T: Good evening, everyone! Larry has asked me to come in tonight and discuss how I have been using space age technology to study living things.

Seven years ago tomorrow, man set foot on the moon. It took hard work on the part of many people, myself included, to accomplish that feat. We studied the problems and we solved them. And, in doing so, our space program provided us with more than just jobs for our country. It also provided us with the tools that we need to understand the life that grows so vigorously here on Planet Earth. And, because so many of us have been using those tools in ways never imagined when they were developed, today, on the eve of the seventh anniversary of that historical event, in this Bi-Centennial year, I'd like to say; "You have what is needed, Milwaukee. You have the means and technology needed to solve many of the important problems facing the world today. The tools and technology needed are being used right here, today, in this city and elsewhere in this country. And, if you want to, you too, can use space age knowledge to provide for the needs of your own family.

L: What types of technology and tools are you referring to?

T: Basically, the computers and testing equipment that have come out of the research done for the space program has allowed us to take a much closer look at Nature. We now can study the minute structure of the life forms that make up and populate this planet. We understand them today as a whirling system of atoms, dynamically interconnected by their electron orbitals. We find that it is really electricity that "glues" cells and molecules together. Through understanding the nature of electricity and how it interacts with the various atoms, we have today, a new insight into what makes things grow, why things get sick and what keeps them healthy. We find that we have many new possibilities open to us to improve our life style, to make life easier and to reduce stress and disease. We find that the answer lies in the study of chemistry and why and how things grow.

L: When you say, "Why things grow", you are speaking mainly about plants at this point, am I correct?

T: Not only plants, but animals too, and we also study the growth of rocks. Such as in the case of crystals that we use in electronics and for many other applications.

L: You mentioned growing rocks.

T: Yes, crystals are grown, both in the laboratory and in nature. Crystals grow, enlarge and reproduce according to fixed patterns. The pattern is repeated again and again. In this case, a crystal, the pattern is governed by the electrical nature of the atoms involved. The pattern for plants and animals is governed by the electrical nature of the DNA molecule. Today, we know that this tiny molecule of atoms has the code that determines the make-up of the individual species of plants and animals to which the molecule is associated. We know that this DNA code in humans is made up of over one hundred million atoms and is a very sophisticated code. We also know that there are at least 28 different atoms involved in the plant–human life cycle. We find that we need them present in very definite amounts and if they are absent, all sorts of bad things can happen. Plants show deficiencies by turning yellow, crimson or showing other signs, such as deformed fruit or bitter taste. They loose leaves and manifest distorted growth patterns. Deficient plants contract blights, rots, molds, become deformed or are attacked by aphids, whiteflies and other insects.

Animals, contract colds, infections or in the more serious cases, cancer. Today, we know that cancer, in many cases, is promoted by the lack of an essential element in a person's diet. We know that it can be caused by other things also, such as exposure to radiation, or exposure to many toxic chemicals.

We also know that the body has built in defense mechanisms to attack and destroy cancer cells or any other cells capable of growth that doesn't have the individual's specific DNA coding. If the invading organisms are not present in overwhelming amounts and if the person's body defense mechanism is operating properly, the body will naturally take care of the invasion, even develop a natural vaccination against the invaders. It is when something is missing in the diet of a plant or animal causing the defense mechanism to break down that a person becomes susceptible to a bacteriological organism, or to a viral organism, or to the "run away" cell condition that we call cancer. And we find, that in almost all cases, if we enrich the diet with the missing substances, the conditions will disappear after treatment with the proper types of nutrients the plants will again grow vigorously. We also find in humans that vitamin therapy is very effective in treating many things from schizophrenia, to depression, even many forms of cancer have responded positively.

L: So what you are saying, then is that the type of research that you are into and others are into, could eventually help us become a disease free society.

T: This is our ideal, our goal. We have this ideal before us and it is our challenge to reach out and realize it. The basic idea is that, if we have perfect nutrition, that is we supply our bodies with all the building blocks that we need to form and maintain our cells and glands. And if we achieve perfect elimination, that is all of the waste products are removed from the body, our bodies will keep on rejuvenating themselves perpetually.

Not so long ago scientists thought that certain parts of the body like the brain, in particular, the nerve cells, didn't rejuvenate themselves. Today we know that when the proper nutrients are there, they do rejuvenate. We know that all parts of the body are capable of rejuvenation with the possible exception of the teeth. And, in this realm of dental hygiene the researchers have found ways of actually reversing tooth decay by using a saturated calcium solution mouth wash. This particular research on tooth delay is going on in England right now. It won't be long before we will see products on the market that will actually be able to reverse tooth decay.

L: Sounds like a winner to me, especially with my bad mouth. Talking to you the other day you mentioned that Milwaukee's, and I guess that some of the listeners might jump back at this, but Milwaukee's sewage treatment facilities can have a hand in helping us out.

T: I was surprised when I came to Milwaukee from Minnesota to find that Milwaukee had some interesting projects operating here. I found good engineers here, and they have put together a number of good systems that I have seen operating here in Milwaukee. The waste water treatment plant is responsible for the recovery of many of the fertilizing elements (atoms) that would have been washed into Lake Michigan. Were it not for the waste water processing plant on Jone's Island, the fertilizing atoms would have been lost. Instead they are returned to the soil in the form of Milorganite, the commercial product produced at Jone's Island. In the lake, these elements would be considered Pollution, but put back on farm land these elements constitute an essential fertilizer.

