This topic fascinates me, and I can’t wait to find out if it gets you going, too…please comment below and tell me what you think!
I first posted a little about this after hearing Karen Lubbers (she owns the farm where we get our raw milk) speak at the Deidre Currie Festival: Milk Comes From Cows Not Beans. If you haven’t read that post, be sure to take a look, she brought up some very interesting points, and here are a few of her comments that relate to what really causes disease…
- If you start looking at your pasture, you start looking at your soil. Soil feeds the grass that feeds us. We can mask it with fertilizers and pesticides, but masking only delays problems.
- We have lost the ability to understand our dirt. If we kill our bugs, we die.
- My experience with the medical profession tells me that they don’t get the soil connection at all – if our dirt is healthy, we will be healthy.
- The germ theory of illness dominates western medicine
- In the mid 1800’s there was a huge battle between two competing paradigms:
1. The “germs cause illness” movement led by Louis Pasteur. (His work led to dairy pasteurization.)
2. The “disease is caused by failure of the immune system” movement led by Claude Bernard. This debate was huge in its time. It turns out that Pasteur had financial connections and a dynamic personality. Toward the end of his life, he said that he thought Bernard was right: the microbe is nothing, terrain is everything.
- The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but rather will teach lifestyle and diet – the cause and prevention of disease.
All this was brought to mind anew recently when reading this book by Ramiel Nagel:
Read this great excerpt:
“A Paradigm of Personal Responsibility…During the time of Mr. Pasteur, there also lived another French scientist by the name of Antoine Béchamp. He believed…yes, hold your breath here…that germs do not cause disease. Rather, he believed that germs exist and evolve in relationship to the changing conditions of the ecosystem in which they live. In other words, it is the unhealthy environment inside your body that creates sickness by providing the fertile ground on which germs can mutate into harmful forms, and do so in response to their environment.
But surely, you may be saying, the germ theory must be correct. It has been in application for over a hundred years now, giant corporations make billions off of its tenets, our medical establishment is based on it, and it is taught in schools and reported about in the media. Consider the fact that even Mr. Pasteur is said to have admitted on his death bed that ‘the microbe is nothing: the terrain is everything.’”
What is “the terrain”?
The terrain is our immune system, which lies in our gut, or our intestines. If we maintain a healthy immune system, we don’t have to worry about things like the Swine Flu, and if we do catch something, our bodies will fight it off fairly easily. The ways to get and keep our immune system healthy (including eating foods grown in healthy soil!), are not always easy to implement, but as with everything, it’s a process, just try to do better all the time. Take baby steps – our bodies are an amazing creation and if you work with it and treat it well, even by making little changes for the better, it can make a huge difference in your long term health.
Kelly says
Hi Adam, no I haven’t read it, but I’ve read this book review on it:
https://www.westonaprice.org/bookreviews/chinastudy.html
Adam says
Kelly,
Good stuff here on your website. After reading this post about disease and dairy and such, i’m curious if you’ve read the book “The China Study” by T. Colin Campbell?
Kelly says
Raine & LN, interesting (and scary!) thoughts about a natural disaster…
Hi Vin, I checked out your blog and loved this post: https://naturalbias.com/3-diseases-you-should-be-afraid-of/!!!
Janet, thanks for the great suggestions!
Janet W says
The original idea of terrain was indeed the soil that grew the crops and fed the animals. If you’re interested in more about truly healthy soil, try these books:
1. Sir Albert Howard, considered by J.I. Rodale to be the father of the organic — meaning how the soil is kept alive — movement. Some of his books are free online here
2. Weston Price — you can read the complete Nutrition and Physical Degeneration at the above web site.
3. Jerome I. Rodale — considered the modern father of the organic movement. His How to Grow Vegetables & Fruits by the Organic Method is a classic.
4. Adelle Davis speaks of soil and the conversations she had with Rodale in Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit.
5. Farmer’s Of Forty Centuries — eariler than Price’s trips, L.H. King went to Japan, China, and Korea to see how so little land could support so many people.
6. Gene Logsdon, especially All Flesh is Grass.
Once you see how the soil affects what kind of food we put in our bodies, then check out the following for how good food helps us:
1. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration — Price
2. Nourishing Traditions — Fallon
3. Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit — Davis (she has several things I don’t agree with, for example she stresses using soy oil, but her overall ideas are sound)
4. Real Food — Nina Planck
5. Wild Fermentation — Sandor Katz
6. The Schwarzbein Principle — Diana Schwarzbein — this is an excellent book for people with hypoglycemia/diabetes. She does mention using oils that I wouldn’t go near, but the main part of her book is WAP friendly.
7. For very good help getting you and your family off of sugar and (as she calls them) white things try Little Sugar Addicts — Kathleen Des Maisions.
Local Nourishment says
I’m there with ya, Kelly. This has been floating around in my head for a while now. But getting this thought mainstream is going to be an even tougher sell than getting word out that the lipid hypothesis has been disproved.
