How do you define quality?

The U.S. Grain Trade's "quality" definition is based largely on measuring defects.

Test Weight - Moisture - Foreign Material
Mechanical or Insect Damage - Splits Weevil
Heat Damage - Sou -r Musty

Users of grain measure "Quality" by properties of value for specific use.

Oil Content Starch Structure hardness
Percent Protein

"Quality" of products should be determined by:

Total Spectrum Nutrient Balance
Nutrient Density
Storability - quality produce will dehydrate - not rot
Absence of Toxic Substances

How Do You Measure Quality?

Long term health of animal or person consuming the produce
The rate of gain or production of animals eating produce
Length of the productive life of animal or person
Amount of produce that must be consumed daily to provide adequate nutrition

Understanding True Quality
Hunza Story

Robert McCarrison, a distinguished Scotch physician, was head of the Nutritional Research Agency for the Imperial Government of India.

He did a comparative study of the dietary practices of people from various regions of India. Rats were fed diets of the various regions. Those that ate the diet of the Sikhs increased their body weight much faster and were healthier than those ingesting the diet of the neighboring Bengalis.

Even more extraordinary, when his rats were fed the same diet as that of the Hunzas, a diet limited to grain, vegetables, fruits, and unpasturized goats' milk and butter, the rodents appeared to McCarrison to be the healthiest ever raised in his laboratory. They grew rapidly, never seemed to be ill, mated with enthusiasm, and had healthy offspring. Autopsies showed nothing whatsoever wrong with their organs. Throughout their lifetimes these rats were gentle, affectionate and playful.

Other rats contracted precisely the diseases of people whose diets they were fed, and even seemed to adopt certain of the humans' nastier behavioral characteristics. Illnesses revealed at autopsy filled a whole page. All parts of the rat's bodies - skin, hair, blood, ovaries, and womb, and all their systems respiratory, urinary, digestive, nervous and cardiovascular were afflicted. Many of the rats, snarling and vicious, had to be kept apart if they were not to tear each other to bits.

Hunza is located in a narrow valley surrounded by snow capped Himalayan peaks in Pakistan. The valley is dotted with small stone farmhouses, filled with terraced fields, and split by glacial streams which water and fertilize the fields.

Visitors have written in great detail about the extraordinary health of the Hunzakuts. There is practically no plant or animal disease, and virtually none in humans: absolutely no cancer, no heart or intestinal trouble: and the people regularly live to be centenarians, signing, and dancing and making love to the edge of the grave. Visitors tell of seeing no cripples. Wounds are said to heal with remarkable speed, seldom becoming infected if rubbed with the local soil, rich in minerals. Hunza women are so healthy they need no assistance in delivering a child whom they breast feed for two to three years, deliberately spacing their children so as to wean them one at a time. Children are invariably reported as growing up unneurotic and healthy, with none of the normal childhood diseases such as mumps, measles, and chicken pox. The girls' complexions are depicted as without acne or blemish, attributable in part to the application of oil of apricot seed. Nor is their any evidence of juvenile delinquency; visitors remark that one never hears a mother scold or bribe a child. Treated as integral members of society, trusted and given responsibility, the children are described as growing up healthy emotionally as well as physically.

The secret of the Hunza health is their soil. It is a combination of silt produced from the glaciers grinding mountain rock and organic compost. This combination provides plants, animals, and humans with every element of need for life.

Every possible milky grey stream from a glacier is channeled to a field. In the winter, the channels are cleaned and the silt is spread on the fields to give a fresh layer of soil.

All vegetable parts and pieces that will not serve as food for man or animal are returned to the soil in the form of compost. Animal manure and seasoned human waste are also used in this compost.

The Hunzakuts also drink the pearly gray mineral rich glacial water. An American, John A, Tobe, who determined that the minerals were in the colloidal state, first scientifically analyzed this water. The particles, approximately 1/100,000th to 1/10,000,000th of a centimeter across, carry an electric charge - usually negative. This enables the human body membranes to directly absorb essential mineral elements.

Izaak Walton's Observations

Over 300 years ago Izaak Walton said:" It is certain that certain fields in Leominster, a town in Herefordshire, are observed to make sheep that graze upon them more fat than the next, and also bear finer wool; that is to say, that in that year in which they feed in a particular pasture, they shall yield finer wool than they did that year before they came to feed upon it, and coarser again if they shall return to their former pasture; and again return to a finer wool being fed on the finer wool ground. Which I tell you, that you may better believe that I am certain, if I catch a trout in one meadow, he shall be white and faint, and very likely be lousy; and as certainly as if I catch a trout in the next meadow he shall be strong and red and lusty and much better meat; trust me, scholar, I have caught many a trout in a particular meadow, that the very shape and enameled color of him was made such as hath joyed me to look on him; and I have then with much pleasure concluded with Solomon, "Everything is beautiful in its season.""

In short Walton observed differences in health, in wool quality, in the sheen of body color, and in the quality of muscle meat. He even noticed a difference in the presence or absence of insect infestations of sheep and of fish related to the fertility of the soil.

Dr. William Albrecht's Work

Dr. Albrecht, former chairman of the soils department a the University of Missouri, studied nutrition as it is related to various forms of native vegetation in the United States, and correlated that information with the conductivity of the soil for radio reception as mapped by the National Broadcasting Company.

