Chapter 2
Recycle the Sea for Better Health
We cannot impose our wills on nature
unless we first ascertain what her will is.
Working without regard to law brings nothing but failure;
working with law enables us to do what seemed at first impossible.
—Ralph Tyler Flewelling
The waters of the oceans hold the perfect balance of those essential elements required as food for the complex cell groups that make up our bodies. This is my thesis—now for the proofs.
When I was a student at the University of Cincinnati in 1932, 1 at tempted to induce cancer into a toad, but was astonished to note that the amphibian seemed to have a natural immunity. This laboratory incident precipitated the beginning of a lifelong search for an explanation. Some decades ago I fed crops grown with recycled seawater to various farm animals and obtained remarkable health and growth results which confirmed my theories.
A cubic foot of ocean water sustains many more times the number of living organisms, plants and animals than does the equivalent amount of soil. Seawater is literally alive, especially where the temperature of the water is warm.
Of special interest is the fact that the aging process does not appear to occur in the sea. A comparison between the cells of a huge, adult whale and cells taken from a newly born whale will show no evidence of the chemical changes observed when comparing cells of adult and newborn land mammals. There are some denizens of the sea that apparently never cease growing. One need only compare the size of land turtles with sea turtles to realize the tremendous difference.
I am convinced the difference in size and longevity is due to the complete, balanced chemistry provided by the sea. There are no chronic diseases found among fish and animal life in the sea that can compare to those on land.
In man, most cells are replaced within about eighteen months. If the requirements for certain elements are not supplied by food ingested as cell division occurs, dilution becomes apparent until critical elements are nonexistent in the organism. This shortage of essential elements does not occur in the sea. Why aren't these vital elements in our food?
When our cells must compensate for the dilution, or lack of elements, then they lose their resistance to disease. Remember that our bodies are host to an enormous number of microbes that eagerly pounce when the slightest breakdown in cell function occurs.
Our frightening increase in chronic disease and the sorrowful process of aging can be attributed to the absence of a complete, balanced physiological chemistry.
If the necessary elements are not found in our food, where are they? Certainly nature provided them. The answer is they have departed from our soils due to continuous taking of crops and the process of erosion. Most crops require an average of forty elements from the soil. In no case do fertilizers add more than twelve, and most commercial fertilizers add a maximum of six elements.
The single most devastating source of depletion of soil is water leaching. Even on relatively level land tremendous leaching occurs and has been taking place for thousands and thousands of years. Ultimately, the various leached elements, because they are in water solution, flow down to the sea.
For countless centuries the vital elements have been eroded into the sea. What state are they in while mixed with our vast oceans? Analysis of seawater shows a constant proportional balance of all the water-soluble elements. Three and one-half percent, by weight, of seawater is composed of sea salts, or sea solids. Chemical analysis shows that all the elements in the Atomic Table are present, with the possible exception of some of the gases.
I used these sea solids as plant food in experiments to prove that these elements in perfect balance will grow chemically perfect plants. I did not try to synthesize anything, but merely took what nature already offered.
My first experiments were in 1938. Since then I've carried out literally hundreds of experiments involving feeding plants nothing except sea solids mixed with tap water and a minor but fertilizing amount of a water-soluble nitrogen, such as ammonium nitrate, sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, calcium nitrate and the like. Invariably the result has been the same—healthier, more productive crops.
Early in the experimental game I learned that hydroponics—which is feeding nutrients to plants without soil—gave me better control over the plant diet. Dried, natural sea solids were dissolved in plain water, using approximately 112 pounds of sea solids to 10,000 gallons of water—a damn economical mix. The only nutrition my experimental crops received was sea solids in solution, which bathed their roots a few times each day. The plants flourished as no plants have flourished in this modern day of fertilized soil. The contrast in the experimental crops with the control crops grown by normal commercial methods was truly exciting. The taste difference was very significant, especially in tomatoes and carrots. The production rate was considerably higher and the resistance to disease was apparent.
The second line of experimentation was to put these evaporated sea solids directly on the soil as fertilizer. We actually used as much as 3000 pounds per acre—and I know eyebrows are being raised now!
But in the presence of the other elements found in seawater, sodium and chlorine are not toxic to plants. Actually, salt may be necessary for the absorption of the heavier elements. It is known that a saline solution will pick up a greater quantity and variety of elements than ordinary water solution.
We planted fields side by side so that one experimental plot used sea solids mixed into the soil as fertilizer and one control plot used the best commercial methods available. The results were similar to those with hydroponics. Sea solids-fertilized crops grew faster, were healthier and produced a far greater yield. Colors of the plants also differed and a taste difference was obvious. Animals, both wild and domestic, had no trouble determining which was better for them to eat; and a walk through a field of oats showed us a glimpse of animal heaven. Rabbits and mice scurried everywhere, yet the minute we stepped into the control area where standard fertilizers had been used, it was almost lifeless so far as the animals were concerned.