There are other cities filtering their waste water but not all of them are making a commercial product from waste water processing as Milwaukee is doing, but they are recovering the fertilizing atoms. This is one of the areas in which Milwaukee is progressive. Another is concerned with the generation of electrical energy. Our technology is not very efficient. The best thing we have to date on a commercial level is the methane fuel cell and that only converts 40% of the input energy into electricity. The remaining energy is lost as waste heat. Today's better coal fired boiler–turbine generators are only 38% efficient. Atomic power plants are only 27% efficient and studies have suggested that it requires more BTUs of energy to mine and process the fuel, build the power plant, and process and store the wastes than the plant is capable of delivering as electrical energy during the life of the power plant.

The point here is, in general we are wasting a lot of heat energy in the production of electrical energy. Most of the time the waste heat is put into lakes or rivers and just wasted. But here in Milwaukee, the waste heat from the valley plant is used to heat many of the buildings in downtown Milwaukee. So here a portion of the waste heat is collected and used to heat part of the city. If this example was followed more widely in our country, we could reduce the impact of this so–called energy shortage we are in right now.

Wisconsin Gas Co. has an excellent model project going at their office building on Green Bay Avenue. They are burning natural gas in internal combustion generators which are about 27% efficient and then they feed the waste heat from these generators into their heating system boilers, so almost all of the energy is properly used in this system. The system also has another unique feature. In the summer, they feed the "waste heat" from their generators into a refrigeration device called an absorption reactor. With this system, they are able to cool their offices using the "waste heat" from their electrical generation, eliminating the need for electrically powered air conditioning. You can see the double savings here.

L: In using the Milorganite, you say returning the nutrients to the soil in the form of Milorganite; what is Milorganite? How do we get Milorganite?

T: Milorganite is the solid portion of the waste waters from the city. The waste waters go into a setting tank and the heavy solid portion is drawn off at the bottom, dried and processed into a fertilizer. Some facilities, such as the one in Racine Wisconsin, use an intermediate step where they produce natural gas using a bacteria culture and thereby collect a portion of the solar energy stored in the plant matter. They then use the gas to power the facilities making the plant more self sustaining. The individual situation determines the type of engineering application that is correct. The important thing is that we follow the requirements of the life cycle and return to the soil that which we originally took.

L: In part of your research you've been looking into what is called hydroponics, which would be growing plants in water.

T: Hydroponics was first attempted by the Romans during the middle ages. And later, in the 1930's, a great deal of research was done here in the United Sates. During those days, researchers studied the influences of different atoms required for the growth of plants. They determined that a certain number of atoms were what they called essential atoms. More recently, with the added ability of our space technology, we have identified a number of elements that were not originally considered essential for plant or animal growth, but today we now know that these additional atoms are required for the healthy growth of humans. So what we find is, that even if an element is not required by a plant, the plant can act as a carrier. The plants carry elements from the soil to the animals that absolutely require these atoms for healthy growth. Some of these elements have been found to increase the growth rate of plants even though visual symptoms don't develop in their absence and are termed non–essential growth promoters. So plants do benefit from the presence of these atoms also.

In the study of hydroculture, which I have been doing for five years, the object of the game is to find mineral salts; these are pairs or groups of atoms that are electrically equivalent and water soluble, and then to dissolve a number of these salts in a determined amount of water, according to a very precise formula that is slightly different for each species of plant. This "Water of Life" then provides the plant with all of its nutritive requirements. When this is done correctly, we have what is called an optimum growing medium. Under these conditions plants become extremely efficient solar collectors. They not only collect the sun's energy, but they store it and process it into many usable forms. Some plants even track the sun across the sky by moving their leaves.

The people who have pursued hydroponics commercially have found that it is very economical and for a very small investment in mineral salts, they realize a very large yield of plants. Roughly speaking, about 0.5% to 1.5% of most plants is mineral salts, which is normally obtained from the soil. The rest of the plant is carbon dioxide and water, whose atoms have been rearranged by the plant into many thousands of different complex organic compounds.

L: In hydroponics, what would be the need for something like Milorganite?

T: In hydroponics Milorganite is not applicable. Milorganite has most of the plant nutrients locked up in organic compounds and it needs to be returned to an organic garden so that the soil bacteria can digest the organic matter and return the elemental nutrients to the plants via their waste products. An analogy might be to say that plants have very small mouths. They can only "eat" one or two atoms at a time. In reality, we find that plants do need to have their nutrients in the form of single atom ions or small groups of atoms forming an ion seldom consisting of more than five atoms. These ions must be dissolved in water in order for the plants to be able to assimilate them. The range of the ratio of the atomic mixture is quite phenomenal! In 1,000 liters of hydroculture solution, about 257 gallons, there is typically about 156 grams of Nitrogen, but only 0.001 grams of Tin, Selenium, Chrome and very small amounts of others like Nickel that I have present at 0.050 grams per 1,000 liters of plant food. As you can see only tiny, tiny amounts of some elements are required. Yet without them, plants and animals will get sick! This has been demonstrated time and time again. We find that too much of any element will cause problems also. Take the element boron for example. For many species of plants the optimum amount of Boron for the solution is 0.50 grams per 1,000 liters of plant food. Yet, just twice that amount, 1.0 gram per 1,000 liters of plant food is destructively toxic. There is also a carry over of toxicity from plants to animals. There are a number of areas in America and other parts of the world, where if you were to pasture your animals on these lands, they would die even though the plants look healthy. In these soils elements such as molybdenum or selenium are present to such an extent that the animals soon accumulate a toxic quantity of these elements in their system and they develop symptoms known as blind staggers or other toxicity diseases.

