7

GUIDANCE ON THE PATH TO GOOD HEALTH

Though food is the dominant subject of this book, it is a book about health, and this chapter is one of guidance as it pertains to that. This guidance falls into two areas: important considerations when selecting and working with a primary physician, and important considerations about popular diets today. In both cases, I offer advice about what to look for and incorporate into a new health regimen, and what to avoid. As we undertake our search for improved health and well-being, challenging but realistic goals may be established once one understands what may realistically be expected. An understanding of one’s health goals and a sound relationship with a physician who is sympathetic is key. Also germane is to understand how and why popular diets that purport to be beneficial may actually need to be avoided in our search for health.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTING A PHYSICIAN

To progress toward better health, one must make decisions. Reasonable decisions are based on information, and the most basic information required for decisions about health concerns is a solid answer to the question: Where do I stand now?

An individual with a problem that has not been examined should see a physician. A detailed knowledge of one’s current condition provides both a baseline for measuring improvement and a means of deciding how seriously the business of improving health should be taken. Even when under a physician’s care, one may continue to ask questions that the physician may not ask. Done thoroughly, a self-assessment complements a professional medical assessment. At times the latter may not define or diagnose the problem; an individual may nevertheless realize something is wrong and seek other opinions or take appropriate nutritional measures independently.

Self-assessment questions may relate to growing older without fear. One might ask, “Is my body feeling as if it will carry me through for the duration without becoming diseased?” We all grow old, and when the biological clock inside has run its course, we die.

This does not frighten us. But disease does, and rightly so. Old age and death are as natural as life. Disease is not.

A gentle suggestion: In taking stock of your own personal health situation, ask questions that will help you to learn to live in health. Success in your endeavor may bring genuine happiness and peace of mind.

A physician may help in the search for improved health. Although most doctors think more in terms of disease than in terms of health, a working relationship with a caring and competent doctor who is respectful of individual needs and goals enables one to understand medical conditions and make reasonable decisions about courses of treatment.

A physician’s first duty is to use his or her medical expertise to gather information in order to best assess the patient’s status. This is the purpose of a thorough medical history and physical examination, and of laboratory tests and any special diagnostic procedures.

The physician’s next duty is to explain his or her findings clearly and simply. If a doctor understands the broad spectrum of conditions that may exist between robust good health and overt disease, and recognizes the numerous subclinical problems people eating modern diets develop, there will be much to talk about. A doctor with this knowledge may help one prevent early symptoms from developing into major problems.

Most physicians find conditions satisfactory if no problems that are treatable with drugs or surgery are present. But when such conditions are discovered, the individual style, personality, and character of the physician greatly influence subsequent events.

Almost every doctor realizes that whatever the condition, choices about methods of treatment exist. But because most also believe strongly in some particular method, each tends to recommend that particular method to patients. While this is understandable (often the physician has little knowledge of alternate ways of dealing with the problem), the most competent physicians are aware and knowledgeable about methods outside of their own area of expertise. When telling a patient of a medical problem, such a physician is willing and able to explain the existing options. If the physician’s own particular approach is the one most suited for the individual and the problem, this will become apparent. The patient is always free to make his or her own informed choice.

This issue is complex even before bringing in the matter of treating disease through nutrition. Surgery and drug therapy are commonly a matter of one physician’s opinion over another’s; hospital studies have shown that patients receiving certain drugs or surgical procedures statistically fared no better—or fared worse—than those with similar conditions receiving no treatment. Often there is considerable debate between physicians over whether a given condition in general, or a given patient in particular, should be treated surgically, pharmaceutically, or not at all (nutrition, alas, is seldom considered).

Most conditions commonly treated with drugs or surgery are indeed treatable through nutrition, and this complicates matters further. Many physicians do not accept this, however, or accept it only on the most limited basis. Without the knowledge and experience to treat medical problems in this manner, most physicians cannot offer the alternative—treatment through proper nutrition—to their patients.

The realization that you may know more about these matters than your physician can be a matter of life and death. To your doctor’s evaluation of the situation, you must add your own. For some people, the recommended course of drug or surgical treatment is the most appropriate course to follow. For others with the discipline, knowledge, tenacity, and courage to steer their own course, there are times when it is not.

This is not a recommendation that anyone embark on a course of self-treatment for a serious medical problem; the help of a competent and understanding physician may be immeasurably important. But there are times when a recommended drug or surgical treatment is not in the best interest of an individual patient. The discerning patient must be prepared to recognize when this is the case.

