The Nature of Cancer

[Guest guest]

I think that this probably took place in the 1960's. To use Hunzas as a

reference later became a discredited spin/sales reference to dubious health

claims, but I think here that it was used honestly and probably for the first

time used in reference to explain their extremely low rate of cancer. F.

 

http://www.datadepo.com/cancercure/krebs.htm

 

The Nature of Cancerby Ernst Krebs, Jr.

 

 

This page is a transcript of the talk presented before the CCS Second annual

Cancer Convention, Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California. Ernst Krebs is the

world's foremost researcher into Vitamin B17, or laetrile. Here you get the

story from the " Horse's Mouth " .

 

This is my complete list of links regarding the research behind B17 and laetrile

for treating cancer. READ them. Ernst Krebs is the world's leading authority on

the relationship between cancer and nitrilosides, and the inventor of laetrile.

 

G. Edward Griffin's book World Without Cancer (American Media, 1974),

available from Reality Zone

Ernst Krebs' discussion of The Nature of Cancer

Ernst Krebs' discussion of the Trophoblast Theory of Cancer

Ernst Krebs' discussion of Trophoblasts and Morning Sickness

Ernst Krebs' discussion of the Metabolism of Nitrilosides (Vitamin B17)

Charles Gurchot's explanation of How Vitamin B17 Works

 

 

 

It is certainly a pleasure to be here at the Second Annual Convention of the

Cancer Control Society-an outgrowth, as you know, of the International

Association of Cancer Victims and Friends.

 

As I look back through the years marketing the emergence of these two fine

Societies, I can recall the number of miraculous victories we have had in those

intervening years;that it is as true today as it was eleven years ago that

Laetrile, Vitamin B17, is the first and last final hope in the prophylacsis in

therapy of cancer in man and animals. The reason for this is that Laetrile is a

vitamin. It is the 17th of the B vitamins.

 

We hear a great deal about its use in terminal cancer, but the time to start

with vitamin B17 is now before the disease become clinical. The time to start is

the same with any matter of adequate nutrition and that is right now. You may

start now by commencing to eat the seeds of all common fruits that you eat. The

apricot and peach seed contain almost 2 percent of vitamin B17 by weight. The

apple seed, although very small, is equally rich in Vitamin B17. So are the

seeds of prunes, plums, cherries, and nectarines. The only common fruit on the

hemisphere that lacks nitrilosidic seeds, are the citrus fruits. This lack has

come about by artificial cultivation by breeding and hybridization, since the

seeds of citrus fruits on the African continent still contain Vitamin B17.

 

Two more rich sources of Vitamin B17 are the simple cereal millet and buckwheat.

Macadamia nuts, although expensive and exotic, are very rich in Vitamin B17 and

so are bamboo shoots, mung beans, lima beans, butter beans and certain strains

of garden peas. But for convenience, the simple source for your Vitamin B17 are

the seeds of the common fruit.

 

We know something about the prophylactic dose of Vitamin B17. For example, we

know the Hunza's represent a population that has been cancer free for over 900

years of its existence. This population has a natural diet, which supplies on

the average between 50 to 75 milligrams of Vitamin B17 a day.

 

Hunzaland is a land that has sometimes been described as the " place where

apricot is king. " The Hunzakuts eat the fresh apricots for the three months they

are in season and the remainder of the year they eat dried apricots. They never

eat a dried apricot without enclosing the seed between them. This supplies them

with better than average of 50 to 75 milligrams of Vitamin B17 a day.

 

There are many of us in the Western World who don't ingest this amount of

Vitamin B17 in the course of an entire year. As a result we're in the midst of a

fulminating deficiency of Vitamin B17 or nitriloside, the anti-neoplastic

vitamin. Its absence from our diets accounts for the fact that cancer on our

population has reached such a pandemisity as to account for its occurrence in

one in every three American families. The occurrence is probably much greater

than that because it is very late in its development when the cancer is

detected.. Many who develop cancer are killed by accident or intercurrent

diseases before the malignant process has become sufficiently advanced to cause

them to have it diagnosed.

 

Cancer is a chronic, metabolic disease...that is obvious. It isn't an infectious

disease, which is caused by bacteria of viruses. It is a disease that is

metabolic in origin. A metabolic disease is a disease that is linked with our

utilization of food. Most metabolic diseases have as their basis specific

vitamins and minerals.

 

Let me give you a categorical or axiomatic truth to take with you. One that is

totally uncontradictable, scientifically, historically and in every other way.