We find then, that we can have too much or too little of any of these elements or food substances, indeed anything, and when these conditions are present it is impossible for the organism to maintain its natural defense mechanism and the organism falls prey to disease. This is part of Nature's survival of the fittest rule.

What we are seeking then, is this optimum that produces a fantastic growth rate in plants and good health in animals. But we must remember this general rule of thumb. TWICE ANY OPTIMUM IS USUALLY TOXIC ! — Too much or to little of any essential energy form, from sunlight to sugar is harmful. The all important thing is balance.

L: Where does one find these essential substances that we all need to be healthy?

T: Its no secret. The basic principles of nutrition have been known for many years. We require whole grains. Fresh, fresh, fresh greens, green and yellow vegetables and fresh fruit. Nuts are another example of whole grains. When these things are provided amply in one's daily diet, you will find that your susceptibility to disease is exceptionally low and you will feel great!

L: You put quite an emphasis on the freshness of the greens. Why is that?

T: Here particularly, we are interested in the many constituents that are present in living things. One group of researchers have counted 140 different compounds that are required in our daily diet. These are the different vitamins, enzymes, amino acids, mineral salts, etc., that are required to make and power the various body cells. We know that a plant has its own metabolism, for which it takes in oxygen and gives off carbon dioxide. It also is a complementary organism. One part of it is putting things together, while others are taking things apart to energize its own activities. When you pick something the group that takes molecules apart can exist much longer than the group that puts things together. This latter group, when cut off from their source of supplies, namely the root system of the plant, can only exist for a short period of time. Then, their function ceases and they die.

The other group can exist for a much longer period of time because of the way in which they derive the energy for their activities. The longer they are allowed to continue their "break down cycle", the lower the nutritive value of the food. Refrigeration slows them down, but even at 32 degrees Fahrenheit enzymes have been observed performing their function at a rate of 2,000,000 operations per minute under ideal conditions. Cooking, canning or pasteurizing destroys their ability to perform, but in the process you lose their needed function in the digestive process. Because of this your body is not capable of assimilating many of the things that it needs to stay healthy. Essentially then, in canned foods you have the elemental make-up of the plant, but you don't have the living organisms that are part of the conversion process. So here, part of the secret to staying healthy is to have something alive and fresh in your daily diet, if you can pick it yourself and eat it on the spot, so much the better. You will then have living enzymes in your stomach to help you digest the other food that you eat. Also, cooking destroys some vitamins and so does oxygen and light, so fresh raw foods provide many needed building blocks for your body chemistry that can not be obtained from canned, processed or enriched foods.

L: So it is definitely advisable to have what has been called the "Victory Gardens", or just a plain garden growing even here in smoggy Milwaukee.

T: Yes! Fresh alive foods in your diet will help your system to extract from the food you eat, the things you need to stay healthy. It is one thing to eat something, but it is another thing for what you have eaten to get into your blood. And these creatures that are present in fresh living things will help break down the things that you eat into forms that can pass through your stomach walls and get into your blood.

L: In case you have just tuned in, our guest tonight is Tommy Cichanowski, research engineer, who is doing work on helping human beings stay alive. You mentioned when I talked to you last week, an ideal community that you would like to build as an out growth of this research.

T: Well basically, what we are looking toward in the near future, is the creating of a group of individuals, who will take upon their shoulders the responsibility of spear heading the research necessary to gather the tremendous number of facts that we need to properly mate the different elements with the individual requirements of the different species of plants and animals. Basically, every DNA molecule for each species has its own particular nutritional requirements. I am different from you. Fortunately, we have a built in mechanism that we call cravings, that help guide us in selecting the many different things that our bodies need to stay healthy. When we crave something there is a good chance that our bodies need something in that which is craved.

L: With the possible exception of potato chips.

T: There are things in potato chips that are good for you. The whole secret is balance. Not too much or too little of any of the things that are required.

What we need then, are homes that are solar powered. Solar powered, not so much in the way that the media has molded our thinking, with the big solar collectors on the roof, they have their place, but mother nature has given us a still more fabulous way of powering our homes. Plants themselves are solar collectors and I've seen reports that place them as high as 90% efficient under ideal conditions, compared with 10-18% efficiency for solar electric cells. Plants not only absorb solar energy, but they automatically store it for us. They store energy in forms that we can reclaim later as food, plastics or energy. Henry Ford brought the soy bean to the United States from China for the very purpose of making plastics for his cars. Soy bean oil can also be used for diesel fuel.

A simple bacteriological process can give us natural gas from plant matter. The use of a fungus to prepare plant matter for fermentation can give us an alcohol suitable for burning in our cars that would result in much lower air pollution. So, we have here, a potential to obtain solar energy through plants and then to convert the plants into methane gas if we want, or other forms of energy suitable for use in a home.