As for when the system breaks down, as in Katrina, it wasn’t only sanitation that broke. I work very hard to find grassfed meat, raw dairy, pastured poultry and eggs and organic produce to feed my family. If a disaster the size of Katrina hit my area, it might be an even bigger challenge to find “clean enough” water and the components of the Standard American Diet to fend off hunger. The long-term process of immune system building would benefit us at that point, but the day-to-day feeding of our bodies toward health would suffer.
Local Nourishment
Vin | NaturalBias.com says
Hi Kelly, this topic fascinates me as well. At the most basic level, disease can be viewed as cell malfunction, and it is promoted by many of the habits that modern life persuades us to engage in.
It’s a shame that Pasteur’s theory took such a hold and that few people payed attention to his admission of “terrain being everything.” It’s because of this that we are deprived of good dairy, and what’s ironic is that pasteurization kills more good bacteria than bad!
This discussion of “terrain” and immunity is timely with the recent swine flu media frenzy. If people only realized their not suffering from a flu shot deficiency! Stop panicking and start living a better lifestyle!
Vin | NaturalBias.com
Raine Saunders says
Yes, yes! I agree with all of what you posted and I have been thinking the same thing for years; when I stopped vaccinating my son about 4 years ago because I realized the vaccinations were probably going to cause him many problems as well as fail to inoculate him against anything, my parents went ballistic and accused me of not providing proper medical care to my son. They of course, think I’m totally wacko and regularly remind me that when Tristan needs to go a “real” doctor, I usually don’t take him or just wait too long. He’s only had antibiotics once in his life, and I regret it because I didn’t understand what I was doing at the time. Mostly in our house we don’t get sick much at all. I did do a cleanse this spring for heavy metals and parasites, and I was sick overnight and then the next day I was fine. It truly is the DIVERSITY of bacteria in our guts that saves us. I do think the depletion and mineral deficiency of our soil has some effect though. All the polluting and damage we’ve done to our environment has affected our ability to grow healthy food, digest nutrients, and maintain our health. Most people’s answer to staying well is just to wash your hands and take Vitamin C, but they give really no thought whatsoever to how diet affects our response to illness and disease. However, one interesting thing is that when society does break down (I’ll use the example of Hurricane Katrina) and all sanitation goes out the window,disease runs rampant. It makes everyone realize the advancements we’ve made just by having running water and electricity. So when that does happen, if you have taken care of your health properly through nutrition, you’ll stand a much better chance of survival than someone who has spent their life on antibiotics and processed foods. 🙂
Raine Saunders
Kelly says
Karla, I’ve made a similar switch and we don’t use any antibiotic soaps here anymore, either!
Zman – so true – just the recent Swine flu news shows how fearful we are as a society.
Kathy, you’ll love the support you’ll receive at your local chapter!
Karen, such a great, informative post, girly! But don’t freak out on me when you see how much sugar is in a recipe I’m posting tomorrow…it’s not mine, and I’m going to try to make it with less, really I am! By the way, my brother in law, you know, the one who had the heart scare? Well, he admitted that he’s having trouble staying completely away from Mtn. Dew (don’t worry, I jumped all over him for it, and thankfully he doesn’t pull away, he knows it’s just cause I love him and don’t want to have to miss him someday) and is convinced he’s got a sugar addiction (not caffeine) – so I’ll make sure he sees your comment, thank you!
Michelle, what you said is something we’ve been giving a LOT of thought to, especially lately, as we’re very close to planting our garden. Thankfully we have an all-natural guy helping us get our soil as healthy as we can.
Hamilton Doula, I get what you’re saying, and I’m sure we all agree that Universal Precautions are important in hospitals, but I just wonder, (and Kristen, maybe the book your reading answers this), how do we know the status of the Puerperal Fever victim’s immune systems? Obviously hygiene is huge, as possibly even a strong immune system couldn’t handle the bugs those docs were introducing to patients when delivering babies with filthy hands, but do we know…were SOME patient’s immune systems able to fight off the Puerperal Fever?
FoodRenegade says
I’ve been reading this book, too, along with another one called Rethinking Pastuer’s Germ Theory.
Hamilton Doula — while certain aspects of the germ theory are right, reading these books has been like a total paradigm shift for me. If this subject interest you, I highly recommend getting your hands on them.
Cheers,
KristenM
(AKA FoodRenegade)
FoodRenegade
Hamilton Doula says
We know from the experience with Puerperal Fever that germs do cause sickness. So, Germ Theory is true. Some bacteria, no matter how strong a particular immune system, will overwhelm a body and cause permanent damage or death.
The problem with the medical system is that they are often shortsighted. They see a problem and then develop a therapy or drug to eradicate the problem. What they don’t do is relieve the source of the problem. The big exception to this again goes back to Puerperal Fever. It was discovered that simply by washing their hands before treating each patient doctors and nurses could eradicate Puerperal Fever. This handwashing became known as “The Universal Precaution”.
The use of the Universal Precaution is also always sited in official documents advising people how to avoid contamination with viruses. For example, the CDC’s statement regarding Swine Flu prevention sites “frequent handwashing” as a way of minimizing one’s chances of contracting the virus.