His basic thesis was that higher rainfall patterns in the Eastern and Southeastern United States have leeched out the native soil fertility elements. Therefore, even though there is ample water in the Eastern states, there are not enough of the necessary fertility salts for either good radio reception or for production of protein rich crops. He explained that the low protein crops such as virgin pine tress grow naturally in these areas. In the arid west the fertility salts are ample in the soil, but the moisture is deficient for ideal electrodynamic behavior which gives both good radio reception and higher protein and mineral content for crops.

Rainfall and temperatures determine the degree of soil development. A moderate rainfall pattern results in development of a soil that is good for production. Higher rainfall area soils are weathered to a great extent and therefore not as adequate for protein production. The higher rainfall areas are capable of growing more vegetative bulk which also means more decay. With decay, more carbonic acid is formed and the resulting acidity replaces the soil's natural calcium and magnesium.

Moderate rainfall patters in the West, and higher rainfall but more moderate temperatures in the Northwest, form soil clays with a greater capacity to hold or absorb nutrients. Soils formed in the Eastern states under higher rainfall patterns and the increasing temperature going from the North to the South means different clay is formed. These clays have fewer nutrient holding capacity. This explains why coniferous forests grow here, because there is little protein in these areas.

It is clear that Dr. Albrecht was correct, and as farmers seek to increase yield it is possible to get a combination of carbohydrates and proteins, or only carbohydrates. Dr. Albrecht tied his explanation to climate, natural soil development, native habits of buffalo and other animals. Many scientists have now concluded that farmers, through poor soil management, have depleted nutrients from even the most productive soil areas. In other words, commercial farming as we have known it for the past several decades has greatly accelerated natures' natural processes.

Andre Voisin's Presentations

Andre Voisin, of the Academy of Agriculture of France, lectured the Veterinary Societies in France, Germany, and England in the 1950's as follows:

"Grass made it possible to obtain a "biochemical photograph" of the soil, showing clearly that the mineral elements of the soil control cell metabolism in the animal and consequently also the latter's vigour and health. On pursuing this study further it was found that the "dusts" of the soil likewise control the proper functioning of the cells of Man. "

What must never be forgotten is that diseases are created chiefly by destruction of the harmony existing between the soil elements. The great tragedy of modern techniques is the complete disruption of this harmony by new cultural methods. Karl Jaspers, my Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg University when I studied there, often spoke, and with good reason, of "Die Damonie der Technik" (the demoniacal character of the technical). This "Damonie brings its ravages to bear above all the soil, the very basis of human life, and it will be the task of all agronomists, veterinarians, and medical scientists of tomorrow to apply their skill re-establishing the harmony in the soil that the "Damonie der Technik" has destroyed."

In his book Soil, Grass and Cancer Voisin continues:

"Increasing human population and the enormous pressure being exerted by organized masses of city-dwellers on powerless agricultural communities are gradually reducing the agricultural population, which is forced constantly to increase its output, producing more food, more cheaply, without any thought for its biological values. This result can be achieved only by the use of ever-greater quantities of mineral chemical fertilizers. It is impossible to go back, and it would be undesirable, as has been shown above by the many examples of the beneficial effect that fertilizer dressings can exert on the plant and on the animal. The fertilizer, however, must be applied judiciously-which is not at present. Today, indeed, three times as much of all the elements in the soil are being removed, but generally only four, or at the most seven, of these elements are being replaced. "

"The serious consequences of applying large quantities of nitrogenous fertilizers to a pasture over a period of fifteen years were referred to above (pp.35-38)."

Dr. Alexis Carrel writes:

The eminent French scientist and Nobel Prize winner Dr. Alexis Carrel wrote as early as 1912 in his book Man, the Unknown, that soil is the basis for all of human life, our only hope for a healthy world rests on re-establishing the harmony in the soil we have disrupted by our modern methods of agronomy.

Today soils are tired, overworked, depleted, sick, and poisoned by synthetic chemicals. Hence the quality of food has suffered, and so has health. Malnutrition begins with the soil. Buoyant human health depends on wholesome food, and this can only come from fertile and productive soils. Minerals in the soil, said Carrel, control the metabolism of cells in the plant, animal and man. Chiefly destroying the harmony reigning among mineral substances present in infinitesimal amounts in air, water, food, but most importantly in soil creates diseases.

If soil is deficient in trace elements, food and water will be equally deficient.

Carrel then came to the point: chemical fertilizers cannot restore soil fertility. They do not work on the soil but are enforcedly imbibed by plants, poisoning both plant and soil. Only organic humus makes for life.

Plants, says Carrel, are great intermediaries by which the elements in rocks, converted by microorganisms into humus, can be made available to animal and man to be built into flesh, bone and blood. Chemical fertilizers, on the contrary, can neither add to the humus content of soil nor replace it. They destroy its physical properties, and therefore its life. When chemical fertilizers are put into soil they dissolve and seek natural combination with minerals already present. New combinations glut or overload the plant, causing it to become unbalanced. Others remain in the soil, many in the forms of poisons.

Plants that are chemically fertilized by look lush, but lush growth produces watery tissues, which become more susceptible to disease, and the protein quality suffers. Chemical fertilizers, said Carrel, by increasing the abundance of crops without replacing all the elements exhausted from the soil, have contributed to changing the nutritive value of our cereals.