Optimums play an important part in all realms of our lives; the air breathe, the food we eat, the ways in which we make steel and cars, each has its own set of optimums. Many things can be created more efficiently using large tools and processing plants. These industries need a large dependable source of energy in order to be an asset to our society. People need dependable jobs. Without energy for industry, there will be no jobs and soon thereafter, no society! Mother nature has given us a gift that, if we use wisely will allow us to undue the effects of our former ignorance. Powering homes from Nature's energy reserves, puts unnecessary drain on the energy supplies needed to power our industry and our society with its incredible store house of factual knowledge about our planet and its life cycle.

In many other cases "On Site Processing" is the optimum solution for coping with the requirements of natural symbiotic relationships. Small units, located close to the living environment or source of raw material.

Good health is the result of putting T.L.C. - Tender Loving Care, into our soil, our plants and our bodies. Its T.L.C. that makes a symbiotic relationship.

L: What would be the production cost of building something like this?

T: Using off the shelf components that are available to us today, the cost of a 1,200 square foot living environment would run about $90,000.00. This unit would have as its features a utility core that has been designed in such a way so as to take into account natural law forces and utilizes an energy management system, that is extremely efficient, requiring less than half the energy input as an equivalent system made up of separate components. The unit has its own waste water management equipment as part of the recycling effort that also provides a source of energy for the home. The dwelling is equipped with a small green house for the production of fresh salad produce, the green house also doubles as a solar collector and an insulating wall for the house. We estimate that a living environment such as this could produce in terms of 1976 dollars, $71,000.00 in services over a period of twenty years. Over a person's life span this would amount to quite a saving both in dollars and in natural resources, since practically everything is recycled or used to its best advantage. So as you can see, a $90,000.00 investment doesn't seem like much when viewed in this manner. This $90,000.00 is a unit price for hand building one home from off the shelf components. If I were asked to build a hundred at once, the price would be even less because of quantity price breaks. But, we have yet another option available to us as a society. If we were to mass produce these types of homes, using the high efficiency technology developed by NASA for the space program, we not only could produce a unit for half the amount, but it would be twice as efficient and would require less maintenance. Here we would have a home that in twenty years would produce $71,000.00 of services in terms of heat, utilities and a portion of the family's foods needs. As you can see, a house such as this would pay for itself many times over during the period of its usable life. We suspect that with the new plastics and building materials available the total maintenance of this environment would be about 10% of what you would expect with today's building techniques. This would provide still further savings for the owner and additional savings with regard to the amount of natural resources needed to maintain our society.

Today, on a world wide basis, we have need for 100,000 living environments a day just to keep pace with population growth. So, we find that units such as this have become a necessity in view of our knowledge of our limited resources.

Here is a way for everyone to have a high standard of living; a way to eliminate the welfare burden and yet not upset the status quo. A project such as this could provide something for everyone. What's more, Milwaukee has the heavy industry needed to implement a project of this nature. This is what I meant when I said that Milwaukee had the means to solve many of the problems that face our society today.

It is possible for us to put together a system that will recycle things inexpensively and will work almost anywhere. In fact, part of this research has been done with the idea that this is exactly the type of system we need to work and live in space and on the moon. We know that the moon's soil is excellent for growing plants, and there is lots of sunlight half the time. With this in mind NASA and others have set about designing a system to work with these natural resources. Really, all that is needed is shelter, carbon dioxide and water to makes things grow on the moon. The same basic laws and principles that are being developed for use on the moon, work equally well here on earth. These systems can be set up in the desert or on a ship at sea or right here in Milwaukee.

L: To make sure that I've got it straight now. This would be theoretically a house or community powered by plants, so to speak.

T: A portion of the maintenance energy comes from plants. And that energy is used to power devices like heat pumps that put an additional heat input into the living environment.

L: This is what I am not understanding. How would a plant power a heat pump?

T: It works like this. The plant contains stored solar energy that can be used day or night, rain or shine. By putting the plants in an air tight container and growing a bacteria culture in the container, we produce natural gas which comes off at the top and we reclaim our fertilizing elements from the bottom. The natural gas then can be used in a fuel cell to produce electricity which in turn powers the heat pump and the home. In the absence of a commercially available fuel cell for homes, we are currently using internal combustion generators, but these are not as efficient as we would like. The waste heat from the generator is used to heat water, the home and green house, which provides us with year around fresh food and additional plant matter for the production of natural gas. This system works not because of some fantastic new concept, but because we do a lot of little things correctly. In doing so, we come up with a very efficient inexpensive system.

L: Self supporting too.

T: In the ideal, it would be completely self supporting because everything would be recycled. In reality, we have certain losses that make the system less than 100% effective and there is also the reality of diminishing returns on the investment dollar. This system has been designed to try to optimize all factors especially cost and utilization of resources. We are hoping to realize a 85% figure and in so doing there wouldn't be the problem of a shortage of resources. Nor would the "population explosion" be as much of a problem, because there are millions of acres that are not really tillable using current agricultural practices. But using a space type agricultural system, we can grow things almost anywhere on this planet and provide very luxurious homes for people everywhere.

