As I have been invited to write the occasional article for Foods Matter I thought I should explain who I am and how my interest in nutrition arose.

Between 1943 and 1948 I attended a large boarding school. By modern standards the food was pretty awful: butter, sugar and jam were strictly rationed and we never saw potato chips or ice cream. Even the supplies of milk, bread and potatoes were restricted. But on this diet no one suffered from anorexia,obesity, or late onset diabetes. We knew nothing of allergy, depression or hyperactivity and I can only remember one contemporary with asthma.

At that time there was no mass immunisation against common infectious disease. I was vaccinated at an early age and due to an outbreak of diphtheria had been inoculated, but I cannot remember being protected from tetanus until doing my National Service in 1948.
I had measles and chickenpox at school as well as influenza. On one occasion there were over one hundred sick and in bed at one time. But despite these problems and the absence of antobiotics no one died. The illness which did me the most damage was whooping cough which I had when I was eight. This made me hyperactive until I was, by good chance, treated with an antibiotic in 1949, but I only learned how I had been handicapped many years later.

At university I studied botany, zoology and chemistry before doing a course of agriculture. This gave me a splendid general education but did not make it easy to find a job at a time when specialists were in demand. I eventually was employed by a company which produced and sold large quantities of agricultural fertiliser.
After seven years I became a tenant farmer on 250 acres of indifferent land not far from Dumfries. I expected to do well as a farmer but my results got worse and worse the harder I worked and the more I tried to apply expert advice.

Eventually I realised that, instead of releasing essential
elements from my acidic soil as was claimed, the fertiliser I was applying was making them unavailable. Two years later I stopped applying nitrogenous fertiliser, my livestock began to thrive and farming changed from a nightmare to pleasure.
I then asked the experts, ‘Have you properly tested your fertilisers’ recommendations and do they induce trace elements disorders in crops and livestock?’ In the absence of a clear response it became apparent that the experts, who were advising the government as well as farmers, were both short of field experience and unsupported by sound science.

My experiences led me to join the McCarrison Society for Nutrition and Health, named after Sir Robert McCarrison who spent much of his
working life as an army doctor in India. As he travelled he remarked that the physique and the diseases of the people he studies varied according to their diet.
This led him to carry out a series of experiments with groups of rats in which he supplied them with food that was similar in quality to the diets eaten in the different regions of India. He concluded, ‘I know nothing so potent in maintaining good health in laboratory animals as perfectly constituted food; I know nothing so potent in producing ill health as improperly constituted food.’

Click here for more articles by Tom Stockdale.

Click here for LINKS to manufacturers of nutrition and food supplements.

Back to top