Doctors of medicine known as veterinarians are given rare access to a broad spectrum of life so it should come as no surprise that an observant practitioner should join the dots on a story so important that it might affect the course of humanity: Our food nutrition.
Consumers have the power to change the quality of what they eat by prioritising health, but unfortunately the culture of "down-down", especially in a time of spiralling food costs can water-down the key ingredients we need for a happy and healthy life.
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When Gundula Rhoades lived in Hanover, Germany, immersed in six years of university study, her mother came down with invasive breast cancer. The battle to survive was won through determination, treatment and a healthy diet. The victim's daughter came to question the value of food and for the next three decades has gone down one rabbit hole after another in her passionate quest to answer questions about nutrition and its impact on health and longevity. She has put all of these learnings into her book called "The Food Solution".
Diseases like arthritis, depression, Alzheimer's, cancer, allergies even autism and ADHD are being exacerbated by a lack of vital nutrition in fruits and vegetables, she says. And as a former organic Angus producer she advocates strongly for the consumption of grass-fed protein.
"Global warming is not the cattle's fault! Everything has to do with how we treat the soil," says Dr Rhoades. "I discovered in my years of research as a vet, a nutritionist and a farmer, that soil and its microbiome is at the centre of life itself. If we kill the soil, we kill the planet and ourselves.
"One can compare our bodies to a racing car. Every screw, tyre, nut, wire or injector must be perfect for the car to work. If you take a tyre off, the whole car won't work, and if you take some seals off for example, your car won't run properly, even if it still might just drive along. The body is very similar, but a million times more complex.
"My dozens of medical books and in particular, my biochemistry books paint a picture of this amazing 'body-machine', where everything is dependent on everything else.
"If you remove just one mineral from the body, let's say, calcium, the body will die. If you remove one vitamin or one essential amino acid, you will die. If you have some - but not enough - nutrient you will still function- but at a very much reduced level of health, vitality and joy. This is what is happening to us nowadays.
"All B-vitamins, essential amino acids, alkaloids and phytonutrients for example are produced almost exclusively by the bacteria and fungi in the soil. These microorganisms are like little factories, making nutrients for us. These nutrients are all absolutely essential for our health and lives, and are to a large degree only made by the microbes in the soil.
"Carbohydrates that are laden with glyphosate residues cause our digestive systems to lose the tight junctions in their cell wall resulting in a "leaky gut" that allows bigger molecules direct access to the blood.
"Serotonin, to make you smile, and melatonin, for a better sleep, are created in gut bacteria. Tryptofan plus bacteria make both. Human interaction with healthy soil is the key to accessing this friendly chemistry."
Living as a vegetarian won't solve the dietary puzzle, and Dr Rhoades advocates a meal full of grass-fed beef, rich in Omega 3 oils which are essential for good brain function. Always she insists on organic-raised so she can be assured her food has been grown on a rising plane of nutrient density.
"If we kill the soil by adding laboratory-based chemistry we run the risk of killing the biology by which our nutrients are made in the first place. You might think that vitamins or amino acids come from the vegetables you eat but in most cases, the plants do not produce these themselves; the microbes in the soil do, as well as making the minerals in the soil available so that they can be taken up by the plant which absorbs these 'prepared nutrients' through their roots. And that, that is what gives our food its goodness. By killing our soils through chemicals, we are literally killing ourselves, as the wave of chronic diseases, obesity, mental health decline, cancers and all these other diseases proves. We have never been so overfed and undernourished, and if the experts are right, this will end in a disaster for society," says Dr Rhoades. "We need to change farming to return to regenerative and biologically sane methods. We must change, if we want to survive.
- Dr Rhoades book The Food Solution is available through Amazon
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