If no perfect diet exists, you may wonder why so many different dietary systems claim to be the best. A well-stocked bookstore may have as many as thirty different titles in the health and nutrition section, each written by a medical doctor, research scientist, or nutrition expert, and every one prescribing a different way to eat. What is more intriguing, most of these books contain solid scientific evidence to prove the superiority of their diets.
For example, raw foods enthusiasts promote raw fruits and vegetables and sprouted grains as the ultimate way to eat and provide documented case studies in which patients with an assortment of debilitating or life-threatening diseases have been miraculously cured under the supervision of respected medical doctors. They cite laboratory research that validates what has already been clinically demonstrated—that a raw foods diet indeed works.
Next, traditional2 macrobiotic practitioners dispute nearly every principle a raw foods diet is based upon, claiming their own version of specially cooked and prepared foods works best, and that only about 5 percent of raw foods in the diet is well tolerated. And, of course, they present a battery of well-documented case studies that clearly validate the healing powers of a macrobiotic diet along with the necessary scientific theory, each theory quite different from those presented by raw foods advocates.
If this is not confusing enough for the rational scientific mind, then consider the example of a well-known doctor in New York City who espouses a predominantly meat-centered, high-protein diet and has used this approach successfully as a therapeutic intervention for certain cancer patients. Not only does this go against every alternative system of nutrition, it even contradicts the current findings in mainstream science on the dangers of excessive amounts of animal food in the diet.
Over the years I have had clinical contact with patients on each of these diets in addition to several others—wheatgrass-juice-and-sprout diets, the Pritikin program, and Gerson therapy—and have observed clearcut success in each. How can this possibly make sense? How can one set of medical results prove macrobiotics work, another set prove raw fruits and vegetables works, and yet more scientific documentation prove the healing power of lean meats? Are people lying? Is there a way to make sense of the success of all the different nutritional approaches?
If you have asked these questions before, allow me to save you over thirty years of work by summing it up in this way: There is no single perfect diet but many. Different dietary systems are effective for different people under different circumstances.
Scattered across the earth are people of vastly different races, cultures, body types, and belief systems. They live near mountains, oceans, rivers, deserts, tundra, tropics, forests, and flatlands. Some have only fish and a few varieties of plants available to eat, some an assortment of tropical fruits and vegetables, some have only yak milk, meat, and a little grain, while others have enough fertile land and resources to raise crops, herd animals, and mass-produce every imaginable variety of food.
Is it sensible for any one people to tell another about the “true” way to eat? Can a tribesman from West Africa whose staple food is cassava root tell an Eskimo he is wrong because his staple food is fish? Or can the Japanese tell the Mexicans of the absurdity of eating dairy, corn, hot peppers, and food fried in lard, staple products completely unknown to native Japan?
The most cursory study of evolution reveals that there is not merely one but a whole spectrum of nutritional systems suitable for human consumption. This spectrum of nutrition is inherently diverse and is a function of genetic inheritance (the unique biological characteristics of the different races), geography (the environment in which the foods are grown), and cultural beliefs (the unique ways in which various ethnic groups across the globe see the universe). These elements compose the nutritional code of ethics for a given people.
Most dietary experts fail to notice the full range of nutrition or simply disclaim the legitimacy of other diets. They see things only from the perspective of their own limited viewpoint. This is not unlike people who have had life-changing religious experiences and conclude that because they have found spiritual meaning through a particular religious tradition, you should too. Theirs is the only path to salvation and failure to follow it spells spiritual doom.
Whenever a nutrition scientist or medical expert champions a particular diet, or when someone who has found success with a nutritional approach wholeheartedly endorses it as the only way to eat, what they are doing is reading their body and translating it onto yours. They make the assumption that because a diet worked for them, it must work for you. This assumption will hold true only as far as your body type, health characteristics, and life-style needs are similar to theirs.
For example, many nutrition experts extoll the use of dairy products, seeing them as essential. Indeed, they work well for many people. However, certain African and Oriental ethnic groups have a curious intolerance for milk products. Researchers have discovered that these groups have a low concentration of lactase, the enzyme that breaks down the milk sugar lactose. Dairy products were unknown to their ancestors, and hence many Africans and Orientals are genetically less well adapted to digest milk than, say, their Indo-European counterparts whose ancestors depended on dairy for survival.
