Background

The nutritional status of our bodies is dependent on:

• Our food choices
• The nutrient content of our food
• Environmental factors interfering with the absorption of nutrients, or giving rise to extra nutrient needs. 

Our food choices:

• In the past, diets were based on fresh, free-range meat and locally grown, seasonal fruit and vegetables. Processed foods were not available.
• Today, those fresh meals are increasingly replaced by convenience foods, which are selected for taste, colour and texture, rather than nutritional value.

The nutrient content of our food

• In the past, rotational farming, free-range grazing, the absence of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and the consumption of fresh, local produce ensured that food was rich in essential micro-nutrients.
• Today, intensive monoculture farming, the widespread use of fertilisers that contain only three of the sixty minerals required by growing plants, storage, artificial ripening and food processing dramatically reduce the vitamin and mineral content of our food.

Environmental factors interfering with the absorption of nutrients, or giving rise to extra nutrient needs

• In the past, there was less exposure to drugs, pesticides and preservatives.
• Today, antibiotics have produced widespread bacterial imbalance in our intestines, resulting in impaired synthesis of B vitamins and vitamin K, and decreased uptake of other minerals.
• Environmental toxins have increased our antioxidant needs.  

The human body needs sufficient nutrients for optimum health.

There is a gap in the nutritional status of most people today, which an apparently wholesome, balanced diet may fail to correct.

In consequence, disease is on the increase.