Over-processing
A McCarrison Society booklet (Link) celebrating the life and works of Cleave (Link) who forewarned in his book of the health dangers associated with highly refined foods, particularly flour and sugar, in his book ‘The Saccherine Disease’ (Link) sums things up thus:
“Half a century ago the British Medical Journal published an editorial saying;
‘all the evidence goes to show that the human alimentary tract, from the teeth to the colon, rebels against refined foodstuffs, and in eating a quantity of refined foods people do indeed dig their graves with their teeth.’
In 1986 the British Medical Association summarised all the reliable scientific evidence on food and good health now known to us in its report ‘Food, Nutrition and Health’, recommending ‘an increase in consumption of fresh food and vegetables, wholemeal and other bread and cereals generally’.
The McCarrison Society is the British professional association committed to the promotion of good health and the prevention of disease by sound nutrition. To this end the Society has published this paper on one of the founders of modem nutrition, Surgeon-Captain T L Cleave, whose thesis, built on the rock of Darwin’s general theory, is that the human race is not adapted to processed food of the type now eaten in Western countries.
Cleave’s short book The Saccharine Disease’ is succinct, and written in language that anybody interested in food and health can readily understand. In this book, his masterpiece, he proposes that many deadly, disabling or disagreeable diseases, such as heart disease, common cancers, diseases of the lower gut, diabetes, ulcers, varicose veins, obesity and tooth decay, are all manifestations of one master ‘Saccharine Disease’, caused by Western food, overloaded with refined sugar and flour, stripped of fibre, protein, vitamins, minerals and trace elements, and literally unfit for human consumption.
Manufactured food of the type typically supplied to the British Nation is stuffed with cheap processed fats and sugars; and it is no surprise that food manufacturers, and their defenders, reject Cleave’s message. But in essentials, Cleave is right.”
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