Controlling Your Diet: How to Stay Well 165Constructing a rotation diet
It isn’t difficult to design a rotation diet, given certain basic rules, and
patients should learn to do it for themselves; after all, no one else is in such
a good position to understand his or her own likes and dislikes. True, some
selections have to be made for scientific reasons, but there is always scope
for culinary and gastronomic preferences. A rotation diet is essentially a
personalized thing: what works well for one person may not suit another (or
even keep him or her healthy).
However, one very important piece of information you need before
tackling one for yourself is an understanding of “food families.” These are
groups of plants and animals that are related chemically in such a way that
the body treats them as being similar from the metabolic point of view; in
other words, if you react to one member of a group you are quite likely (but
not absolutely certain) to react to others of the same family. It is perhaps
obvious to you that cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts are related,
but it may not be quite so obvious that mustard, turnips and rutabaga
(swede) are also in that same group, which also includes beet greens, bok
choy, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, collard greens, garden cress, horseradish,
kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, radishes, sea kale, swiss chard and turnip
greens. We call this group of foods the Brassicas; formerly it was known as
the Crucifer family and sometimes still appears in lists under that name. There
are over 3,000 species of mustard alone. Rape (as rapeseed) and canola are
less well-known members of this very large and commercially important
food family. (Wikipedia on-line)
Similarly, carrots, parsnips, celery and parsley belong to the same
family (one of my child patients pointed out how similar the green frond
tops are). Tobacco, potato, tomato, aubergine and pepper may seem an
even less likely set, but they are in fact all in the nightshade family, named
after the deadly nightshade plant, Atropa belladonna (very poisonous, hence
its popular name). Grains, of course, go together. Wheat seems to be the
worst offender, followed by corn and the others not far behind. You have
read my condemnation of this group of foods in several places in this
book. Collectively, they cause more problems than any other – and they are
taken collectively because they are a family. (Incidentally, sugar cane is also a
member; these are all grasses of some kind.)