It is quite natural for someone with a high lactase concentration to conclude that dairy products are easy to digest and necessary for good health. It is equally likely for those with a low lactase level who experience gas and stomach cramps when drinking milk to conclude that dairy products are “bad.” However, neither of these conclusions is useful if it is generalized.
What is more fascinating, many people of eastern European descent who have a high lactase concentration nevertheless show an unusual sensitivity to dairy products. In clinical settings I have observed people who have complained for decades of clogged sinuses, postnasal drip, and sinus headaches only to have the condition clear dramatically after eliminating all dairy products from the diet for several weeks. Once again, dairy products are not bad food; they simply work well for some body types and poorly for others.
In another example some nutritional systems, such as strict vegetarian (no meat, fish, or dairy), Pritikin, macrobiotics, and raw foods, advocate a diet high in carbohydrates and low in protein and fat as compared with standard American fare. These diets may indeed work well for people with smaller body frames, less lean body tissue, or slower metabolism; however, those with larger frames, more muscle tissue, and physically active life-styles often lose weight, feel less fulfilled, and simply cannot sustain themselves on these diets.
Proponents of different nutritional systems not only read their body type but also their body phase and erroneously translate these to other people. In certain Eastern and European esoteric healing traditions, the body is characterized as cyclically passing through three distinct phases: cleansing, building, and sustaining.
The cleansing phase is a period of “breaking down,” a time when it feels as if the body is at its weakest level of function. We may be experiencing illness, low immunity, low energy, depressed mood, or decreased appetite and weight loss. A cleansing phase is the body’s time to purify, a purging of toxic elements on the biological level and a housecleaning of outdated habits on the emotional level. The cleansing body actively sheds toxins by focusing energy on catabolic processes, or the breakdown of diseased tissues. This tearing away of tissue is a necessary step for the phase that follows next—building.
The building phase is a time of growth, a flowering season for the body. During this phase the body metabolizes at its greatest efficiency, rebuilding anew that which was torn down in the cleansing process. Organ systems strengthen, immune function is enhanced, and body weight may increase. People often experience a building phase as a period of increased appetite, enhanced digestion, mood elevation, high energy, and a general feeling of strength and earthiness. It is as if we were becoming “more” of ourself, re-creating the body.
In the sustaining phase the body operates on a maintenance level. This is a period of functional stasis when metabolic processes are balanced between the polar opposites of cleansing and building. Many people experience the sustaining phase as a time of evenness in body and temperament, a feeling that we are operating on “cruise control.”
The three phases are not limited to the human body. Every creature and plant, every natural phenomenon from snowstorms to volcanic eruptions to planetary orbits move through periods of increase, stasis, and decay. As far as I can tell, an inherent mechanism orchestrates the timing of the movement from cleansing to building to sustaining in the body; however, the onset and duration of these phases along with their relative “success” are not absolutely set. They are influenced by a host of factors, the most important of which is diet.
Different nutritional systems enhance one particular phase more than the others, sometimes in dramatic fashion. For example, a raw foods diet steers the body into a cleansing state, causing the breakdown of diseased tissues and the release of stored toxins. If you undertake a raw foods diet while the body is already in a cleansing state, or ready to move into one (for instance in the early spring when we naturally shed excess fatty tissue accumulated in the winter), the diet may have profound effects. Illness and pains may vanish, stores of energy be released, and a wonderful clarity of mind appear.
Those who have this experience correctly perceive the healing effect of the diet but often incorrectly conclude that the diet works all the time and for all bodies. Your body may not be in a cleansing phase when you read a book on raw foods dieting or receive counseling from a medical practitioner who emphasizes this diet. Indeed, once someone on a raw foods regime is ready to move from the cleansing to building phase, staying on the raw foods diet may have disquieting effects. The body wants to move in one direction, but the diet is pulling it back in another direction. The results of this dietary “push me-pull you” may be irritability, physical hypersensitivity, cravings, excessive weight loss, and constant hunger.
What is more, many people who follow a year-round raw foods regimen meet with relative success because they live in hot weather or tropical locations like Hawaii, Florida, or Southern California—environments that naturally support the cleansing process. Try eating raw fruits and vegetables for twelve months in Montana and you will learn firsthand why it does not always work.
