This kind of strategy is quite common in remote places like Vilcabamba in Ecuador and Abkhazia in the Russian Caucasus.

Dr. Weston A. Price chronicled other distant groups who did not get sick nor die like we do. He found the diets of those people to be nutrient-dense, containing four times the minerals and ten times the fat-soluble vitamins found in the American diet of the late 1930's and early 40's.

Here are two common denominators found in the strategies of Grandma Weiss/Uncle Wallace and isolated groups noted for their health and longevity:

(1) Diets loaded with minerals and vitamins that maintain their 2000+ metabolic enzymes through time.

(2) No reliance upon prescription drugs that interfere with those metabolic enzymes.

Consider what has happened to most Americans during the six decades beginning 1940:

The nutrient density of their diets, including that of the so-called "right foods? in those diets, has continued to slide downhill, and their use of prescription drugs has skyrocketed.

If you conclude you want to retool your present strategy, here are a couple of simple, logical things to do:

(1) Take advantage of the resources offered by the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation.

(2) Start looking for natural alternatives to the prescription and over-the- counter items in your medicine cabinet.

Bill Quesnell (bill@mineralsbuildhealth.com) is a health educator, author of Minerals: The Essential Link to Health, and Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation member. He farmed melon for eight years in Costa Rica where he learned how minerals build health and prevent disease by putting his hands in the soil, not by relying upon medical advice devoted to disease and treatment. Critical reviews of his book and a list of 15 harmful health myths can be found at http://www.mineralsbuildhealth.com