46 Achieving pH Balance to Treat Specific Ailments
unless some raw foods, with their supply of water and mucilage, are eaten
at every meal. Mucilage also heals the stomach lining and builds up the
layer of mucus that covers it. I’m convinced it was the thickening of this
mucous layer from the mucilage in potatoes that has made my stomach
impervious to the irritating effects of spicy foods. It makes sense that
potatoes—with their high level of mucilage —can help in the regrowth
of the mucus that had lined the stomach before bad diet destroyed it.
Potatoes were used by tribal cultures to heal sk in irritations and wounds.
The American Indians placed a slice of raw potato on the eyelid to heal
pinkeye, and in West Africa herbalists covered the incisions they made—
for example, when they cut a circular-shaped piece out of the skull in
order to drain fl uid from the brain—with raw potato slices.
The nearly raw potato diet can take anywhere from two months to a
year and a half to work. The less you cook the potatoes the faster the
healing process. You can speed up healing by drinking a glass of raw
potato juice every day or eating slices of peeled, raw potatoes. Although
potatoes are digested quickly, even those who digest their foods too fast
(the parasympathetic-dominant meat eater) can do well on the semiraw
potato diet, because potatoes that are barely cooked are broken down
slowly. Raw potatoes not only improve digestion by reducing acidity but
also heal stomach injuries—ulcers, lesions, and inflammation
(gastritis)—by building up the protective mucous lining of the stomach.
Although regarded by nutritionists as unhealthy because of their
high levels of starch, the more than 150 studies on the white potato
present a more sanguine view of this root vegetable. Perhaps most sig-
nifi cant is the fact that the starch in potatoes differs from the starch in
grains in that it is broken down not by digestion but rather by fermenta-
tion in the large intestine. As a result, blood sugar remains low, an
indication that potatoes act as a preventative of diabetes and cardiovas-
cular disease. Further benefi ts occur as white potatoes ferment. They
give off two substances, one that decreases the appetite and the other,
an acid, that lines the colon with an anticancer substance.^2
Potatoes are not only good medicine but also have enormous nutri-
tional value. This was proven when this protein-rich carbohydrate
almost single-handedly kept the Irish alive for a 150-year period. Pota-
toes became the dietary staple of the Irish with the fi nal takeover of
Northern Ireland by the British in 1690 in the battle of the Boyne. The
most fertile land was given to the offi cers of the victorious British army,