L: OK. We've got music in the background, which means our first half hour is up. My guest tonight on "Let's Talk Community" is Tommy Cichanowski and we'll be back with him and a possible future way of life...

L: Our number is 7999-1590 and Tommy Cichanowski is with us and we are talking about an ideal community that he is working on. In this community what would be the health benefits of those who are taking part in the experiments.

T: The research staff at the community would be interested in determining the optimal amounts of trace elements necessary for the various species of plants, in order for the plants to be able to produce the many compounds needed by humans. The research then is basically two-fold, produce the right diet for the plants and breed plants that can in turn produce the right diet for people. The bible speaks of the tree of life. This again is a physical ideal. The tree of life transforms the water of life which is poisonous to animals, into a fruit which contains all of the necessary compounds needed for perfect health. As far as I know, a tree of this nature does not exist on this planet. It then becomes necessary to choose a number of plants that when they are eaten in a balanced manner, approximate the ideal of the tree of life. If everyone does their job right and everyone uses the knowledge with regard to their own personal habits, the chances for excellent health are great! We may all live to be a thousand. On the other hand, if somebody makes a undetected mistake, we all could be in trouble. When you deal with a lot of unknowns, there is always the chance that you may encounter the negative side. Something that you do will harm you. There have been many examples of this in our society. The use of lead for water pipes is one. There aren't many things that can dissolve lead. It is used to line vats that hold sulfuric acid, but when there is air or nitrites in the water, the lead will be dissolved. Sugar of lead, today used as a rat poison, was used in the past to sweeten wine. Among other things, lead toxicity causes mental confusion, visual disturbances, and convulsions.

The downfall of the Roman Empire was most likely brought about, in part at least, by their ignorant use of lead products. Their inability to distinguish between literal and figurative, the making of decisions, that lead to national disaster, visions, and the falling sickness, all, most likely, were the direct result of lead poisoning. Even today, lead is extensively used for fresh water systems here in the United States. Some older homes have lead water pipes, lead "goose necks" are still being used, solder for copper pipes is 50% lead and pipe joint compound uses lead. Even larger quantities of lead is used to join waste water pipes sending large quantities of lead into the environment.

Bath tubs, sinks, dishes, glass-ware, and paint are other products that have been produced with lead.

Another example of how working with "Unknowns" can have negative results, can be found in the controversy surrounding organically grown foods. Many people think organically grown foods are better. That is not necessarily so. First, plants require inorganic ions for their nutrients and the plant doesn't care if the ion came from the waste products of the bacteria in a organic garden or a mineral salt. As long as the growing medium is balanced the plant is happy and healthy. However, in the past, people eating from organic gardens may have had the advantage, but I don't believe that is necessarily so any more.

Our lack of knowledge is definitely hurting us. A few examples will help explain. If the soil is lacking something the plants will be lacking also. Or, if the soil has too much of something the plants could become toxic to animals. Adding compost that is deficient only makes the problem worse.

I had a recent experience that proved this out nicely. In my early hydroculture experiments my plant diet was far from balanced, but I was getting better results from my hydroculture garden than I was from my organic garden. Not wanting to waste the salts that I used in the hydroculture garden, I composted the plants and put them in my organic garden. The following year, the plants in the test section of my organic garden that received the compost showed the same deficiency symptoms that the hydroculture did the year before. I then had the problem of rebalancing my organic garden. This I did by developing a foliage spray from my hydroculture salts and I managed to save my crop. The following year, the soil was still showing some symptoms and I had to repeat the spraying process. This year the problem is almost under control. This is one illustration of how careful one must be. The farmer who puts large amounts of fertilizer on his fields is playing with fire also. The application of nitrogen to the field suppresses the plant's ability to absorb manganese. Today we know that manganese is part of the defense system that the body uses against cancer. So you might get bigger plants, but they will be deficient in other necessary elements.

This basic rule holds true for all of the elements. If you add one, it suppresses the plants ability to absorb another. It is a good thing for us that this is so. If the field has too much of an element such as molybdenum, we can bring the fields into production by adding copper or vice versa. Balance is the all important thing and we need to look at the total picture before we mess with soil chemistry.

The same holds true for hydroculture. Too much of an element and toxic conditions will result. Too little and you have a deficiency. The real problem comes when you don't know that an element is needed and so you don't add it to the growing medium. The best insurance policy is to eat many different kinds of food from many different fields. There is a good chance that the different deficiencies and toxicities will average out. Especially, if you use your natural ability called cravings, to help you select what you eat.

In the past five years, we have developed new instruments that can take most of the guess work out of the picture. We have a whole new way of double checking our work and what we have discovered is a little scary. Basically, in our culture's effort to make a fast buck, we have done a large number of things that are back firing on us. We are told that a "little bit of this" won't hurt you. And that is true, a little bit won't. But if you consume five or six items in any given class, the effects compound. Chemicals interact, or you eat a number of items that have been processed in a certain way and the combined effects will hurt you.

