The following is transcribed from a lecture given by Joel Robbins, M.D., at Hallelujah Acres, a health center in Tennessee. The focus at Hallelujah Acres is a nutritional program. Dr. Robbin’s address appeared in the center’s official publication, Back to the Garden.
Here’s a question I get all the time: “If diet makes a difference in out health, why is it that my grandfather, who ate everything wrong, lived to be 90 years of age and his great grandson, age 2, has cancer?” How can this man, denying every aspect of health, live to be 90 while his 2-year-old great grandchild has cancer?
If it’s diet that makes a difference, it would seem like Grandpa would be the one with the trouble. Back in the ’40’s there was a dentist by the name of Francis Pottenger. Francis Pottenger had that same question. His real question was “What does processed food do to our bodies?” Now, he was not a nutrition nut, and he financed his own research. So no one told him what results to come up with.
He used cats. He divided these cats into five groups. The first two groups he fed unprocessed food. Those cats remained healthy throughout the experiment, so let’s put them aside.
It’s the other three groups we’re interested in. He fed them processed foods, junk foods in other words, and here’s what he found. The first generation junk-food cats developed diseases much like we humans acquire–arthritis, cancers, diabetes, allergies, and so forth. They got these diseases toward the end of their life span.
The second generation junk-food cats developed those same diseases in the middle of their lifespan. The third generation cats developed those diseases at the beginning of their life-span.
There was no fourth generation. Either the third generation parents could not conceive, or if they did, they aborted.
Right now in America, 25% of young adults cannot conceive. It’s the worst we’ve ever seen. The incidents of spontaneous abortion or miscarriage are on the rise. It’s the worst this country has ever seen.
The Number One disease killer of children under the age of ten in this country is a chronic degenerative disease. It’s cancer.
‘What has happened? Well, since 1900 our diet in this country has degenerated terribly. In those days Americans ate whole foods because then we didn’t have any choice. We ate what we grew off the land. We didn’t know about enzymes, we didn’t know about canning, we didn’t know about preservatives or refrigeration or so forth, so basically we had to live off the land.
So we’ve gone from that to processed foods and preserved foods grown on depleted soils. And as I mentioned yesterday it’s seven to fourteen days before the average American will consume anything raw. Now we’re three or four generations from 1900, and we’re seeing the problems Pottenger saw with his cats.
It’s pretty sad. Children under the age of ten die of heart attacks and heart disease. And diabetes, a relatively new disease for children, is becoming more and more common.
It’s the result of our diet breaking down over this time. Very few diseases do we actually inherit. What we inherit from our parents is genetically weak tissue. So if Dad smoked and didn’t have a lung problem prior to conceiving his son, his son will be handed genetically weak lung tissue.
That’s not a disease. Those lungs will function normally. Except if the son violates his body. That’s the weak link. That’s what’s going to fall apart. And he can develop some lung problems.
Just this past week a mother called, and she said, “A year ago my daughter, age 35, came down with Type II diabetes.”
I said, “I bet you just found out you had it too.” She said, “That’s why I’m calling you. How’d you know?”
You see, the daughter acquired it before it showed up in the mother because she was the next generation. The weaknesses are even weaker. It took less wrongdoing for the problem to manifest. It only took 35 years of wrongdoing in the daughter, but 55 years in the mother for it to manifest
Scripture says that the iniquities of the fathers are visited to the third and fourth generations. It doesn’t seem fair, but God isn’t fair. He’s just, but he’s not fair. And one day, as C.S. Lewis said, “The first two words out of our mouths when we get to heaven will be ‘Of course.”
It all makes sense. But it doesn’t seem fair that we pass on our wrongs, our propensities, our weaknesses. So we have a responsibility. We’re in an age that lives for the moment: if it doesn’t hurt me now, it must be okay.
We have to think in terms of our children and our grandchildren.
You see, Pottenger found that he could reverse the problems. But it took three generations to reverse the genetic code.
What determines a child’s health? Number one is the health of the parents at conception. As they conceive, what is their health? What makes up that first cell’s life? Sperm and egg. They are an offspring, so to speak, of the mother’s body and the father’s body. If the father’s body is deficient and toxic, so is the sperm. Same with the egg. Right there at conception we can have the first cell of life that is deficient and toxic. And that will influence the genetic code.
Number two involves the health of the mother while carrying the child. What is her health picture? We learned this from Pottenger’s cats. The thought always was that the mother’s body will sacrifice itself for the baby. If the mother’s not eating well, her body will fall apart to make sure there’s a healthy baby. And to some degree that happens, but what did Pottenger find? That the mothers of the third generation, if they couldn’t carry to full term, would abort. Mother got top billing. So if mother has health problems she’ll get what nutrition does come in, and this will affect the health of that child.
For Number Three we need to consider what the mother eats when she =Ties the child. ‘What do we think makes the baby? It’s the food. If she’s eating junk food, she’s going to make a junk baby.
Number Four is the mother’s diet when she’s nursing the child. What makes the milk? About a week after my wife delivered our fourth child it was her birthday, and I asked her what she wanted to do. She said, “I haven’t had Chinese food for awhile, let’s get Chinese.” I said, “It’s your birthday. Let’s go get sick together.” So off we went and had Chinese. So the next 24 hours this poor little baby had diarrhea and vomiting. What goes in the mother’s mouth determines what’s in that milk.
Number Five deals with the question, what do you feed the child after it’s been weaned? If you don’t feed the child properly after weaning, then you start the process downhill. So a good foundation doesn’t guarantee health.
These are all FACTors determining the health of a child. Before conception the parents should get on the Hallelujah program* for at least three months, if not a year. [Editor’s note: I want to emphasize this point: the dietary change should be made at least 3 months to a year before conception.] This will give that baby every opportunity possible. And after conception and birth they need to continue to live and eat right, too.
Health is built and maintained by eating and living right all the time.
Since the Hallelujah Diet is unfamiliar to many of our readers, here is a brief explanation:The diet consists of whole foods, preferably organic, unprocessed, including raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, grains, seeds, etc.
It is somewhat similar to the Hygienist diet totally vegetarian. As has been explained in previous issues of Cancer Forum, FACT has found that a vegetarian diet is not appropriate for everyone. Nevertheless, it can be a useful transitional diet for those people who have been on the traditional meat and potatoes” fare and want to make a change in a controlled setup.