Seek out a physician who understands all of this. Local chapters of the Weston A. Price Foundation can help you find a holistic physician in your area (westonaprice.org). Usually doctors who take the time to know their patients as individuals are responsive to these issues. Long ago and far away, most of us had a family doctor, a general practitioner with whom we grew up. This doctor knew us well, knew our families, histories, and idiosyncrasies. In this age of the specialist, too often a medical problem is seen as an isolated issue in a single part of the body, rather than as a signal that the body will break down further if one does not change one’s ways. In years past we were more willing to listen, and general practitioners and naturopathic physicians were willing to give us these frank appraisals we needed to hear. Perhaps their time has come again.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MEDICAL HISTORY AND THE PHYSICAL EXAM

The body is an integrated whole, and the symptoms we suffer relate to one another and to how we live. For the physician, the medical history begins a process similar to putting together a jigsaw puzzle, whether the patient has come to her for preventive care, has been previously diagnosed elsewhere, or is ill with undiagnosed symptoms and signs. (Symptoms are subjective feelings, while signs are objective and physically detectable or measurable.) All of these cases may be equally challenging, because the proper questions elicit responses revealing patterns in the puzzle that soon give shape to a picture remarkably unique for each individual.

And yet, patterns of problems are seen in much the same form in many people. Which pattern dominates at a given time in life is determined by an interplay of one’s genetic background, ways of reacting to stress, and individual dietary and exercise habits. We call these patterns diseases, symptom complexes, diagnoses, or illnesses. These labels are useful when used to organize information; they help relate problems to one another and ultimately to causes and solutions. But a physician should not forget that the names are but labels, and whatever the label, each individual’s set of medical problems is unique.

Information gained from the medical history helps shape the physical exam. While circumstances necessarily dictate the thoroughness of the initial exam, a physician must know an individual’s physical condition well if a solid and cooperative relationship is to be established. A competent physician observes, measures, and intuitively senses hundreds of bits of information in a fifteen-minute examination. The meaning of symptoms discovered in the history may be explored, clarified, and amplified. The possible need for special laboratory tests or further diagnostic procedures may be investigated and determined. Out of this process comes a sense of the individual’s overall condition.

The medical history and physical exam thus generate a record of where an individual stands medically; laboratory tests and special diagnostic procedures clarify and enlarge upon that record. (Please note: appendix 3 contains a discussion of some common laboratory tests.) A description of symptoms with their history, physical findings, emotional state, pertinent family history, dietary history, exercise habits, and current medications—this information is all relevant, and may be used to begin creating an appropriate plan reflective of the individual’s needs and goals.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING GOALS

Set goals. Achievements come with goals and a realistic means to reach them. Determine the specifics and plan timetables; one must then take these goals seriously.

Be realistic, but take on challenges. Health goals may involve foods, feelings, plans for self or family, and/or the elimination of troubling conditions—but whatever the goals are, know that they are possible. Unlike any other aspect of life, one has complete freedom about what one eats from this moment until one’s death. Health is one result of wisely exercising that freedom; others include greater self-control and freedom in other areas of life.

Learn to welcome change—including the changing of goals. Defeat leads to destruction only when nothing is learned. Learn, and change. Learning to eat as one knows is best takes time, and the modern world does not make this easy. Achieving health is a genuine challenge.

The enemy is apathy. We sometimes ask, what is it all for? We love family and friends; yet in some moments we wonder, why bother? What is it for, then—the food, the exercise, the caring, the search for health?

The belief that some mysterious powers live in each of us may overcome apathy. What Native Americans call the Great Spirit gives me life, energy to do for myself, and to do for others. I’ve been granted the gift of life—the strength to run fast and free on a mountain ridge, to walk peacefully on a quiet beach, to feel confident of my body, indeed, to understand that “the most supreme instrument in life is a perfect body,” as Havelock Ellis wrote about indigenous people. My goals of health and independence intertwine, and the resulting feeling—one of physical and psychological strength—may become a sustaining force. The foundation, though, is love, as well as the sense that we are all brothers and sisters, equal in the eyes of creation. Love is fundamental to life.

That which is for oneself and that which is for the people we love are sometimes inseparable. When we eat living, natural food, we act in harmony with forces at the very core of our being. We attempt to attune ourselves to the collective human spirit, and I believe we bring ourselves closer to each other and to the Great Spirit. Living naturally in good health helps us to replace feelings of apathy with feelings of strength and love—which even in apathetic moments we may choose to make a part of our goals.

Overcoming apathy, then, is a good goal to strive for!

Next we will review several popular diets to determine whether or not they may be useful for us in our search for health moving forward.

A REVIEW OF SEVERAL WELL-KNOWN DIETS

Scores of dietary regimens have become popular today. Many contain elements and principles that are useful in understanding the effects of food on health. These include the Pritikin Diet, two high-protein weight-loss diets (the Atkins Diet and the Scarsdale Diet), the Gerson Diet, raw-food diets (which may incorporate fasting), and the macrobiotic diet of Michio Kushi.

Each contains elements of traditional diets. All recommend mostly fresh, unrefined foods. Each has helped many people but yet has drawbacks; a common one is restrictiveness. Inflexibility is another; individual problems occurring in response to certain foods may be difficult to adjust. A lack of flexibility is often a problem even as one’s health improves, for a diet should change as an individual changes. A program initially bringing marked improvement often later fails to maintain health.

It must also be noted that although these dietary regimens have been of great value to many individuals, none incorporates fully the principles behind traditional human diets—principles necessary for designing nutritional programs in accord with our deepest physiological and psychological needs. But an integration of strengths from each of these diets, into knowledge of traditional human foods, yields a better understanding of the relationship between food and human health.