Back when the machine age was just getting under way, a process was developed for polishing rice. "White rice" was a new product to sell. Soon after they introduced white rice over in Asia and Indonesia, there were terrible outbreaks of Beriberi. A disease that is characterized by extreme weakness, paralysis, anemia and a gradual wasting away of the body caused by the lack of vitamin B-1 in the diet. At first, no one had any idea what was causing the disease, the link to the polished rice was then unknown. A group of people was sent from the United States to study the problem and they set up a research community. They were using chickens in their tests and one day a group of the chickens contracted Beriberi. None of the researchers could figure out what happened because only half of the chickens in the room were sick. Well, they finally cornered a lab assistant and he disclosed that they were running low on brown rice so he had gone to the kitchen and had gotten some white rice from the kitchen and was feeding half the chickens white rice and the other half brown rice. So...IDEA ! Feed rice polishings to the sick chickens. Well, Lo and Behold, the chickens got well. Ah, there must be something in those rice polishings. So good old U.S. technology was used to take apart the rice polishings.

They placed the polishings in a solvent and heated them up and some crystals formed. They fed these crystals to the chickens and nothing happened. So they went back to the lab and raised the temperature of the mixture and another group of crystals formed and they feed these to the chickens and nothing happened. Once again, a new group of crystals. Finally, the chickens got well and they called these crystals vitamin B-1 or Thiamine. A new cure!

Well, what happened? Did we stop polishing the rice? No, we sold a new product. Vitamin supplements were added to the market place. Today we know that there are 24 different B vitamins in those rice polishings, plus several other substances that we know are essential. They all need to be present together in precise amounts relative to each other to be properly effective in maintaining a person's natural defense system. The story doesn't stop here. We did a similar thing with wheat. In wheat the B complex is found in the germ. The germ is the portion of the wheat kernel from which new life springs and it is the germ that contains the majority of the trace elements. Here we decided to degerm the wheat. That way we could increase the shelf life of the flower. Whole wheat flour spoils rather quickly even when it is refrigerated. By degerming the wheat a product was created that could be kept at room temperature for a long period of time. Besides, white flower has different properties than whole wheat flower and there were all kinds of new products that could be made from this new flour. What we have wound up with is a whole new group of products where the natural balance of the nutrients has been altered. Now a little bit won't hurt you. You'll just need a little more exercise to burn off the empty calories. Here in the United States in particular, we have a wide variety of foods. So if you don't get what you need from one food, the possibility exists that you can get it from another one. In Asia they were extremely dependent on getting their B vitamins from the rice. This is the reason there was this great outbreak of Beriberi in Asia and the Philippines and not in the U.S. Today we have evidence that B-17 is involved intimately with the anti-cancer mechanism in humans. we know also that many of the other B vitamins are needed to prevent things like schizophrenia, manic depression and possibly gray hair. So if you are feeling low, check your diet. You might not be getting something that your body needs to keep itself operating properly.

When you feel hurt, when you feel pain, this is your body telling you something is wrong. Our Heavenly Father has given us a built in mechanism to coax us along through this complex maze of details that we find in nature. We have gone away from this child ability of intuitively knowing what is good for us, what we need to stay healthy. We find that young children have a strong natural ability to perfectly balance their diet if given half a chance. There have been several studies reporting that a child when given access to a variety of foods containing all the required nutrients and allowed to free feed, that is, he is allowed to choose what he wants. Over a period of about a week, he will average a perfectly balanced diet. Children as young six months are capable of doing this. So if a child gets sick, it is really the parent's fault for forcing the child to eat things that upset the child's body chemistry, or not providing the child with the substances he needs to stay healthy. Many studies have shown that a child has this built in sense to know is nutritionally good for him.

L: So then, part of the problem for vitamin deficiencies; deficiencies in any of the fix-it mechanisms within ourselves is due to lack of following the proper diet and kind of following our own natural diet planner, so to speak.

T: Right. It is very essential that we get what we need daily. Perhaps another thing that many people fail to realize the importance of, is sunlight. Vitamin D is quite toxic, even in small quantities. Mother Nature has figured out a way of handling this problem. Vitamin D is formed naturally when the skin is exposed to sunlight. A chemical change takes place forming the vitamin in minute quantities all over the exposed area. As little as 15 minutes of sunshine on the hands and face daily, will prevent rickets. Sunshine is a very important part of Nature's scheme of getting the things that you need to stay healthy.

It is also not wise to under emphasis the need for getting rid of waste products. You need ample fluids, in particular water, to wash wastes from your blood. Many people also fail to realize that the skin is part of the system that removes waste products from the body. In one sense the skin is an extension of our kidneys. It is very important that our pores be opened up and cleaned out regularly because many toxic chemicals can be eliminated through the skin.

L: Well, I'll get into my next question on that right after we take this phone call. Thanks for waiting, you are on the air.

C: I've been listening to what the man has been say'in and I just wanted to say this. You know man has been seeking so many different things but it is time to seek the Lord, cause Jesus is coming soon. You've been trying to figure out all kinds of things but He said, in those last days there was going to be disease, earthquakes, floods all these different things. The end of all things is at hand. Jesus is soon to come. There are no ifs, ands or buts.

L: Well, perhaps one way of looking at what my guest is speaking of tonight, then, ma'am, would be kind of holding off on the need for Him to come.

C: Ya, but you know like, people are running from spiritualists, trying to find a cure for cancer. Jesus is the cure. God is everything we need. God's got it!

L: We are not in a religious discussion here tonight madam.

C: I know. What I wanted to say is true.