This is that no chronic or metabolic disease in the history of medicines has

ever been prevented or cured, except by factors normal to the diet or normal to

the animal economy. There have been many erstwhile fatal devastating diseases

that now have become virtually unknown. They have been prevented and cured by

ingesting the dietary factors and thereby preventing the deficiencies, which

accounted for these diseases.

 

The one in which you are probably most familiar is Scurvy. A fatal disease that

killed mankind by the thousands. A disease that would sometimes wipe out an

entire Polar expedition or accounted for about 50 percent mortality among the

Crusaders. A disease that is totally prevented and totally cured by Vitamin C or

ascorbic acid a factor normal to an adequate diet. As you know so well from your

school days that Great Britain acquired the dominion of the seas, by empirically

discovering that by adding lime or other citrus juices to the provisions of the

British mariners the curse of scurvy from the British sea power was removed.

Therefore, Britain competitively gained the ascendancy on the seas. Prior to the

incorporation of Vitamin C into their diets it wasn't uncommon for three-fourths

of the crew to become seriously ill by the end of a voyage and then those who

didn't die would mysteriously recover after hitting shore because they would

have access to fresh fruits and vegetables rich

in Vitamin C.

 

Then we have Pernicious Anemia, which had a mortality rate of 98 or 99 percent.

And no medical modality under the sun could touch it. Arsenic and its salts,

strychnine, iron and hundreds of other remedies were tried, but to no avail

until the researchers Drs. Murphy, Shipple and Minot commenced their classical

studies on the relationship of Pernicious Anemia to dietary deficiency.

 

While working at the University of California they discovered a very simple

remedy for preventing and curing this disease. They simply said to their

patients, " go down to your butcher shop and get a quarter pound of fresh liver.

Grind it up and take a tablespoon everyday and take the quarter pound and cook

it very lightly and just singe the surface and use this as a ration for three

days. " And when the patients followed this advice without exception, those with

Pernicious Anemia made complete recoveries. Despite this these men were censored

by the Medical Establishment at the time and were criticized for engaging in

what was alleged to be Medical Quackery.

 

The argument was how can respectable doctors advise people with a disease that

has a 99 percent mortality rate to ignore all of the established drugs of

medical science and go down to the butcher shop and buy some raw liver and take

this and expect this to cure a disease that nothing else had cured. Well, raw

liver did cure the disease and raw liver did prevent it.

 

As the chemistry of raw liver was studied it was discovered that the factors

responsible were Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid. So Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid are

now a part of our normal dietary experience.

 

So in 1974, the uninformed, the unimaginative and some of the illiterate are

concerned with what to them is a preposterous idea that by eating seed of fruit

you can prevent a disease that carries a mortality rate almost as high as that

once carried by pernicious Anemia. But scientific truth isn't dependant upon

credibility or lack of it. The scientific reality either is or isn't. And this

is the scientific reality that the seeds of all common fruits (except

citrus)contain Vitamin B17, an anti cancer vitamin. If we ingest proper

quantities for these vitamin either in the pure form or through ingesting the

nitrilosidic foods we will be able to prevent this decease just as surely as we

are able to prevent Scurvy by the use of vitamin C or Pernicious Anemia by the

use of vitamin B12.

 

There was another disease that is a metabolic or chronic nature and this is

Pellagra. At one time it was so endemic in certain parts of the world,

particularly the American southwest, that there were entire hospitals given to

the treatment of Pellagrans.

 

The great Sir William Osler in his " Principles and Practices of Medicine "

written at the turn of this century, said of Pellagra, " I was at Lenoir, North

Carolina during one winter and this winter I visited the Lenoir home for the

colored insane and there 75 percent of the inmates died from the disease. It ran

rampant through this institution and convinced me beyond any doubt that pellagra

is a virus that is infectious. "

 

And then came the fine works of the United States Public Health Service Surgeon,

Dr. Goldberger, who showed conclusively that the occurrence of Pellagra was

related with a deficiency of fresh green material in the diet.. So Dr.

Goldberger approached this problem first by the use of Brewer's Yeast, which

would completely prevent and cure pellagra. Further studies then showed that the

factor in Brewer's yeast that was most determinate of this effect was niacin,

Vitamin B3.

 

So another fatal chronic metabolic disease found total resolution and cure

through factors normal to the normal diet or the animal economy. We know that

cancer is no exception to this great generalization and to date has known no

exception. That is that every chronic of metabolic disease that will ever be

controlled by man, must be controlled by means that are a part of the biological

experience of the organism. Chronic and metabolic diseases can never be

controlled, prevented or cured by factors foreign to the biological experience

of the organism.

