Following are excerpts from the 2nd Session of the 74th Congressional Record:

“Our physical well-being is more directly dependent upon minerals we take into our system than upon calories or vitamins, or upon precise proportions of starch, protein or carbohydrates we consume.”

“Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until depleted soils from which our food comes are brought into proper mineral balance?”

“The alarming fact is that foods (fruits, vegetables, and grains) now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain minerals are starving us-no matter how much of them we eat. No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his system with the minerals he requires for perfect health because his stomach isn’t big enough to hold them.”

The truth is that our foods vary enormously in [nutritional] value, and some of them aren’t worth eating as food ...”

“Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago (which doubtless explains how our forefathers thrived on a selection of foods that would starve us today!)”

“It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99% of the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually results in disease. Any upset of the balance, any considerable lack of one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, and shorten our lives.”

“We know that vitamins are complex chemical substances which are indispensable to nutrition, and that each of them is of importance for normal function of some special structure of the body. Disorder and disease result from any vitamin [or mineral] deficiency. It is not commonly realized, however, that vitamins control the body’s appropriation of minerals, and in the absence of minerals they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins, the system can make some use of minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless.”