We put tape around some green stalks of field corn to identify them as having come from our experimental field. We mixed the experimental with control stalks and placed them in the feed lot for cattle and sheep. We watched as the animals munched away. It was immediately apparent which stalks they preferred, because after once sampling an experimental stalk, the animals would nuzzle and burrow in the pile to find another stalk, ignoring the control stalks until they had no other choice.
To prove further that animal instinct knows best, we treated a section of clover field covering about 100 square feet with sea solids. When the clover grew to about six inches, sheep were let out to graze. They walked and grazed until they came to the treated spot, then ate until the clover within the treated area was nubbed to the ground.
Feeding experiments with steers showed they had greater weight gain while eating less of the experimental feed. Farmers ought to appreciate that!
We used 306 freshly hatched chicks and designated 153 control and 153 experimental. The experimental group was fed a commercial concentrate and oats along with corn and soybeans grown on sea solids-treated soil. Control chicks were fed the same diet with the exception that all feed was grown on nontreated soil. At the end of six months, the experimental roosters weighed a full 1.5 pounds more than controls. Experimental hens laid eggs for the first time one month earlier than controls, and exhibited a phenomenon amazing to anyone familiar with laying hens—not a single experimental hen laid a pullet size or small egg! All the experimental eggs were of firm shell and large size. During one complete year of careful observation, experimental chickens exhibited perfect health, free from disease, and remained calm when approached by men. The controls were nervous when approached by the flock tender, exhibited disease such as slipped tendons and worms; and several died of unknown causes. None of the experimental chickens died.
Similar advantages of 40 foods grown with sea solids were seen in experiments with laboratory rats. Control rats showed less weight gain per pound of food and sustained definite eye disease. Experimental rats, on the other hand, exhibited sleek coats, were apparently immune to eye disease that afflicted the others, and showed a markedly uniform weight gain on less food. We then conducted a similar experiment with mice bred to develop breast cancer, and the experimental mice failed to develop cancer and lived significantly longer.
Wow! You might exclaim. Why not sprinkle sea solids on our food and get healthy? It simply doesn't work that way. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of biology knows that humans and other animals cannot obtain any benefits from the elements unless they are hooked up with carbon atom by green plants. This is the explicit role of plant life on earth: to convert inorganic elements to organic compounds that can be utilized by animal life. Table salt is the only food we eat that is inorganic and, frankly, it isn't very good for us.
Sea energy agriculture—growing foods with sea solids as fertilizer—provides a means for improving our chemical intake without sacrificing our eating habits. Our meats, vegetables, fruits and cereals would all be adequately balanced with the essential elements simply by growing all crops with sea solids technology.
It has been shown by agronomists that soil may contain a large amount of one particular combination of elements that the plants cannot absorb. The presence or absence of a trace element can be the deciding factor in determining whether a necessary element is absorbed into the plant's root system. The balance of elements must be right in the soil for plants to synthesize their complete chemistry.
Tomatoes serve as an example of the need for this balance. Tomato growers know that potassium is an element with a major function in the plant's growth. Potassium is added to the soil in quantity by tomato growers. Yet the tomato itself has only a minor amount of potassium. My hydroponic experiments proved conclusively that only a small amount of potassium, as found in its proper balance in seawater, is needed to grow outstanding crops of unusually healthy tomatoes. It is unnecessary to fertilize heavily with one element or another if an adequate balance of elements is available for the plant's use.
Growing staple crops hydroponically in seawater solution has tremendous implications, especially for the starving millions in our world. One super advantage is that plants grown hydroponically require only about one-tenth the water that the same plants growing in soil require. The cost of hydroponic facilities becomes negligible when the exceptional productivity is considered.
Technical journals stress that the "long-term solution to the food crisis is development of new, productive crop hybrids and the spread of modern agricultural technology throughout the developing world," I shudder. Established experts harp or things like "pest control," better management of "fragile soils" and novel ideas for "storing water", but they turn a deaf ear toward sea solids technology, which provides all of these things naturally.
Aside from economic and productivity reasons, what are the implications for man if we are able to restore the chemical balance to our food? We can eliminate illness as we experience it today. I know that to many of you this sounds like a grandiose, unproved claim, but one must remember that we are only beginning to investigate this new agricultural technology.
During World War I (circa 1918) with high military standards for physical and mental fitness, 31 percent of all the young Americans called for induction into the armed forces were rejected as unfit. For World War II (circa 1943) the rejection rate was over 50 percent, so the standards were lowered to a point below that of 1918. This lowering of standards lowered the rejection rate to 41 percent. During the period between 1948 and 1955, which included the Korean War, the physical and mental standards were lowered even more, yet the rejection rate of young men between ages eighteen and twenty-five climbed to 52 percent. More than half the young men of our nation who were called for military duty were rejected. How can we call ourselves "healthy"?
Any nation with a drug industry flourishing as well as ours certainly cannot claim good health!
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