A traditional macrobiotic diet is basically a sustaining diet for Oriental bodies; it maintains the body without steering it toward a cleansing or building state. For many westerners, however, I have found a macrobiotic diet yields a “sustained cleanse.” The same cleansing effect that occurs in two weeks on a raw foods diet may take months on a macrobiotic diet. Many westerners who follow this diet experience feelings of calm, balance, and stability along with increased energy and remission of a long list of pathologies.
Those who continue the diet past the sustaining and cleansing phases, however, often lose weight, appear gaunt, and experience energy drops, hunger pangs, and cravings for meat, fish, and dairy products. They have chosen a diet that supports a portion of the body’s changing needs, but they fail to recognize the nutritional demands of the building period. And by falsely reading their bodies as existing in a state of perpetual “sustained cleanse,” many traditional macrobiotic experts assume all other bodies are similar to theirs. The precise reasons why a macrobiotic diet works well for some westerners and not others is not yet understood. Suffice it to say that it is the nuances of individual body type and body chemistry that ultimately determine the effectiveness of a diet over a long period of time.
In general, a diet high in meat and animal products initially steers the body toward a building phase. These foods help promote weight increase, tissue regeneration, and other anabolic functions. Those who follow a diet high in animal foods often report feelings of strength, solidity, and fulfillment of appetite, particularly when the body is already in a building period. Once the body enters the cleansing phase, the further use of animal foods inhibits the body from fully investing energy in the process of tearing down and healing dysfunctional tissue. The energy needed to digest animal foods and excrete their toxic by-products places too large a demand on the system.
I am certainly aware that not all those who follow the diets I have listed see from such a limited perspective and that there are indeed elegant variations of macrobiotic and raw foods diets that adjust for the imbalances I have listed. I have mentioned these general examples to clarify a fine point: Any scientist or layperson may experience success with a diet that supports a particular body phase and falsely conclude that the diet works for all bodies all the time.
There is still more to the story. Whenever people passionately promote a nutritional system, they are not just asking you to swallow certain foods, they are asking you to accept the worldview on which the diet is based. A “dietary philosophy” is exactly that—a diet based upon a larger philosophy of how the universe works.
By telling you to avoid meat, for example, some vegetarian proponents are not only asking you to eliminate it because it is harmful to health, they are telling you to “eat my system, eat my way of seeing the world, eat my belief that killing animals is unhealthy for your soul, and that abstaining from meat will make you a better person.” Likewise, when meat eaters tell you to eat meat, they are not just promoting its health-giving effects, they are saying “eat my system, eat my belief that it is acceptable to kill animals, that eating meat does not make you morally corrupt.”
People could argue for days about whose nutritional system is most correct, but they are not so much trying to validate a system of nutrition as a system of thinking. Ultimately, nutritional experts are not only saying “eat like me,” they are saying “think like me.”
A macrobiotic diet, for example, is not merely a way to eat, it is a way to live. Macrobiotic principles form a richly articulated worldview that includes one’s relationship to spiritual, social, and biological realities. A student of macrobiotics can study for years to learn the principles of macrobiotic living on which the system of macrobiotic eating is based.
Furthermore, many nutritional systems are based not upon what is good for the body’s health, but what is believed to be good for the soul’s health. For example, various traditional schools of vegetarianism and raw foods have their roots in religious movements that developed strict moral codes about behavior. Any foods that stimulated the “passions of the body” were considered taboo. In fact, one of the first nutritional spokespersons in America—a Presbyterian minister named Sylvester Graham (of graham cracker fame)—supported the use of whole wheat flour and fresh fruits and vegetables not so much for health purposes, but because he believed foods such as meat, fish, eggs, spices, and liquor stimulated the sex drive and should be stricken from the diet. He was not trying to make healthier people, he was trying to make better people.
Even someone who follows no formal nutritional system is nevertheless operating upon a larger belief system on which the “nondiet” is based. For example, many people who want no rules or restrictions with diet and believe “anything goes” with eating often operate on the belief that no relationship exists between cause and effect. Somehow, whatever they do in life or whatever they eat will not have future consequences, or so they hope. Because they secretly fear responsibility, they act as if responsibility were unnecessary.
It is fascinating to observe how practitioners of different nutritional systems arrive at such diverse diagnoses. One person I know had a long-term digestive disorder that caused gas, stomach cramps, and intestinal pains whenever he ate. He jumped from one nutritional therapy to another, ultimately giving up in confusion at the different approaches.
