Posts Tagged ‘ Seeds ’

Modern diets ignore the axiom that seeds hold the germ of life. Too often overlooked is the fact that nature has placed in seed foods the concentrated essence of all nutrition in order to provide nourishment for the sprouting plant. Only one part of any plant is outstandingly rich in protein and that is the seed. Proteins are centered in the seeds of a plant, so that the new life may receive ample nourishment for normal growth. Science has isolated and identified most of the nutrients in seed foods. It is my belief that seed foods contain life-sustaining powers which are, as yet, unknown to science, and from which we can benefit greatly when these seeds are made a part of our daily diets. Little by little, modern nutritional science is inclining to the belief that whole seed cereals (I stress ‘whole’ because of the health-blind custom of milling most of the food value out of our cereals) can supply for your diet a now missing something that formerly was there when life and eating habits were much closer to the primitive. In fact, several biochemists have told me it’s their private opinion that only when we regain that
missing ‘something’ in our diets which the primitive peoples enjoyed will we find the preventive for many of our deficiency and wasting diseases. Seed foods have always formed a large portion of the instinctive diet followed by primitive peoples. And so highly did they value these seed foods that many religious superstitions grew up around them.

For instance, the Indians of the twoAmerican continents, from Alaska to Patagonia, placed bowls of cereal grains and sunflower seeds on the graves of their dead for food to nourish them on their long, dangerous journey into the next world. What had been good, energy-giving food while they were alive, the surviving Indians reasoned, must also be good food for them when dead. How many times this past year has your table been graced with millet, steel-cut oats, whole unbolted cornmeal, raw wheat germ, sesame seed or sunflower seed? Have your morning pancakes and your suppertime muffins been made with all-starch white flour or devitalized corn meal-or with whole wheat flour and millet meal? Does your cereal bowl at breakfast contain a no-food-value, devitalized dry cereal-or does it contain steel-cut oats, or millet meal mush? Were the cookies you carried in your lunch topped with white sugar, or with sesame seeds?

Never mind answering! Unless you are one of the disturbingly small minority in this country who recognizes the stay-young values in seed cereals, I know that your pancakes were made with 100 per cent-starch white flour; that your muffins were made with devitalized corn meal; that your cereal bowl contained a patented dry cereal, one of the biggest frauds in modern nutrition; and that your cookies were made with more white flour and decorated with no-nutrition white sugar. And yet you wonder why your hair turns gray (when it doesn’t fall out altogether), why your muscles grow flabby, your figure becomes lumpy, your teeth decay, your eyesight grows poorer all the time, your sexual powers disappear prematurely and your nerves act like Mexican jumping beans. Much talk is in the air these days about ‘miracle foods.’ Two of the so-called ‘miracle foods’ most widely advertised are brewers’ yeast and blackstrap molasses. Heaven alone knows how many hundreds of packages of these two unpalatable products are lying around on cupboard shelves, untouched after the first few attempts to get them down. No food can work ‘miracles’ for your health if you don’t like it well enough to eat it regularly.>

I don’t deny that brewers’ yeast and blackstrap molasses contain all the nutrients attributed to them. But why fool yourself that you’re obtaining the benefits of the valuable nutrients in these two products, when actually you can’t tolerate the stuff enough to eat it regularly, no matter how you may try to disguise it? How much better it would be for your stay-young efforts if you were to depend instead on the equally valuable nutrition to be found in seed cereals that not only nourish you with an abundance of the same proteins, minerals and vitamins, but which taste good besides. Let me introduce you to several of the new-old seed cereals about which you probably know very little. Of course, there’s no need to go into details on such seed foods as nuts (don’t overlook the splendid nutrition and taste enjoyment of fresh coconut as bought in the shell, or in packages at health food stores-not the desiccated, long-keeping, artificially sweetened variety found on grocery shelves) peas and beans. These foods are too well known to need any introduction. They all contain a fair quality of vegetable protein, besides essential minerals and vitamins. And if you find them easy to digest (many persons do not), then by all means include them in your daily diet.

The three seed cereals with which I wish to acquaint you are both satisfying and easily digestible. They merit a place in every diet, for gradually they will take away your desire for white breads and rich pastries. And after you’ve succeeded in eliminating all artificial, pure-starch, youth-destroying foods from your diet, your body will show its gratitude by losing that bloated, flabby look which puts the years on you along with the pounds. Seed cereals and whole grains help build a body that is firm and lithe-a young body.

Millet

Millet is the first of the seed cereals that should be on your table regularly. Little known in this country, except as poultry and animal feed, millet has been one of the principal grains of Eastern Europe, Africa, Siberia and China for centuries. Five hundred years before the beginning of the

modern Christian era, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras praised the high nutritive value of millet, and advised his followers (all vegetarians) to adopt millet as the mainstay of their diets. Contrary to popular belief, millet and not rice is the basic food of most Chinese in their native country. Only the small-statured, less robust Southern Chinese subsist on rice. The tall, sturdy, vigorous Northern Chinese have used millet as their principal food for many centuries. We Americans will adopt a certain plant from other con` tinents, but for our livestock, not for our own bodies. Our depraved appetites tend to spurn the wholesome, health-giving, youth-protective natural foods in favor of the widely advertised artificial foods that make old men and women of us in our prime.

On a Saturday morning not long ago, while driving to the West Coast, I stopped in a small Iowa town located in the heart of a rich farming section, and parked in front of the local grocery store. The street was lined with farmers’ trucks and autos while the families went about their weekly shopping.

