there been such a decline? Dr. and I think I understood that what I was going to do when I got out was not conven- Andersen provides the answer: “When we tional medicine—it was going to be a corre- look back, we see that agriculture has really lation between what’s going on at the farm dropped the ball relative to nutrition in the and what happens with people as far as my soil and then obviously getting that nutrition into the plant, which is into the food that we medical practice is concerned.” eat. Ultimately, in order to change human Why Isn’t Our Food Nutritious? health, we have to go back and change the soil, because that’s where it comes from. And Dr. Andersen points out that there are that’s really where preventative medicine thousands of articles correlating nutrition— begins—right in the soil.” meaning diet—with human health. In fact What exactly is wrong with the soil? one website, www.vitasearch.com, has a It began as far back as the 1930s, when weekly listing of current scientific abstracts an increasing number of farmers started on and around this very subject. Plentiful using purified fertilizers—straight nitrogen, literature exists supporting the fact that straight phosphorus and straight potash, Not surprisingly, Dr. Andersen maintains many of humankind’s major maladies, such known today as the “NPK model.” Other the viewpoint that all life is connected and as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and others, nutrients were neglected—nutrients essential that something done to one aspect of life are related to nutrition. to plant as well as human health—as they can affect all others. “Life forms are all inBut anyone following this information has didn’t appear to be needed in order to grow terdependent,” he told Organic Connections. to take a further step back, for where does bountiful crops. Since the original broader “The microorganisms in the soil determine that nutrition come from? Nutritionists will number of nutrients was never replenished, how a crop is going to grow, which then de- reply that it comes from a balanced diet— over time they disappeared, and today they termines how we’re going to grow with the but that “balanced diet” is composed of food. are long gone. nutrition from that crop. At the same time, how we farm and manage the plant has to do with what goes on with the rain forest and what goes on with the oceans. It’s all It has not been science at all; it’s all about business. connected.” One might ask, how did a medical doctor happen to become an agricultural expert? The answer explains how Dr. Andersen arrived where he is today. According to Dr. Andersen’s research, the But as it turns out, the solutions imple“Actually it’s the other way around,” Dr. nutrient content of foods today compared mented were not only for the sake of farmer Andersen said. “I grew up on a dairy farm to half a century ago ranges from 15 to 75 convenience. Dr. Andersen shed more light in Michigan, with a father and grandfather percent less. Unfortunately, this decline in- on this. “I think farming methods devolved who were quite alternatively open-minded cludes foods labeled organic. “The fact of the mainly because of the drive by industry, relative to raising crops and taking care matter is,” he said, “that the food itself today particularly from World War II on. During of cattle and those kinds of things. Over is significantly deficient in nutrient density World War I, we started developing nitrates time we started having more and more due to the poor nutritional practices of the for bomb making, for explosives, but in problems on the farm with resistive weeds, World War II that production really went resistive insects—things like that—and we into high gear. When the war was over, conwould always deal with them from an cerned interests wondered how this proalternative or natural perspective.” It follows duction could continue—and they decided that Dr. Andersen obtained his first degree agriculture would be a great market.” in agricultural science, from the University The reason for this was that they of Arizona, and embarked on a career knew nitrates promoted very fast crop of consulting in alternative agriculture, growth. “Using a chemical like nitrogen in studying and advising farmers on how crop agriculture, you get crop growth by volume,” and animal health correlates to soil health. explained Dr. Andersen. “The problem is But it didn’t stop there. “I consulted for that the crops are not fit to eat. There’s no about ten years,” continued Dr. Andersen. nutrition there to speak of, and that’s part “During that time I always recognized the of the reason we have degraded our food.” connection between soil health, the crops However, there was a further business that are raised on that soil, and human motivation for pushing nitrates on farmers. health, because we always knew that animal “Nitrates are very conducive to pathogens, health was very correlated to soil health. to harmful organisms,” Dr. Andersen
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Ultimately, in order to change human health, we have to go back and change the soil, because that’s where it comes from. And that’s really where preventative medicine begins—right in the soil.
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The fact of the matter is that the food itself today is significantly deficient in nutrient density due to the poor nutritional practices of the farmers that grow the food, including much of the “organically certified� food.