 

Let's make it clear by what we mean by biological experience to the organism.We

refer to the experience the of the organism has had over the million years of

its evolution. The organism was exposed to water, air, carbohydrates, fats,

amino acids and various salts and these factors became integrated with the

evolving organism. And the evolving organism became integrated with these

factors. And these factors with the evolving organism were incorporated into the

beautiful machinery of " life. " And the vital mechanism of life runs just like

the parts of a fine Swiss watch only infinitely more complex.

 

Dr. Thomas of the Sloan Kettering Institute in a recent article in Science said,

" I'm thankful that my liver works without my knowledge. I do not have the brains

to commence to do one millionth of what my liver does. These things are

automatic . So I swallow the food and this infinitely complex machinery takes

care of itself. " We could spend years telling you about this magnificent

machinery and we still wouldn't touch the surface of this infinite ocean. We do

know that there is nothing that we can do to improve upon it. We do know that in

the history of medicine there never had been found anything foreign to the

indwelling requirements of this machinery that will do the living organism any

good. And we can go further to say there has never in the history of medicine

been found anything foreign to the indwelling machinery of this infinitely

complex system that will not harm the organism. There isn't such a thing as a

factor foreign to the biological experience that is not harmful to

the organism.

 

There is nothing we can add to our air water and food to improve it. The most we

can do is to look at some of our devitalized food and hopefully attempt to

replace that which was capriciously removed from it in the process of food

refining, manipulation or cooking. There is absolutely nothing that we can add

to that food to improve it. These things are basic.

 

There isn't any chemical or drug that medical science could suggest that would

make us healthier or better adjusted or wiser or give us hope for a longer life.

There isn't a single drug or molecule in nature that can unless that molecule

exists in normal food. And this probably explains one of the reasons why there

is so much resistance to Laetrile, B17

 

The application of this science brings us face to face with a lot of things we

do not like to face. We have become over-civilized. We are inclined in out

delusory thinking to feel that here and there there must be a magic out. That

there must be a simple way, a short cut, that somehow or other medical science

or some other man-made forces beyond our comprehension will do for us those

things we must do for ourselves. And it is slowly dawning on us, perhaps too

slowly that this thinking is fraudulent; that it is unsound.

 

It isn't in the field of cancer alone where we see this form of charlatanism or

quackery. We see it in the area of the human mind. The futile attempts to spare

man from the realities that surround him. Above all to spare him from the fact

that he is accountable to himself and to his God and that there is no short cut

in this accountability.

 

It's real at the physical level. And when we are eating less than adequate food,

we know better, And when we continue we are engaged in sin, this is the basis

for practically all of our physical and mental and spiritual difficulties. We

had better be realistic about it. We have them because we don't do the right

things. And when we fail in view of our knowledge now to take Vitamin B17 this

is a sin against our physical nature. And when we develop cancer we will receive

the results of this transgression in the old fashion Biblical sense that the

" wages of sin are death. "

 

If you are not getting Vitamin B17 in your food the best way to get it is in the

pure form. If you have cancer, the most important single consideration is to get

the maximum amount of Vitamin B17 into your body in the shortest period of time.

This is secondary to the medical skill involved in administering it, which is

relatively minimal. Then very often there are many supportive measures that are

taken in the management of the cancer patient such as the use of materials to

build up the blood, to raise or lower the blood pressure or to relieve the pain.

 

Pancreatic enzymes and vegetable enzymes are part of the supportive theory. You

have the papaya melons as the source of the enzyme Papain and pineapple as a

source of the enzyme Bromelain. The demasking effect of these enzymes against

the pericellular layer of the malignant cell is something very concrete in the

immunology of cancer. Now I prefer, rather than advising the use of bromelain or

papaya tablets that the individual seeking these enzymes get them directly from

the fresh ripe pineapple and papaya fruit. As much as half a pineapple a day

should be ingested.

 

This is the way to go. You have nothing to lose by eating fresh pineapple and

papaya melons. Nothing to lose by eating millet, the seeds of all the common

fruits and whole fresh foods.

 

Dietary deficiencies arrive primarily from eating less than whole food. This is

why the Federal and State governments have made mandatory the artificial

enrichment of white flour. Look at any loaf of white bread or white flour that

has been enriched by the addition of crystalline Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, niacin,

iron and all the rest. What a commentary on the stupidity of our civilization

that we put good food through a process that defects it of its essential

nutrients and then enforced by the Government mandate requirements that say that

we must restore to this food some of the things that have been processed out.

One of the most critical factors is removed and that is wheat germ, which

contains the Vitamin E and the poly unsaturated fatty acids. it would not be

necessary to take it in supplementation if our foods were not manipulated in a

way to remove this.