Before long the family in the car next to mine returned, loaded down with their purchases-the father carrying a sack labeled ‘ ‘Whole Millet, Chicken Feed, Mineral-and-Protein Rich, For Laying Stock’; the children alternately lapping on ice cream cones or munching on candy bars; and the mother carrying a box of canned goods topped by two loaves of baker’s white bread (even sliced for her) and a cellophane package of dried noodles. What a travesty on good nutrition! The only real nourishment in all their purchases-the whole millet-was going to their chickens, while the devitalized white-flour bread and noodles were supposed to ‘ ‘nourish’ the hard-working farmer and farm wife and their growing children. Watching them as they drove away, I could have wept for the long-life days when a farmer took his own grain to the mill to be ground whole, then returned it to the barrel in the pantry; and the farm wife made her own bread and noodles from the whole grain flour.Millet is one of the oldest and most nutritious foods known to man. It is a completely balanced grain, non-acid forming and rich in high-grade protein, minerals, vitamins and lecithin (the same tasty substance found in egg yolk, and containing that valuable B-vitamin, choline for its powers to prevent fatty deposits on artery walls).

Laboratory investigations have revealed that no food is digested with as great ease as millet. It does not ferment in the stomach, causing digestive and intestinal distress, as do the foods and breakfast cereals made from white flour and other devitalized grains.Millet is non-fattening, since it does not produce the excessive fat that follows a diet containing the all-starch, low-mineral, no-vitamin, devitalized corn, wheat and rice. To our own detriment, we have come to rely too heavily on wheat, corn and rice as our national cereals, forgetting that there are equally as tasty, and far more nutritious, seed foods which we should adopt for the sake of our own, and the national, health. After the First World War, millions of Russian peasants in White Russia faced starvation. In desperation, they ate the millet which had been put away for the chickens they no longer had. And what happened? Not only did these peasants survive the long period of famine, but they soon discovered they were enjoying better health than they had ever known while consuming their former varied diets. One of the peasants, who had suffered from stomach ulcers for fifteenyears, found that his ulcers disappeared in six months on his forced diet of nothing but millet.

News of this millet diet gradually reached the scientists in this country. Professors Osborn and Mendel at Yale, after extensive experiments, announced that millet contains a richer store of vitamins than any other cereal in common use in the United States; that millet is the only grain capable of supplying all the vitamins needed for human nutrition. Later studies also revealed that millet contains every one of the 10 essential amino acids, and that its protein is equal in value to animal protein. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg declared that millet is the only cereal capable of supporting human life when used as the sole item in the diet. Of course, no one wants to live exclusively on millet-unless forced to do so as were those desperate Russian peasants. But if worse came to worst, scientists are convinced that you could live on a diet of nothing but millet, and not only survive, but become even healthier and more vigorous than you ever were. It would be unfortunate, indeed, if you tried to live on wheat alone, even whole wheat, since this grain lacks certain of the 10 essential amino acids. But the completeness and high quality of the proteins in millet make it possible for your body to be well supplied with all the essential amino acids, even though little or no other protein foods are eaten.

This is a fact which I believe should be more widely utilized by dietitians and homemakers during times of meat scarcities and meat rationing. During our past era of meat rationing, in the days of World War II, home economists promoted, as meat substitutes, rice, macaroni, spaghetti and noodle dishes. Starch is never a safe substitute for protein.The only foods which should ever appear in the menu as an honest substitute for a meat dish are eggs, cheese, milk and high-protein seed cereals. By adding extra amounts of dry skim milk (a rich source of protein) to these truly protein meat substitutes, a meatless diet may be prevented from falling far below a safe daily minimum of 100 to 150 grams of protein. Now don’t get the idea that I’m recommending that you do away with meat in your diet, and substitute millet. Meat is an unexcelled, hard-to-replace food. But what I do want to impress upon you is this: If the meat

situation again becomes ‘tight,’ remember that you can stretch your budget through liberal use of millet, a safe vegetable protein. Moreover, millet is almost a necessity in a vegetarian diet, because it can provide a complete protein without the need of eating a lot of bulk, something not true of most other vegetable proteins. If there were enough meat in this country, at a fair price for everybody, then I’d say ‘meat twice a day, at least.’ But we might as well face the fact that meat is deliberately kept high-priced and scarce in this country to benefit the interests of a selfish few, rather than priced reasonably enough so plenty of meat would be available to every pocketbook, thereby appreciably raising the national health standards. The short-sightedness of some high officials in pandering to the interests of the cattle industry prevents our importing enough meat to place at least one red meat dish on every table in the nation twice a day, seven days a week-and at a price well within reach of the lowest income group. This may sound like Utopia to you. But I saw first-grade meat being sold at phenomenally low prices in Uruguay and Argentina, as it always has been-and surely what these two sister countries can do, we in the great United States of America could also do for our own populace.

But it won’t be done-you and I know that. In fact, the meat situation will probably be a lot worse before it gets better. And I realize there are thousands of persons living on incomes that won’t permit their purchasing meat every day in the week. For that reason, I believe that more recognition should be given to millet (sunflower seeds, too) as a nutritionally safe, low-cost, easily digestible meat substitute. In addition, millet is an unusually rich source of riboflavin -one of the B-vitamins. This seed cereal also provides rich amounts of thiamin (B-i), and vitamins A and E, together with good amounts of the other B-complex factors. What’s more, millet contains a good balance of all the minerals needed by the human body for optimum health.

We are specialized in anti-aging health products. Learn ‘The Six Secrets To A Long Young Life’. To receive your free report visit our AntiAgingHealthProducts.com website and sign up for your free copy.