Dr. Johanna Budwig, a remarkable scientist

On May 19, 2003, a great scientist, Dr. Johanna Budwig, was laid to rest in Freudenstadt, Germany, at the age of 94. Dr. Budwig was a pioneer and a fighter for the truth. I visited her twice in her home where we discussed her professional career, her discoveries, patentable inventions, and the constant ups and downs and the fights with the multinational margarine industry. She held a double doctorate in medicine and in pharmaceutical chemistry. Dr. Budwig also studied biochemistry, physics, and psychology. Because of these achievements Johanna Budwig was officially appointed by the German government to lead the research work into the process of artificially hardening vegetable oils for the manufacturing of margarine. By 1950, she had made a number of remarkable discoveries. Her greatest invention was a method of analyzing and separating different fatty acids, called paper-chromatography, which helped lead to her greatest discovery–trans-fatty acids and their detrimental effects in human health. During one of our conversations, Dr. Budwig told me about her success with cancer patients. She had discovered deficiencies in their blood caused by the ingestion of trans-fatty acids in shortening and margarine made from hydrogenated oils. Essential substances, phosphatides and lipoproteins, were no longer present. Dr. Budwig found that the elimination of trans-fatty acids from the diet, replaced by a natural formula of linolenic fatty acids (omega 3, which is found abundantly in flax oil), combined with milk protein, such as quark or cottage cheese, would reverse the cancerous condition over a period of three months. The sun’s energy, captured in fresh flax oil as photons, in combination with the electrons of sulphur in milk protein, provides the life energy and healing power to correct the blood disorders. With this treatment, Dr. Budwig saw her patients’ tumours shrink, and liver dysfunction, cardiovascular problems, and diabetes alleviated. When Dr. Budwig, at that time, a government employee whose work was subsidized by margarine industry monies, wanted to patent and publish her discoveries in scientific journals, the industry protested. The publication of the newfound health hazards would prove to be a financial disaster for the margarine manufacturers. She went ahead anyway and published her inventions and discoveries. As a result she was nominated six times for the Nobel Prize. But there was a cost to bear: she attracted the wrath of the industry. She lost her job, her laboratory, and the privilege to publish academically. By winning over 30 court cases, however, she loosened the stranglehold, but sacrificed her valuable time to preparing her own defence, which took away from her research and letting the world know of the deadly effects of trans-fatty acids. Dr. Johanna Budwig is recognized as the world’s leading authority on fats and oils. She has published twelve books and numerous articles in scientific journals. Her legendary anti-cancer Budwig breakfast muesli is delicious and can now be enjoyed by everyone (see the recipe at www.alive.com). It is part of the rich inheritance she has left all health seekers.