 

Now something about supplementation's in addition to the Vitamin B17. We can't

think in terms of just one vitamin. We get an adequate diet by eating as wide a

variety of whole natural foods as possible and as close to their growing period

as we can possibly obtain them.

 

There are laetrile therapists who recommend two or three grams of ascorbic acid

or Vitamin C in conjunction with the Laetrile program. This is a very moderate

recommendation and we can all take up to seven or eight grams of Vitamin C

without any problems. This is about the same amount as the higher primates such

as the gorilla on a pound to pound basis ingest between five to six grams of

Vitamin C a day in their normal habitat. Incidentally, the gorilla in its

natural habitat eats about 100 to 125 milligrams of Vitamin B17 a day, too. Like

the population of Hunzaland, these gorillas are free of cancer, so are bears in

their normal habitat. out in the wilds they don't develop cancer.

 

In the San Diego Zoo there was a cage of about ten bears and out of the ten,

seven of them developed cancer. To some this was a sign that some mysterious

bear cancer virus was loose. but, it wasn't that at all. In the wild state the

bears are omnivores and they eat a lot of wild nitrilosidic berries. Almost all

wild fruits are nitrilosidic.

 

Keep in mind how far we have drifted from the dietary requirements of the

machinery that we now possess. When we evolved and came to our maturity as

organisms about 8,000 or 9,000 years ago the world witnessed the advent of

agriculture and horticulture came a little later. The millions of years prior to

that time we ate the cherries, apricots, apples, prunes and the rest of the

fruits. They had Vitamin B17 not only within the seeds, but in the flesh, too.

Today only wild fruit contain the Vitamin B17, but in the process of

hybridization it has been removed.

 

The fruit that we eat today is the product of years of manipulation and

cultivation for lushness and abundance and so forth, so the meat to that fruit

is free of Vitamin B17. To meet our indwelling needs of Vitamin B17 we must

either eat the fruit seed in reasonable quantity or begin supplementing our diet

with Vitamin B17 tablets. We can't of course, do that at present, but we hope to

see before very long Vitamin B17 available so that we can prevent cancer in the

same way we prevent scurvy.

 

Several new books are coming out on Laetrile. Both are written by non-medical

men - World Without Cancer by Edward Griffin and Vitamin B17: Forbidden Weapon

Against Cancer by Mike Culbert. We are all laymen in he field of cancer. There

are more laymen in the Laetrile movement who know more about cancer than some of

our most prestigious experts in our most prestigious institutions. These laymen

know enough about it to keep alive and not die from it. So you're a pretty

rotten expert if you know so little about it as to succumb from it or have your

family succumb from it.

 

We have many case histories of people that have been helped by Laetrile. Both

Alicia Buttons and Mary Henderson were terminal with oral pharyngeal cancer that

has a mortality rate of 98-99 percent even in early diagnosis. Both made

remarkable recoveries with Laetrile under the guidance of Dr. Hans Nieper in

Germany.

 

You know we have been meeting ten or eleven years and you've been hearing this

story. Each time after the meeting you had 360 days to go home and read

newspapers, American Cancer Society Boiler Plate and so forth. In those ten

years they haven't told you anything against Laetrile that makes any sense. You

can be pretty sure they don't have anything against Laetrile because these

people are very uninhibited and the area in which they are most uninhibited is

in the area of simple lying.

 

If you have any questions about Laetrile, the more critical the better because

we are dealing with solid science. We are dealing with a science that admits

that there is no rational alternative in the ten years that have past since

these meetings. Nothing has come about to do anything except to make more

obvious the fact that Laetrile, Vitamin B17 is the answer to cancer.

 

Q. Will cooking millet destroy the Vitamin B17?

 

A. No, cooking doesn't destroy the Vitamin B17. Almost every food that we eat is

better eaten raw. And when we cook a fruit we destroy the enzymes and wherever

we have Vitamin B17 we have the accompanying enzyme B-glucosidase naturally.

B-glucosidase is destroyed by heat, but Vitamin b17 is not destroyed by heat.

 

Q. Is there any way in which a person may be deficient in the enzyme rhodanese?

 

The enzyme rhodanese is a normally occurring enzyme that converts cyanide to the

non-toxic compound neocyanate and we evolved with the Rhodes because the Vitamin

B17 containing cyanide originally was so large a part of our diet. So far as we

know there is no development of rhodanese deficiencies.

