“The reality is that a minute amount of a vitamin in its whole food form is more effective nutritionally than a large amount of a synthetic one!
An excellent illustration of this is the story involving a medical doctor held captive in a prisoner of war camp during the Korean war (1950-1953). After a period of time on their severely inadequate diet, many of the doctor’s fellow prisoners began showing signs of beriberi, a disease that results from a severe thiamine (B1) deficiency. He notified the Red cross, and they sent him thiamine in a synthetic form, thiamine HCl (a coal tar-based vitamin). The doctor gave this to his patients, but their health continued to deteriorate.
Finally, the doctor’s North Korean guards whispered to him that beriberi could be cured with rice polish, the nutritive outer layers of the rice that are removed when it is refined. He thought the suggestion was absurd, but he had nothing to lose so he started giving his patients a teaspoon or more of rice polish every day. Within a short time, the beriberi epidemic ceased.
There is only about one level teaspoon of thiamine in an entire ton (2,000 pounds) of unrefined, whole rice. The amount of thiamine that the prisoners of war were getting in their rice polish was infinitesimal. What a tribute to unrefined rice and an excellent example of the potency of whole foods!” – pp. 40 from Back to the Basics of Human Health, By Mary Frost.
We have a copy of Mary’s book for you at the office. If you’d like to read it cover to cover, all 82 pages, the next time you are at Synergy, just mention that you are reading the blogs and we’ll give you a copy of the book!