L: We appreciate hearing from you. We appreciate your opinion. Thank you. The number to call tonight is 799-1590. My guest tonight on Let's Talk Community is Tommy Cichanowski. We are talking about keeping ourselves alive. The various means of doing it with space age technology, as opposed to the more conventional old ways of doing things.

T: We have better tools today that allows us to look at the creation we are a part of, in a totally different way. We see how intricate and interdependent everything is. By finding out how and why God created things in a certain way, we can maintain our health and provide ourselves with the sanctuary that we need for the Lord to come into our personal lives. This too, is a bit misunderstood in our society. The Lord is always available to us, within us. We are all part of His "Mystical Body" much in the same way that a single cell is part of our own body. Separate, specialized, with independent activities, yet part of and dependent upon, the whole body for its continued existence. We each are a vital, necessary part of Christ's Mystical Body. It is up to us to find Christ's presence inside us. He is always there. He Never left. The "Age of Christ" will come upon us when we each learn to feel the presence of Christ working within our own being.

L: But at the same time we have to nourish ourselves.

T: We need to nourish our bodies and spirits. We are the temple of the Lord and if we respect the temple, we will respect the laws that govern the operation of the temple. This is what we call natural law, or Mother Nature, the way things really work. Our world really works with chemistry. It is really held together, in part, with electricity. All this is just an extension of the spirit. This is a manifestation of the spirit.

L: In looking at the different vitamins that we need; some folks might not even want them, when they think about the different foods that you get them in. People have their own preferences of foods. Well, what are the better; I hate to say better, foods for you.

T: There are over 12,000 edible plants on this planet that are very rich in the nutrients that we need. So, there is plenty of room for personal taste. The important things are that we have fresh foods, that we have a variety of foods, and that we allow our bodies to guide us. Allow the natural cravings that the Lord put in us to guide us in the selection of these foods so that we obtain the needed balance, not too much or too little. This idea of too much or too little can not be over stressed because the whole of nature is based on what we call engineering trade-offs or optimums. And in the case of each trade-off, we have to seek the balance of the complementary forces in their too much or too little roles. I know that this is a little abstract, but this whole thing becomes very intricate and it is rather complicated. But, the ideas that cover this, the principles are simple.

Two of the key principles that make up nature are that all of nature is made up of complimentary forces and that all manifestations occur through a delicate balancing of these forces. So basically, it is this balance that we are seeking, by producing tools and machines that work with nature, rather than carelessly exploiting nature.

The word that we need to understand is symbiotic. It means that we give and receive in an equal complimentary relationship that provides each of the participants with something that the individual could not have working alone. So, we are asking people to come together and work together symbiotically. Don't just take from nature or each other, don't be a parasite, don't rape the land. Give back to the land in order that it may give back to you even more. There is a positive feedback system in nature manifested in symbiotic relationships. As each gives, it allows the other to give back more. The intensity of the system keeps building providing each member of the relationship with more and more benefits that can't otherwise be had.

L: In terms of following a diet to make sure that you do get the nutrients that you need. I have heard several different views from vegetarians and from meat eaters. Is there a need for meat in the human diet?

T: Today in 1976, I would almost be tempted to say yes, almost. A person who is especially knowledgeable can manage to stay healthy without eating meat. I know many individuals who are very vigorous and don't eat meat. The secret here again is balance. The balance that we are particularly interested in here, is the make-up of the amino acids in the proteins. Humans need at least 22 amino acids to build their body parts. Meat has all 22 of the necessary amino acids. No plant that I know of has all 22 of the necessary amino acids. But by combining two or more plants, like beans and rice, it is possible to obtain the necessary combination. If you watch the balance of your amino acids, you can be healthy without eating meat.

What has happened in past years, as we have abused our soil; We have found that the plants growing on the soil became susceptible to disease organisms. In response, we under took a breeding program to produce plants that do not succumb to the disease organisms that are in certain fields. Later analysis with our improved technology has shown us that these hybrids don't have the same protein make-up. Sometimes, only half the protein of the old plants. And, they don't have the same constituent make-up as many of the plants that originally became susceptible to the diseases. So, we did produce a plant that could grow on the field that wouldn't become diseased, but, the plant is often lacking something now. It isn't providing us with some of the essential amino acids that we need for a healthy body. So there was a cry in the market place, "protein deficiency." You need to eat meat, you need to eat eggs, you need milk. Rather than going back to the cause, deficient soil, we are treating the symptoms. And basically, this has been one of the philosophies subconsciously followed in the culture today. It is thought to be more profitable selling products as "cures" to the disease than it would be to sell products that go back to the cause of the disease, land abuse. We can heal people by first healing the land, so that it is able to provide plants with the proper types and amounts of nutrients needed for good health. The problem of healing the land is so intricate however, that until recently with the development of our large computers, the advanced scanning electron microscope and the sophisticated spectrometers, we didn't have the tools to cope with the problem, on a level that we now know is needed. So, in retrospect, the approach taken by our forefathers seems to have been a wise one. That of developing the technology around coping with the influx of the disease, rather than worrying about how the bacteria managed to "take over" in the first place.