 

We must be very realistic that there is absolutely nothing we can do to alter

this infinitely complex machinery of the cell and of life. All that we can do is

to supply those components that are missing and then hope for the best. It's

like being on the freeway with a Cadillac in which the hood is locked and you

run out of gas. Now all your knowledge of mechanics are going to be of no avail

just pour gas in to the tank and step on the starter and hope for the best that

the gas gets sucked into the motor. When the machinery of the cell begins to

falter or fail you put in those factors normal to the operation of that

machinery. Since we have no choice we allow the universe to take its course. We

don't go on the presumption that we can successfully tamper with that infinite

machinery.

 

Q. Do you believe that we should take the Wobenzym enzymes along with the

Laetrile?

 

Yes, they are good, except I think they are slightly overpriced and I strongly

recommend the American Viokase put out by Viobin in Minticello, Illinois.

 

Q. Is Laetrile a prescription item in Mexico or Canada?

 

I know that it is legal in Mexico, but I don't know the exact situation in

Canada at the moment. You may get it without a prescription in Mexico.

 

Q. If you get the benefits from the seeds of fruits for prevention, why is it

necessary to take the more concentrated forms?

 

Like everything else in science, it is self-answering. It isn't necessary, so

eat the seeds and you can get an adequacy of Vitamin B17.

 

Q. The fact that cancer is a metabolic disease, what role does pollution have in

that process?

 

Pollutants harm the liver and the liver is a great detoxifying organ of the

body. If the liver is detoxifying an excess of estrogen, for example, and

capacity of the liver is impaired by pollutants, the estrogen level then may

reach a concentration sufficient to induce cancer. If we are eating apples that

have been sprayed with arsenic and we eat enough of these apples, the arsenic

may produce a hepatic chirrosis that again will impair the capacity of the liver

to detoxify certain carcinogens and thereby contribute to the development of

cancer. If we are receiving a very high concentrating of Vitamin B17 this will

offset the possibility of developing cancer, but these pollutants still can kill

us through producing chirrosis of the liver and destroying other vital cells.

 

Q. Can the body handle inorganic Vitamin C?

 

The Vitamin C on the market is organic and contrary to what is sometimes believe

is not synthetic. The Vitamin C that is produced in this country is produced by

fermentation involving the growth of the mold Streptomycetes. So it is a

biosynthetic process. This is the cheapest and most efficient way to do it,

although this is not a " complex. "

 

Q. How many seeds should we eat?

 

I would say that 15 seeds every other day would provide an adequacy and give

quite a margin.

 

Q. If we are supposed to eat seeds, why aren't we supplied with teeth for

breaking through the pits?

 

There are societies that have not become too corrupted by the sophistications of

modern technology. These people are capable of biting through the pit. We have

even seen small dogs break the pit and eat the seeds. Squirrels, chipmunks,

bears, higher primates such as monkeys ordinarily do it.

 

Curators of zoos tell us when monkeys and apes are thrown fresh apricots,

peaches and plums, in time, if they are thrown enough of them, they cease eating

the sweet sugary fruit and they begin hoarding the pits. they manage to break

open those pits. Primates will take them in hand and hammer them against a piece

of concrete. Eating these seeds is universal among the nomads and among the

higher animals.

 

Q. How do you keep the seeds once they are out of the pit?

 

You may keep the seeds indefinitely if you keep them thermatically sealed under

refrigeration. If you don't d\keep them under refrigeration the Vitamin B17

won't deteriorate, but the unsaturated fatty acids will turn rancid and become

carcinogenic.

 

Q. Does Vitamin B17 help sickle Cell Anemia?

 

A lot of fine work is being done on this. Robert Houston has done some very

brilliant studies along these lines and he has published several top-rate

papers. Sickle Cell anemia crises is the result of a fulminating deficiency of

Vitamin B17 and it occurs in Americans of African origin, who upon leaving the

African continent become removed from a dietary source of vitamin B17. Sickle

Cell crisis is a Vitamin B17 deficiency disease in the same way that Pernicious

Anemia is a Vitamin B12, Folic Acid deficiency disease.

 

Q. Do almonds contain cyanide?

 

The Romans found that here and there almond trees appeared which had almonds

that were completely sweet and no longer had any trace of bitterness. That

bitterness is due to the presence of Vitamin B17. So they proceeded to destroy

all of the almond trees that had any trace of bitterness and propagated those

almond trees that just yielded the sweet kernels. so those almonds that have

come to us in the Western World are very rich in the enzyme B-glucosidase, but

deficient in Vitamin B17. On the other hand the eastern part of the world, such

as the Ukraine, Soviet Union and Red China, have predominately the original

bitter almond, very rich in Vitamin B17

 

Q. Is it o. k. to eat all the legumes raw?

 

No, it isn't. It is good to cook most beans. The cooking doesn't destroy the

Vitamin B17 content. Although beans eaten raw in small quantities are quite

acceptable as food.