An allergy doctor diagnosed his condition (not surprisingly) as food allergies, and placed him on a rotation diet, eliminating most of his favorite foods and placing him on a regimen that consisted of 50 percent raw salads. Disappointed in the diet, he turned to a Chinese doctor who diagnosed his condition as deficiency of “warmth,” and prescribed warming spices—ginger and garlic to help heal the intestines. He also emphasized that little or no salad should be eaten.
When this diet failed, he consulted an Ayurvedic physician from India who told him the opposite: He had too much warmth in his system, and it was best to avoid warming spices, particularly ginger and garlic. He was also told to avoid salt because it heats the system and to include more sweets because they soothe the digestive system.
When this approach showed no improvement, he consulted a macrobiotic counselor who diagnosed his condition as overly yin (expansive) and prescribed more salt because it contracts the system, and fewer sweets because they expand the system—the opposite prescription given by the Ayurvedic doctor. Unlike the Chinese approach that uses spices to heal the digestive system, spices are avoided in the macrobiotic worldview because they obstruct digestion. Eventually he tired of his search and decided to let the problem alone until another avenue emerged. In the interim he took up bicycling and within a month’s time the condition was halfway cleared.
I consider none of these systems to be right or wrong. Each has a unique worldview on which its nutritional philosophy is based, and even though they directly contradict each other in certain areas, each approach will still work for certain people under the right conditions. Indeed, one of the most important success-promoting factors in a diet is a belief in the diet and a belief in the belief system behind the diet.
We are often confused, and rightfully so, when different nutritionists offer scientific proof of their particular viewpoints. How can one scientist prove raw foods are best and another prove cooked foods? How can one set of scientific results demonstrate that excess sodium raises blood pressure and another study show it lowers pressure? The answer lies in the interpretation of scientific results. The renegade philosopher Robert Anton Wilson has pointed out that the mind often behaves as if it has two parts: the thinker and the prover. Whatever the thinker thinks, the prover sets out to prove. In other words, scientists make interpretations based on personal biases, just as any of us would interpret a situation from our own unique viewpoint.
Some studies shows a direct link between cholesterol in the diet and cholesterol level in the blood, but other studies show no correlation at all. Some studies demonstrate the effectiveness of vitamin C in preventing colds and others show its ineffectiveness. There are even scientists (hired by tobacco companies) who claim there is no conclusive evidence linking cigarette smoking to lung disease, even though more research has been amassed to prove that there is than perhaps any medical condition. And when a majority of scientists agree, someone always dissents, and that voice is often a Galileo, a Newton, or an Einstein who dares to see differently. The problem of proof arises when we believe our interpretation of evidence is the only interpretation of the evidence.
For example, raw foods enthusiasts point to scientific evidence which shows that when cooked foods are consumed, the white blood cell count immediately rises, while no such increase occurs when eating raw fruits or vegetables. The white blood cells function as immune system scavengers, removing foreign organisms and any chemical compounds the body considers invasive. The conclusion is drawn that therefore cooked foods are bad because the body considers them invasive and toxic, and raw foods are good because they evoke no immune system response. However, one can look at the same results and conclude that the cooked food is stimulating the immune function and causing the increase in white blood cells not because the food itself is toxic, but because a function of cooked food is to “exercise” the immune system in producing white blood cells for real emergencies, somewhat akin to a biological fire drill. Indeed, it is quite natural for the body to use the invasion of low doses of microorganisms or chemical poisons to immunize itself against greater danger. And on one level food is a foreign substance that the body must “overcome” through the process of digestion and assimilation. In this sense cooked food can be seen to strengthen the system while raw foods simply do not have the same white-blood-cell-stimulating effect.
In another example one scientist I know was interested in proving a vegetarian diet biologically inferior. His studies of the digestive system revealed the existence of a carrier molecule in the bloodstream that transports the type of iron found only in animal foods. In other words, the iron from meat is in a different chemically bound form from the iron in plants, and the subjects he tested had special, previously unknown chemicals that carried only the animal or “heme-bound” form of iron. He concluded that because this carrier protein exists, human beings were therefore meant to eat meat. This reasoning is certainly logical, but one could just as readily conclude that because one eats meat, special iron-carrying proteins are produced in the body to accommodate meat’s unique form of iron. Indeed, his subjects were all meat-eaters; none were vegetarian. Who knows what he would have found if he had tested both these groups? Trying to prove what we were “meant” to eat is ultimately meaningless. How we prove our personal biases with “conclusive scientific proof” is what bears close consideration.
