4 Diet Wise
up. You’ll probably live longer if you customize your diet and figure out
which foods are best for you. That’s what this book is about. It’s the crucial
aspect of this book.
But the truth is that most of us are not really as healthy as we should
be. Maybe you don’t admit to serious symptoms; but are you bounding with
abundant energy, radiantly happy and fulfilled in all aspects of your life?
If not, you are not truly in a state of wellness. That’s something else my
conventional colleagues have sold to everybody: that health is merely the
absence of disease. Not good enough. A positive sense of well being and
plenty of energy available whenever needed is what should be regarded as
optimum health. That’s real vitality.
Maybe you had it as a child and have lost it. Maybe you never
felt that good, in which case you have something delightful to discover
about healthy living: it feels great – like being in love, getting a big raise
or promotion, publishing your first novel and winning the state lottery, all
rolled into one! When would be a good time to rediscover the best feelings
of your life, to regain lost youth and beat off those annoying little signals
of less-than-perfect health?
If not now, when?
Eating dangerously
The title for this section comes from a book published in 1976 by a UK
physician named Richard Mackarness (published in Britain as Not all in the
Mind). It became something of a classic and many years later I was asked to
write a foreword by the publishers, Thorsons, an imprint of Harper Collins.
I compared it to other radical and seminal alternative books, such as Silent
Spring by Rachel Carson and Small is Beautiful by Ernest Schumacher.
Mackarness’ message was that food can make you ill – sometimes
very ill. I read Eating Dangerously a few years after it was published and it
changed my career utterly and led to the happiest days of my life. It was
certainly contentious and challenging reading. But instead of dismissing
it as nonsense, which most trained doctors did, I determined to find out
for myself. I started putting patients on a suggested eating plan, avoiding
the common danger foods, and they began to get well, suddenly and
dramatically. Aches and pains vanished, chronic disease suddenly went away,
people felt better, looked younger and lost weight easily and permanently.
Many stopped their medication.
Make no mistake, food can hurt you. In fact it can make your life hell. I’m
talking not just about junk food – a common misconception – but good