 

Q. Is it best to take all 15 apricot kernels at once?

 

Yes. I should add that it is a good idea to grind them up in a nut grinder. One

teaspoon of the material is equivalent to seven of eight seeds. Take two

teaspoonfuls and lace a fruit salad or oatmeal or whatever you are eating. You

can incorporate it into muffins or use it a hundred different ways. You can take

it straight or you can eat it and then follow it with a little honey because of

the persisting bitterness.

 

Q. Are the broad beans or visa fava high in cyanide?

 

Yes, they are splendid. It was one of the staples in the diet of the Roman

legions. The legionnaires not only ate broad beans. but they fed them to their

horses. This made for a very vigorous infantry in Calvary. Visa fava are also

known as Italian beans or flat beans.

 

Q. Is Vitamin B17 helpful against devastating effects of excessive quantities of

environmental or medical radiation?

 

No, and the reason for it is a very common sense one. In all of the exigencies

of our evolution and natural selection, the presence of radiation in such

horrible concentrations was never anticipated. The organism may be beset with

such onslaught and there are no mechanisms including Vitamin B17 to medicate the

deadly effects of such excess radiation. This is one of the most horrible

assaults on living tissues. The most horrible assaults that living tissue can

sustain, because it destroys not only the individual of one generation, but it

may cripple, if not extinguish the immortal germ plasma, on which the continuity

of the species itself relies.

 

From a mountaintop land where cancer and heart disease are unknown, come some

down-to-earth ideas about eating for health.

Death Rides a Slow Bus in Hunza

by Jane Kinderlehrer

 

How would you like to live in a land where cancer has not yet been invented? A

land where an optometrist discovers to his amazement that everyone has perfect

20-20 vision? A land where cardiologists cannot find a single trace of coronary

heart disease? How would you like to live in a land where no one ever gets

ulcers, appendicitis or gout? A land where men of 80 and 90 father children, and

there's nothing unusual about men and women enjoying vigorous life at the age of

100 or 120?

 

We see a lit of hands going up. Fine. But first, you have to answer a few more

questions before setting out for a place called Hunza, a tiny country hidden in

the mountain passes of northwest Pakistan.

 

Are you willing to live 20,000 feet up in the mountains, almost completely out

of touch with the rest of the world? Are you ready to go outside in every kind

of weather to tend you small mountainside garden, while keeping you ears open

for an impending avalanche? Are you prepared to give up not only every luxury of

civilization, but even reading and writing?

 

We see a lot of hands going down. But if you want the benefits of the pure air

that whips by the icy cathedrals of the Himalayan Mountains, the pure water that

trickles down from glaciers formed at 25,000 feet, and the mental and spiritual

peace that comes from living in a land where there is no crime, taxes, social

striving or generation gaps, no banks or stores-in fact,-no money- where are you

going to find it outside of Hunza?

 

But don't give up! Not yet, because there is still one more question to be

answered. That is: are you prepared to eat the kind of food the Hunzas eat? If

you are, then you can rightfully expect to give yourself at lease some measure

of the super health and resistance to degenerative disease which the Hunzakuts

have enjoyed for 2,000 years.

 

What kind of exotic, ill-tasting grub do these Hunza people eat, you are

wondering. Strange as it may sound, virtually everything the Hunzakuts eat is

delectable to the western palate, and is readily available in the United

States-at least if you shopping horizons do not begin and end at the

supermarket.

 

Not only is the Hunza diet not exotic, but there's really nothing terribly

mysterious about its health-promoting qualities, Everything we know about food

and health, gathered both from clinical studies and the observation of

scientists who have traveled throughout the world observing dietary practices

and their relationship to health, tells us that it is to be expected that the

Hunza diet will go a long way towards improving the total health of anyone,

anywhere. The Hunza story is only on of the more dramatic examples of the

miraculous health produced by a diet of fresh, natural unprocessed and

unadulterated food.

All systems " Go " At 20,000 Feet

Maybe you're wondering: are the Hunzas really all that healthy? That was the

question on the mind of cardiologists Dr. Paul D. White and Dr. Edward G.

Toomey, who made the difficult trip up the mountain paths to Hunza, toting along

with them a portable, battery-operated electrocardiograph. In the American Heart

Journal for December, 1964, the doctors say they used the equipment to study 25

Hunza men, who were, " on fairly good evidence, between 90 and 110 years old. "

Blood pressure and cholesterol levels were also tested. Hwy reported that not

one of these men showed a single sign of coronary heart disease, high blood

pressure or high cholesterol.

