34 Joel Fuhrman, M.D.dense food to begin with, but then the food manufacturers remove
the most valuable part of the food and then add bleach, preserva-
tives, salt, sugar, and food coloring to make breads, breakfast cereals,
and other convenience foods. Yet many Americans consider such food
healthy merely because it is low in fat.
Soil Depletion of Nutrients Is Not the Problem - Our Food Choices Are
Contrary to many of the horror stories you hear, our soil is not de-
pleted of nutrients. California, Washington, Oregon, Texas, Florida,
and other states still have rich, fertile land that produces most of our
fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds. America provides some of
the most nutrient-rich produce in the world.
Our government publishes nutritional analyses of foods. It takes
food from a variety of supermarkets across the country, analyzes it,
and publishes the results. Contrary to claims of many health-food
and supplement enthusiasts, the produce grown in this country is
nutrient-rich and high in trace minerals, especially beans, nuts,
seeds, fruits, and vegetables.^14 American-produced grains, however,
do not have the mineral density of vegetables. Grains and animal-
feed crops grown in the southeastern states are the most deficient,
but even in those states only a small percentage of crops are shown
to be deficient in minerals.^15
Thankfully, by eating a diet with a wide variety of natural plant
foods, from a variety of soils, the threat of nutritional deficiency
merely as a result of soil inadequacy is eliminated. Americans are not
nutrient-deficient because of our depleted soil, as some nutritional-
supplement proponents claim. Americans are nutrient-deficient be-
cause they do not eat a sufficient quantity of fresh produce. Over 90
percent of the calories consumed by Americans come from refined
foods or animal products. With such a small percentage of our diet con-
sisting of unrefined plant foods, how could we not become nutrient-
deficient?
Since more than 40 percent of the calories in the American diet
are derived from sugar or refined grains, both of which are nutrient-
depleted, Americans are severely malnourished. Refined sugars cause
us to be malnourished in direct proportion to how much we con-
sume them. They are partially to blame for the high cancer and heart
attack rates we see in America.