When white flour is produced, almost all nutrients are removed. Sometimes a few are added back; then, ironically, it is called enriched flour. As food this is worthless, even dangerous. It is energy, but hardly anything else.
The same applies to white sugar, except that absolutely all nutrients are removed there; it is nothing but energy.
I described before how white flour or sugar needs all the nutrients it has in its natural form in order to be properly digested. When you digest them, they take all the minerals and vitamins they are deprived of from somewhere else – from your food or your own tissue. That is one way to demineralise bones and teeth. These refined products are literally eating you up, while they overfeed you with energy and you gain weight. You are transformed from a well-functioning biological being into a lump of fat; bones and organs decline while volume and weight grow until you finally die by degenerative disease.
While white sugar and flour might be the most obvious examples, because the process of refining (which always means removing something, depletion of essential nutrients) shows this so well, we are guilty of doing this in our everyday life as well, all by ourselves. Or do you eat the rind when you enjoy a melon, or pips and seeds with the fruit? If not, you are guilty of refining and nutritionally depleting your food.
Someone I know always got stomach problems by eating water melon, but the problem disappeared when she began eating the rind as well. By discarding parts of what we eat, we cause nutritional imbalance. Fruit should be eaten with their skins as well as with their seeds in order to become a full source of nourishment.
In some cases this is not possible. Perhaps it is not tasty, like the peel of a banana or an orange. But irrespective of tastiness, it is possible to eat things we don't like so much if there is a good reason. There might be hygienic reasons to refrain from eating some parts, however, or they are too hard and fibrous (as coconut shell) for our digestive system. I do not eat orange, banana, melon, or mango peels, to mention a few, and it is mainly a matter of hygiene - but I try to eat as much as possible of the pith (where there is one), and I always eat seeds from everything, unless they are too hard to chew.
Seeds are very rich in nutrients and if you discard them you miss a good source of high quality nutrients, and sometimes a potent preventive medicine. Seeds, along with sprouts and eggs, are what I call germinal food: foodstuffs which contain everything needed to grow new life. [See my article "Germinal Food = Superfood".] Ingested raw and natural, such foodstuffs are extremely rich in nutrients.
The seeds of citrus fruit are a natural antibiotic, which, unlike artificial antibiotics, also kills fungi. Grape fruit seeds are especially powerful. They are toxic in too large amounts, but you never get that many unless you buy and eat preparations of grape fruit seed extract. But do make it a habit to eat your citrus fruit with the seeds. They are not too hard to chew. And never forget to eat and enjoy apple pips, they taste like marzipan - and grape seeds which contain many valuable nutrients.
Stone fruit, like peach, plum, apricot, and cherry have especially valuable seeds. Always eat them if you can break up the stone. The hard part you have left after eating a fruit is not the seed, it is the stone which is too hard to chew and eat.
Inside the stone there is one seed, sometimes two. It is not always possible to open the stone, although a common nutcracker will do the trick with some of these sorts, unless the seed is too small, but when the fruit is really ripe it might be on its way to open itself and then the seed is available. It is soft and often tasty, resembling almond in taste. That is not strange because almond, too, is a stone fruit, but without soft, fruity flesh.
Sometimes stones can be kept until they crack so it is possible to access the seed that way, but watch out for mould. If there is any sign of that, don't eat it. Apricot seeds are well-known for being a rich source of amygdalin (sometimes called laetrile, nitrilosid, or vitamin B17), and extract is sold commercially in a few places as a medicine against cancer. Seeds from all species of Prunus [almond, apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach, plum] contain the valuable form of cyanide which might kill cancer cells without harming healthy ones, even if the effect is questioned.
These seeds contain many other valuable nutrients as well, like essential fatty acids, so they are well worth eating. Not to mention that they taste good!
Pumpkin seeds are another example. They have a preventive effect on prostate ailments and are a rich source of zinc. And sesame seeds prevent many liver ailments.
Now some of you might ask, is there one single example from the animal kingdom, one example of that we deplete food by refining it [removing something] if we eat meat?
Yes indeed. I will give you one example.
If you eat animal food, one big problem is that you become acidic. That is, you need to add minerals to neutralise the acid which is a metabolic residue of meat, fish and eggs, and - again - they are taken from your bones if you don't supplement your food with them.
But you would get the minerals if you didn't refine the food. They are in the bones of meat and fish (if the original animal was in good shape and health), but of course you cannot eat them. So in this case you are more prone to develop acidity because you remove something from the foodstuff. [This is not the only health problem with meat, there are many others. Here I use this one only to exemplify the principle that is the topic of this article.]
The minerals are in the shell of eggs as well, and the shell of eggs can be ground and used as a mineral supplement, but it often is not viable for hygienic reasons. Bone meal, ground bones, commonly used as a fertiliser, has been used as a dietary mineral supplement for humans. This is no longer done, however, because it has been found to be contaminated by toxic metals, a result of industrial pollution.
(This article is based on material previously published in Meriondho Leo.)
Related articles:
Why Refined Sugar Destroys You
Acidity & Acidification Part 1; Degenerative Disease
The Prostate: Health & Illness
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You can also sun dry the fruit seeds and grind them into a powder, perfect superfood smoothie mix :)