 

An optometrist, Dr. Allen E. Banik, also made the journey to Hunza to see for

himself if the people were as healthy as they were reputed to be, and published

his report in Hunza Land (Whitehorn Publishing Co., 1960). " It wasn't long

before I discovered that everything that I had read about perpetual life and

health in this tiny country is true, " Dr. Banik declared. " I examined the eyes

of some of Hunza's oldest citizens and found them to be perfect. "

 

Beyond more freedom from disease, many observers have been startled by the

positive side of Hunza health. Dr. Banik, for example, relates that " many Hunza

people are so strong that in the winter they exercise by breaking holes in the

ice-covered streams and take a swim down under the ice. " Other interpit visitors

who have been there report their amazement at seeing men 80,90,and 100 years old

repairing the always- crumbling rocky roads,and lifting large stones and

boulders to repair the retaining walls around their terrace gardens. The

oldsters think nothing of playing a competitive game of volleyball in the hot

sun against men 50 years their junior, and even take part in wild games of polo

that are so violent they would make an ice hockey fan shudder.

 

The energy and endurance of the Hunzakuts can probably be credited as much to

what they don't eat as what they do eat. First of all, they don't eat a great

deal of anything. The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that the

average daily food intake for Americans of all ages amounts to 3,300 calories,

with 100 grams of protein, 157 grams of fat and 380 grams of carbohydrates, In

contrast, studies by Pakistani doctors show that adult males of Hunza consume a

little more than 1.900 calories daily, with only 50 grams of protein, 36 grams

of fat, and 354 grams of carbohydrates. Both the protein and fat are largely of

vegetable origin (Dr. Alexander Leaf, National Geographic, January, 1973).

 

That amounts to just half the protein , one-third the fat, but about the same

amount of carbohydrates that we Americans eat. Of course, the carbohydrate that

the Hunzakuts eat is undefined or complex carbohydrate found in fruits,

vegetables and grains, while we Americans largely eat our carbohydrates in the

form of nutritionless white sugar and refined flour.

 

Needless to say, the Hunzakuts eat no processed food. Everything is as fresh as

it can possibly be, and in its original unsalted state. The only " processing "

consists of drying some fresh fruits in the the sun, and making butter and

cheese out of milk. No chemicals or artificial fertilizers are used in their

gardens. In fact, it is against the law of Hunza to spray gardens with

pesticides. Renee Taylor, in her book Hunza health secrets( Prentice-Hall 1964)

says that the Mir,or ruler of Hunza, was recently instructed by Pakistani

authorities to spray the orchards of Hunza with pesticide, to protect them from

an expected invasion of insects. But the Hunzas would have none of it. They

refused to use the toxic pesticide, and instead sprayed their trees with a

mixture of water and ashes, which adequately protected the trees without

poisoning the fruit and the entire environment. In a word, the Hunzas eat as

they live -organically.

Apricots Are Hunza Gold

Of all their organically-grown food, perhaps their favorite, and one of their

dietary mainstays, is the apricot. apricot orchards are seen everywhere in

Hunza, and a family economic stability is measured by the number of trees they

have under cultivation.

 

They eat their apricots fresh in season, and dry a great deal more in the sun

for eating throughout the long cold winter. They puree the dried apricots and

mix them with snow to make ice cream. Like their apricot jam, this ice cream

needs no sugar because the apricots are so sweet naturally.

 

But that is only the beginning. The Hunzas cut the pits from the fruits, crack

them, and remove the almond-like nuts. The women hand grind these kernels with

stone mortars, then squeeze the meal between a hand stone and a flat rock to

express the oil. The oil is used in cooking, for fuel,as a salad dressing on

fresh garden greens, and even as a facial lotion ( Renee Taylor says Hunza women

have beautiful complexions).

The Apricot Kernel Anti-Cancer Theory

Do these kernels have important protective powers which in some way play an

important role in the extraordinary health and longevity of the Hunza people?

The evidence suggest they very well might.