Many people are accustomed to reading newspaper or magazine articles that discuss scientific studies which point to or prove a conclusion. I have observed how people believe what they read without question, in part because most of us do not have the background necessary to dispute scientific findings, and in part because many of us believe that when scientific proof is demonstrated, all the scientists in the world are standing in white coats nodding their heads in approval. We naturally want to believe that scientific findings are met with unanimous consent, but in truth this is rarely so.
Scientific study is often like opening shutters in a darkened room. When the sun fills the room with light, we can conclude that the act of opening the shutters made the sun appear in the sky, or reason that the sun was already there and opening the shutters simply allowed the light to come through. Can you see how different conclusions can be drawn from the same evidence, and that we tend to interpret results based on what we are looking for.
Another important distinction that helps us understand the spectrumlike nature of nutrition is the three levels of diet: therapeutic, maintenance, and experimental. By distinguishing the proper use of each level of diet we can gain some insight into the confusion and disappointment that arise when a diet fails to meet our expectations, and we can consciously choose the level of diet on which we would like to work.
A therapeutic diet is a diet specifically intended to treat or heal a disease. Examples are juice or water fasts, diets to lower cholesterol or blood-pressure levels, and a long list of popular diets touted as curatives for a host of illnesses. Therapeutic diets often facilitate dramatic healing and are in widespread use in both traditional and alternative healing sciences.
Though therapeutic diets are successful in curing disease, this does not mean they will continue to work on an everyday basis once the body is healed. Often a diet provides therapeutic benefits for a specific period of time and loses its effectiveness when the natural limits of its healing powers are reached. We have seen an example of this in cleansing diets that have positive benefits yet cause negative reactions once the body moves into a building phase.
People often become confused at this point because they have seen the healing powers of the diet, yet witness its loss of effectiveness. They fail to recognize that like any medicine, a therapeutic diet is a specific medical intervention used for the duration of the disease. You would not continue to take aspirin even though your headache was gone, nor would you have your teeth drilled further once a cavity is filled.
A maintenance diet nourishes us in our sustaining phase—it is the staple fare used in everyday life, the business-as-usual diet. On this level of diet foods are chosen for their ability to nourish us for long stretches of time without harmful or imbalancing effects. The key to this diet is to remember that foods which successfully maintain the body now may be ill-suited at another time.
An experimental diet is the use of food as an evolutionary tool, a way to play with the possibilities of what a particular diet can do for the body. On an experimental diet we are the scientists of the body, asking questions such as, What would happen if I ate these particular foods? How would they affect my body, health, energy level, work output, and ability to think? Any foods that have unproven effects or that we have not used before present an opportunity to explore the unknown, to bring to our diet a sense of newness and discovery.
Taking vitamin supplements, for example, may be considered one way to use diet for experimental purposes. Proof enough exists of the therapeutic effects of vitamins and minerals—the use of supplements to treat disease conditions—however, the use of vitamins for maintenance purposes or for specialized life-style needs is a relatively recent phenomenon and largely experimental. By taking supplements we actively participate in human evolution, coaxing the body into greater (or lesser) levels of function.
Since the dawn of humankind the staple foods used to maintain the body have changed and evolved. Even now diet continues to change as we manufacture new foods, incorporate new growing methods, and change the way we live. Many people fail to see the evolving nature of diet and look at the diets of our distant ancestors to prove we were meant to eat a certain way, which is like excavating a tomb to prove we were meant to write on papyrus and drive chariots.
Whenever you read diet books or listen to nutritional advice, remember you are probably receiving information from those who are reading their own bodies and translating it onto yours, presenting their philosophy of life through beliefs about diet, and proving their biases through scientific conclusions that can be interpreted in other ways. Of course, we expect to find useful information when consulting expert sources, but the reality is that most authorities see only a small part of the nutritional spectrum, and no matter how much information we gather, we must inevitably make our own nutritional choices. Ultimately, the most reasonable view is this: Diet will vary from person to person, from one week to the next, and no matter what happens, nothing will stay the same for long.
2Note that there is a distinction between “traditional” macrobiotics, which is very specific in scope, and “contemporary” macrobiotics, which is broader in its use of different foods.