All right, today we have the ability to go the other route. We can go after the cause of the problems and stop treating the symptoms of the problems in our culture. This doesn't apply strictly to nutrition either. We are talking about building homes that are a part of the ecological system. The house lives off the ecology and in turn supports the ecology. The ecological system is benefited through the effort and the person gets what you might call a "free ride" by being the "guiding spirit of his homestead." By guiding over all the life forms that live in his domain, he can balance the environment symbiotically so that all wanted life forms grow vigorously, and they in turn, provide him with a very luxurious life style.

L: OK. 799-1590 Let's take another phone call. Hello, you are on the air.

C: OK. I'd like to talk to your guest about nutrition.

L: Yes, go right ahead.

C: One thing that deeply concerns me, is the use in institutions today, of hash brown potatoes, various forms, they come in different shapes and sizes and the amount of frozen foods. It really discourages me that dietitians today seem to be more into management than they are in nutrition. What I'm really concerned about is the fact that in institutions we are going so much with these dehydrated and processed foods. And I think that there is a great loss of vitamins and minerals in that. Now I hear that we are going to an imitation butter which is something else. I can't understand that. This is a chemical thing too. I don't know if you have heard of this new product. It tastes like butter, supposedly, I've only used it once, but it seems to me that the very persons who should be fighting for better nutrition, that is dietitians, are just going along with anything that comes along. I don't like all these chemicals in our food. I wouldn't dare serve them at home and yet as a cook I am forced to serve them where I work.

T: I do think too, that it is a tragedy that we are using so many of these processed foods, particularly in our hospitals.

C: That is where I work and there are sick people there !

T: Right and a lot of them are there because they had something lacking in their diet initially. So, to simply treat the disease, that is to kill the bacteria that infected the body, doesn't heal the person. The bacteria is dead, but what sent the person to the hospital in the first place is still there. The patient still is not getting something that their body chemistry needs to fend off the bacteria naturally. So, complete therapy would always include modification and enrichment of the diet. More and more people are promoting this concept today, but not anywhere nearly enough. There is just too much money to be made producing synthetic foods, pharmaceuticals, and foods with long shelf lives. And, as long as there is somebody who is willing to buy it, there will be somebody else, who will sell it. If we say that we only want fresh food and we are only going to buy fresh food, the market place will respond and provide us with what we ask for. But as long as people are willing to buy something, it is going to be sold, be it guns, pills or fresh vegetables.

C: Do you think it would do me any good to go to the American Dairy Association, because I really feel that this new chemical butter is something that we should not have to use. This is America's dairy land and I think it is terrible, the decisions are made by the dietitians and we have to go along.

T: Well, this is a political situation, and the way I understand it you are generally going to have to cope with the problem on an institution by institution basis. There are influential people who would block any attempt to pass general legislation blocking these foods from hospitals and schools. As long as the product will not do direct harm. As long as you don't drop dead within three days after using the product, it is more or less licensed to be marketed, unless someone comes along and challenges it with the necessary money and research data.

C: Don't you think that this is a relative thing. Take for instance, monosodium glutamate. I don't think that it hurts the average person, but I know some people who become hypertensive and disoriented after they have had it. You see, it is just a matter of a personal thing, right?

T: It definitely is a matter of the state of the chemistry in the person's body.

C: And, then, if a person were to avoid all of these chemical additives, that would reduce the problem.

T: It definitely would. The additives, you see, are there to prevent the food spoiling.

C: And adding color.

T: And adding, color, or to make the food more acceptable with flavors and scents.

C: But I feel that we haven't even gotten close to the damage that a lot of these chemicals are doing to people especially the older people that are on medication already.

T: I definitely know, that it aggravates. Additives do alter body chemistry. I personally have had experience with young children. The children would become extremely hyperactive if we would feed them foods with additives. We took the children off these foods and replaced them with fresh foods and in as little as five days, we had a very calm, well behaved child. But just give the child a small quantity again of foods with additives in them, and again we had a hyperactive, unmanageable child. We went back and forth like a teeter-totter for many months until we were absolutely convinced that it was the additives in the foods that we were feeding the children that was making them hyperactive.

C: And, I think this is also true with elderly people. You just keep up the good work.

L: OK, I hate to cut this short but we are out of time. My guest tonight on "Let's Talk Community" is Tommy Cichanowski. And Tommy, thanks very much for being here with us tonight.

T: It was my pleasure and I hope we've stimulated some interest here in Milwaukee because it is up to us to seek out what is good for us. If we ask for it, It will be provided. But this means that we each must become aware of the personal needs of our body. What is this, that we call ourselves and how does it work.

L: Once a person becomes aware and becomes concerned, how can they get more information about what they are concerned about.   [The Tortoise Shell web page listings @ www.alltheweb.com]

T: Well, the reader's guide in the library is a good place to start. There are many good books and pamphlets. Also I am currently working on a slide show that explains things in more detail and that will be available for viewing by groups. If you are interested, you can contact me through the radio station here. The information is available, there are no secrets here, but you have to want good personal health. No one else can do it for you. The responsibility is yours!

L: OK Thanks for being here with us. "Let's Talk Community" is a public service presentation of WAWA Radio and we appreciate your comments not only by phone but also by mail. They can be sent to Let's Talk Community c/o WAWA Radio 12,800 W. Bluemound Rd. Elm Grove, Wisconsin 53122. Tomorrow night we'll have...