 

Cancer and arthritis are both very rare among the Taos (New Mexico) Pueblo

Indians. Their traditional beverages is made from the group kernels of cherries,

peaches and apricots. Robert G. Houston told PREVENTION that he enjoyed this

beverage when he was in New Mexico gathering material for a book dealing blender

shakes based on an Indian recipe. Into a glass of milk or juice, he mixed a

tablespoon of honey with freshly ground apricot kernels(1/4 of an ounce or two

dozen kernels) which had been roasted for 10 minutes at 300. It is vitally

impotent to roast the kernels first. Houston points out, " in order to insure

safety when you are using the pits in such quantities. " roasting destroys

enzymes which could upset your stomach if you eat too many at on time. In any

event the drink was so delicious that Houston kept having it daily. On the third

day of drinking this concoction, Houston says that a funny thing happened. Two

little benign skin growths on his arm , which formerly were pink

had turned brown. The next day, he noticed that the growths were black and

shriveled. On the seventh morning, the smaller more recent growths had vanished

completely and the larger one. about the size of a grain of rice, had simply

fallen off.

 

Houston says that two of his friends have since tried the apricot shakes and

report similar elimination of benign skin growths in one or two weeks.

 

What is there in apricot pits that could produce this remarkable effect? some

foods, especially the kernels of certain fruits and grains, contain elements

known as the nitrilosides(also known as amygdalin or vitamin B 17) says Dr.

Ernst T. Krebs, Jr., biochemist and co-discoverer of Laetrile, a controversial

cancer treatment( Laetrile is the proprietary name for one

nitriloside).Nitrilosides, says Dr. Krebs, are non-toxic water-soluble,

accessory food factors found in abundance in the seeds of almost all fruits.

They are also found in over 1.00 other plants. Wherever primitive people have

been found to have exceptional health, with marked absence of malignant or

degenerative disease, their diet has been shown to be high in the naturally

occurring nitrilosides, Dr. Krebs maintains.

 

" These nitrilosides just might be to cancer what vitamin C is to scurvy, what

niacin is to pellagra, what vitamin B12 and folic acid are to pernicious

anemia, " says Dr Krebs (Cancer News Journal, May/August, 1970).

 

There are other common foods (all seeds) which provide a goodly supply of this

protective factor. Millet and buckwheat, both of which the Hunzakuts eat in

abundance, are two. Lentils, Mung beans and alfalfa, when sprouted, provide 50

times more nitriloside than does the mature plant, Dr. Krebs points out. And the

Hunzas, as you might expect, spout all of their seeds, as well as using them in

other ways. Since other essential protective elements are increased in the

sprouting of such seeds, young sprouts are excellent foods which give us more

life-giving values than most of us realize.

Apricots Rich in vitamin A and Iron

Aside from whatever anti-cancer properties the seeds of apricots may offer, the

fruit itself is exceptional in its own right. There is probably no fruit which

is as nourishing as the apricot. When they are dried, and most of the moisture

removed, the concentration of nutrients becomes even greater. A generous handful

of dried apricots (3 1/2 ounces) is packed with nearly 11,000 units of vitamin

A, or more than twice the recommended daily allowance. In fact, if this much

vitamin A was put into a capsule the FDA would arrest the person selling it.

because they consider this amount both " useless " and " potentially dangerous. "

The Hunzas eat it every day. Dried apricots also contain a great deal of iron,

potassium and natural food fiber.

The Style For Longer and Better Life

Besides apricots, the Hunzas also grow and enjoy apples, pears, peaches,

mulberries, black and red cherries, and grapes. From these fruits, the Hunzas

get all the vitamin C they need, as well as the other nutritional richness of

fresh fruit, including energy from the fruit sugars. From the grapes, they also

make a light red wine that helps make their simple fare into more of a real

" meal " .

The World's Freshest Bread

The bread which accompanies each meal enjoyed by the Hunza's, and sometimes

forms the mainstay of the meal, is called " chappati " - and is quite different

from any bread that we are used to. The grain is kept intact as long as

possible, and is ground at the very last moment, the housewife grinds only as

much as she needs for the next meal, and kneads again and again with water- no

yeast! She then beats it into very thin, flat pancakes similar to the tortillas

of the Mexican Indians,

 

Chappatis can be made form wheat, barley, buckwheat of millet, So although

chappati is something new to us, the ingredients are all familiar and easily

available. Sometimes the flours are mixed together and baked in several shapes,

small or large, depending on the occasion.

 

While bread baking at home in our country is practically a lost art because of

the time involved, a surprising feature about chappatis is the incredibly short

" baking time, if you can call it baking at all. The dough is simply placed on

the grill for hardly more than a moment and it is finished.

 

" Just long enough to grow warm and no longer taste raw " . Dr. Ralph Bircher noted

in his book on Hunzas published by Huber in Bernie, Switzerland. " No more

effective method of preserving the health value of the grain exists and the

taste is excellent even without butter of jam, " Dr. Bircher notes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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