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continued. “So, as well, the same companies that have promoted the use of nitrogen are also manufacturing the pesticides to kill the organisms that are now going to be promoted by that fertilizer. So it’s a great business plan. And that’s exactly what it has been. It has not been science at all; it’s all about business.” Whatever the motivations, the net effect is soil that is non-nutritious, resulting in nutrient-devoid crops that are disease ridden and require heavier and heavier doses of pesticides and herbicides. Interestingly, it all comes down to the environment created within the soil—and therein lies the key to salvation of crops and farming everywhere. “The thing that we have to understand is that every organism is dependent upon its environment,” Dr. Andersen told OC. “As we change the environment, we change which organisms will survive or perish. As we change the nutrition in the soil and the dynamics of what’s going on in the soil, we can set up the appropriate environment for the beneficial microorganisms to survive, not the disease organisms. They do not like the same environment, particularly as it deals with oxygen; it’s a question of an anaerobic [oxygen-deprived] environment versus an aerobic [oxygen-rich] environment. The beneficial organisms are dominantly aerobic organisms. Our pathogens, or harmful organisms, are dominantly anaerobic-loving. The environments that conventional agriculture has set up are predominantly anaerobic environments, so they’re most conducive to disease organisms.” Solving the Soil Crisis
So what can be done? It is this question that Dr. Andersen strives to answer in detail through his many agricultural classes the
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process, and it must be done farm by farm to be truly successful. Dr. Andersen pointed out that it is a three- to five-year program as a rule, and it begins as he would begin with a patient in his medical practice. “We go back to some basic things of learning how to do a history and physical exam, because 90 percent of everything that really is going to go on has to do with history and physical exam. We have to learn to read the deficiencies in that soil. If we understand really how to read them—we go out and walk the field, doing various precision instrument readings—all of those things tell us what’s actually going on with that plant, with that soil, and so on. When we accumulate those readings, they tell us what needs to be done nutrientwise in order to change that environment.” How are beneficial changes introduced, once the “history and physical exam” have
We’re seeing yields on these crops that are far above the norm on a consistent basis, that conventional farmers only wish for. This is even true in drought years, flood years, cold years and hot years.
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world over. As one might guess, it begins been done? To start with, calcium is added, with soil management. “We need to change since it is one of the most deficient nutrithat soil to become more aerobic so it is not ents in soil. As well, all trace minerals need conducive to disease organisms but is con- to go in—not just the 15 or 16 minerals ducive to beneficial organisms,” he said. “So that conventional agriculture states are required, but the full 60 to 80 nutrients. Carit’s all about management.” Dr. Andersen’s method—called Biologi- bohydrates must be added back in to get cal Farm Management—is not an overnight a positive carbon load; crops today have a
negative carbon load and actually release significant CO2 into the atmosphere as a result. These and other necessary nutrients are added through humic acids, folic acid, molasses or sugar, fish, seaweed, and many others as needed. “We’re dealing with, really, a living digestive system, and we have to treat it like a living digestive system,” Dr. Andersen said. The Result
As one might expect, from nutrient-rich soil come crops that are many times more nutritious. What may surprise farmers, though, is the fact that yield is also significantly affected. “We’re seeing yields on these crops that are far above the norm on a consistent basis, that conventional farmers only wish for,” Dr. Andersen reported. “This is even true in drought years, flood years, cold years and hot years.” And because they’re not being promoted by soils depleted of nutrients, pests are greatly reduced without the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides. “We don’t have the disease, weed and insect problems that the conventional guys are just pulling their hair out over,” stated Dr. Andersen. In ever growing numbers, farmers are noticing that problems with conventional farming are only getting worse—and many of these agriculturists are arriving at Dr. Andersen’s classes. “The better farmers are recognizing that the herbicides are not working well and we’re getting more and more resistant strains,” he said. “If you look organic connections
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at Roundup [a best-selling herbicide], for example, the quantity of active ingredients that farmers are having to use today as compared to 20 years ago is something like three times the amount on a per-acre basis and we’re still getting all kinds of resistant weeds. So those farmers are looking at that and they’re saying, ‘Hey, this is not going to work long term. We have to have an alternative; we have to have other answers.” The bottom line? “Mr. and Mrs. Consumer, we have the technology to grow more nutritious, better tasting, more bountiful food crops without toxic poisons polluting our foods and environment, at a better profit per acre, than do conventional agriculture systems,” Dr. Andersen concluded. “It is being done and is expanding as farmers learn of the technology and consumers demand the better food and fiber products.”
Mr. and Mrs. Consumer, we have the technology
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to grow more nutritious, better tasting, more bountiful food crops without toxic poisons polluting our foods and environment, at a better profit per acre, than do conventional agriculture systems. It is being done and is expanding as farmers learn of the technology and consumers demand the better food and fiber products.
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