Carl Pfeiffer, M.D., Ph.D., Author of Mental and Elemental Nutrients, said, “The well-nourished American is a myth. Despite the high level of education and the abundance of available food, many people make poor food choices and are badly nourished " The average American diet, nutritionally unfit for rats, must be equally unsatisfactory or even more so in meeting human needs”

According to Raymond Francis, the countless degenerative diseases that ravage the American people stem from six pathways; the nutrition pathway, the toxin pathway, the physcological pathway, the genetic pathway, the physical pathway, and the medical pathway. While there are numerous points covered in his book which I will touch upon at a later time, there is one point I found incredibly insightful. If your diet can be thought of in the terms he describes, it can simplify 99% of your nutritional choices. No more thumbing through ingredients, no more special diets, and no more poor food choices.

His concept is simply to consider the foods you eat in terms of how “make-believe” they are. “Make-believe” foods are foods that have been processed, foods that contain artificial ingredients, genetically modified foods, cooked foods, foods that have been grown and harvested using commercial practices, and foods that contain any of “The Big Four.” The big four is referring to sugar, white flour, processed oils, and milk products. The more “make-believe” foods you consume, the further you travel down the path to a slew of degenerative diseases, to which our inferior medical establishment has no answers. Sadly, over 90 percent of the standard American diet is comprised of these foods. Is it any wonder that our nation has the highest rate of chronic degenerative diseases in comparison to any other place in the world?

If every American were to cease consumption of these “make-believe” foods, there would be a dramatic decrease in the prevalence of these chronic diseases. So, why then do Americans continue to consume to wrong foods? The main reason is that most don’t know any better. The old cliché, “you are what you eat” is true in every sense of the word. Few individuals truly grasp the role that food plays within our lives, and how that food fails or succeeds in keeping us healthy. The average consumer is poorly educated about what to eat and what to avoid. Misinformation stemming from food manufacturers, poorly educated physicians, and sheer abundance of destructive foods lining supermarket shelves serve to confuse and disorient the consumer.

In fact, there is really nothing confusing about your nutritional needs—provided you have the correct information. While you cannot expect to make an overnight transition into the pinnacle of health and wellness, make an effort each day to choose the right foods. Consider the concept, that each and every time you choose an organic, fresh, or unprocessed food over that of a make-believe food, you are doing your body a great justice. Your body needs a constant supply of essential nutrients, live enzymes, vitamins, and healthy fats; each time you deny your body these vital elements, you will find yourself one step closer to the medical epidemic that plagues the American people. Hopefully you will not want to be a statistic. You will also find, that once you begin the transition to a healthier lifestyle through your nutritional choices, that your body will no longer crave the detrimental foods you were so accustomed to.

Americans have been conditioned by the medical profession to believe that our diseases are the result of genetics or misfortune. Every disease “needs” a new name, and every named disease “needs” some new wonder pill, yet there is really only one disease—the disease of the cell.