Randall Fitzgerald, The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health, Dutton (Penguin Group), New York, NY, 2006. $24.95

Myth: vaccinations are always helpful. Myth: food does not cause violence. In The Hundred-Year Lie, Randall Fitzgerald lays bare the facts in this investigative report on the cataclysmic intersection of the processed food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Starting with the simple idea that man can improve upon nature, these industries have indeed brought us extended life spans, especially for the seriously ill, but they have done so at the price of the quality of our health.

Over the past one hundred years those affected with diabetes increased from 1% to 20% of the population, and death from cancer rose from 3% to 20%. When the Food and Drug Act was enacted in 1906, asthma and related immune system diseases were virtually non-existent.

While we have gained lower prices for our foods, we now find ourselves in a world where the breast milk of Inuit mothers (living at the remote Artic Circle) would be categorized as hazardous waste due to PCB and mercury contamination; a world where foods containing ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ flavors contain the same chemicals; a world where grocery store shelves are lined with processed foods, almost all of which contain at least one genetically modified ingredient that has not been thoroughly tested for its potential harm. But the true story lies in the new issue of chemical synergies—when chemicals which are believed to be harmless by themselves combine once in the body to create toxic substances.

Overcoming any doubt that this threat to our health is real, Fitzgerald offers hope in the telling of his own detoxification and relays resources for you to do the same. Buy it today at Amazon.com

Alec Franklor owns RetreatFinder.com, an online directory of spiritual and healing retreats.