Again, we see Germ Theory in action.
With the Universal Precaution, the medical establishment went to the source of the problem and did not attempt to fix the problem by treating it after it became a problem: doctors dealing with sick patients, with virulent bacteria and offal on their hands and jackets, inserted their hands inside labouring women, sickening them often unto death. They could have developed a strong antibiotic that they then treated all labouring women with, or administered to all women at the onset of any rising temperature, but the most effective and least invasive solution was to simply wash their hands before any procedure.
With pasteurization, many people were saved sickness from tainted milk at the expense of the good bacteria naturally occuring in fresh milk as well as some of the nutrients present before pasteurization. That’s a good thing. What the pasteurization didn’t address was the fact that it was sick cows in overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions located far from dairies who shipped far and wide causing the need for pasteurization. If we as a society had addressed that problem, we wouldn’t have needed pasteurization.
So, I really don’t think you can invalidate the Germ Theory – it’s shortsighted and disingenuous. But we can work to live a more holistic way that addresses the root causes of the germ distribution so that fewer people require intervention like pasteurization or antibiotics.
Michelle says
Why not take a more literal enterpretation? The terrain is the soil. The soil is the source of virtually everything, nutritionally. If our food is grown/raised on/in healthy soil, shouldn’t we, then, be healthy as well. I am willing to bet there is a direct correlation between the health of the soil where our food is produced and our own health!
Michelle
Karen says
Kelly, you’ve done it again. I couldn’t wait to comment today, after seeing the topic. This comment is not for those who do not need radical change. My post and suggestions may FEEL radical, but eventually, one will see that, in REALITY, they are simply COMMON SENSE coupled with physiological facts. I know…a tad long, but I hope our lives are too!!!
We KNOW the agri-business that is promoting and shoving its products down our throats trying to convince us that anything but “their food” is what is “really radical.” We’ve been duped. And, when a criminal mind came at me with misinformation, and me, without a criminal mind, I sometimes caved in and “bought it.” Not anymore.
I can remember the exact moment when I heard “germs don’t cause disease.” I was in LODI, CA. at Modern Manna’s Health and Healing Crusade, a week long, free healing crusade put on by Danny Vierra in the summer. [I pray he does it again…he’s been on a break… thousands attend!] Dr. Lorraine Day was on stage talking about “do flies cause garbage?” Noooo, flies do NOT cause garbage. It’s the garbage [we put into our bodies] that draws flies!!! [germs]. Amazing. I had to hear it more than once.
So I bought the video [it was over 8 years ago!]. Dr. Day has a website and massive credentials, not to mention personal experience being sick. https://www.drday.com/ She recovered from Stage 4 breast cancer and talks about that too and all the flack she got from her Dr. colleagues for going the “natural route.”
I think you’re onto something here, Kel, keep up the good work. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t need to be reminded. It’s not just about weight [my father in law was 172 when he had his first heart attack], it’s not about exercise alone..the most buffed/fittest person can be unhealthy. [Jim Fixx syndrome] It’s body, mind and spirit. Where to start?? In spanish, we say “poco a poco” a little step at a time.
But, a caveat here: if you are sick, [and why wait until that happens?], you can start immediately by giving up sugar and all flour. That’s my 2 cents: both are processed and dead food [no enzymes]. There are no bread trees and you can get sweetness in a mango. Even fruit, if you are like me, has to be monitored as to amount. There’s no free lunch for genuine weight loss leading to health.
I’m not talkin’ cutting back [moderation] for two reasons: If you are allergic to sugar and flour, cutting back will do two things:
1. set up a physical craving [that constant gnawing for sweet-something]
2. obsessed/thinking about the
Kathy says
Thanks, Kelly, for this post! I’m new to eating whole foods and avoiding the modern versions of food, and this does interest me very much. I’m thinking that I want to check out our local Weston Price chapter; I think that would be helpful in our journey to a more healthy lifestyle. You’ve given me something to think about today!
Zman says
It is amazing how “fearful” of a society we have become. Germs?! Let’s think back to when we were kids. We played outside from sun up to sun down. We (some of us) touch worms, got filthy dirty, wiped our noses, maybe nibbled on school glue (the paste kind) and did all kind of unhealthy things and we SURVIVED. Germs are not all bad but rather the host that can not fight them off or absorb. It’s the immune system- dummy. We take better care of our cars than we do our bodies. Why do we change the oil every 3-4,000 miles in our cars? There is no problem- it’s fine. We do it because we don’t want something to happen. What do we do to maintain our immune system so something does not happen? We feed it garabge and keep germs away so we can not fight them. Makes perfect sense. Let’s kill everything that builds our immune system, vaccines, antibacterial soaps, sugars and on and on. I vote for germs- I love them and so do my children.
Living A Whole Life says
I totally agree and since learning of this have changed from making sure everything around me and my children is sterile 🙂 to focusing on doing all I can do to build up our immune systems and making sure our bodies are healthy and can fight off “germs”.
Karla
Living A Whole Life