The Pritikin Diet

Nathan Pritikin established an inpatient diet and exercise rehabilitation center in Santa Barbara, California, in 1976. His program grew popular; one of his books, The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise, has sold more than two million copies.

The diet severely restricts all fats, vegetable and animal alike, especially cholesterol (though technically not a fat, cholesterol is often classed with fats). Fresh raw and cooked vegetables and whole grains are emphasized; animal protein is restricted to four ounces daily. The Pritkin regimen also includes an exercise program of extensive walking, and later on, jogging.

The fatty-fish and fish-oil diets described earlier in this book are successful in lowering abnormally high triglycerides. Differences between fats in fish and those found in commercial animals (and subsequent effects on metabolism) are not recognized in the Pritikin Diet, nor are differences between food derived from healthy animals (seafood and pasture-fed farm animals) and food derived from conventionally raised animals.

As previously discussed, in the early 1980s I worked in a large medical practice in New York. My colleagues and I employed the Pritikin Diet to treat individuals with heart and circulatory problems. Larger amounts of high-quality animal foods, especially fish, shellfish, and liver, enabled people on the diet to follow the routine more consistently and yielded greater improvements than seen in individuals following the standard Pritikin regimen.

Pritikin had some success—people switching from the standard American processed food diet to just about any kind of natural food regimen often see improvements. But his claim that his diet was “the world’s healthiest diet . . . the most significant breakthrough in man’s age-old quest for rejuvenation,” and that “for centuries the hardiest, most long-lived peoples in the world have thrived on these foods” is not true. He followed his diet for more than twenty-five years, apparently reversing the course of his heart disease and controlling the leukemia that eventually led to his hospitalization and subsequent death. Pritikin committed suicide.

For centuries, the hardiest, most long-lived peoples in the world have indeed thrived on fresh vegetables and in a few cultures, properly prepared whole grains—among other foods. But healthy cultures everywhere, cultures in which cancer, heart disease, and other degenerative diseases were unknown or extremely rare, used substantial portions of high-quality, grass-fed animal-sourced foods. Primal foods.

Pritikin’s work is significant and important, demonstrating the power of a program that emphasizes giving up unhealthy habits and adopting a more natural lifestyle. But selective use of circumstantial evidence is misleading, and Pritikin did not discuss many other health problems that occurred in individuals following his one-size-fits-all program. Evidence from the disciplines of anthropology, human evolution, and recent medical research is ignored. Frequent references are made to the African Bantu people, who are said to eat a low-animal-protein, low-fat, high-fiber diet and enjoy resistance to diseases of the cardiovascular and digestive systems. Yet no mention is made of their significant consumption of insects (high in fat) and their fermentation of grains and tubers. No reference is made to other traditional cultures that eat large amounts of animal protein and fat and enjoy similar resistance. Many different natural-food diets produce good health relative to that seen in modernized cultures. But only when all of the principles Weston Price discovered are in place can truly optimal health be obtained.

The same program that may help initially often does not maintain an individual’s health over time. Changes to reduce or eliminate sugar, refined flour, alcohol, smoking, the consumption of commercial dairy products and food products derived from confinement animals, coupled with changes to increase one’s level of exercise and intake of natural food, may bring improvement and feelings of well-being, often for some time. But fatigue, depression, digestive disorders, and even cancer and other chronic diseases follow in the long run when traditional wisdom about the importance of incorporating food products derived from grass-fed animal fats is ignored.

Building lasting health and resistance to degenerative processes is complex, and there is danger in oversimplification. Only a truly primal traditional diet incorporating the principles that Dr. Price discovered can lead to lasting health. The magnitude of what has been fragmented and mostly lost—the wisdom of our ancestors—is such that only by being open to learning from all available sources can one hope to put the pieces back together. Pritikin contributed to our understanding, and we thank him for that, but he also demonstrated the folly of being overly sure that one has all the answers.

High-Protein Weight-Loss Diets

Several weight-loss diets that emphasize protein foods have also become popular in recent years. Two of the most well known appeared in books that were bestsellers: Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution and The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet.

The Atkins Diet eliminates nearly all carbohydrates in early stages, forcing the burning of fats for energy and producing ketones, by-products of fat metabolism that the body can partially use for energy instead of glucose. Ketones are not completely burned when metabolized and are subsequently excreted; this may aid in weight loss. Their presence suppresses hunger; individuals eating mostly protein and fats (meats, eggs, fish, dairy products, fatty sauces) as the diet suggests, experience little hunger and yet may lose a great deal of weight. Salads and some fruits are also allowed on the Atkins Diet.

The Scarsdale Diet also causes ketosis (the presence of ketones on the breath and in the urine) and thus operates on much the same principle, although in this diet, an average of 35 percent of calories are derived from carbohydrates. Weight loss results from low caloric and low fat intake; the strict part of the diet (suggested for use no more than two weeks at a time) averages one thousand calories a day, 20 percent from fats. The use of lean meat, fish, skim milk, and low-fat cheeses restricts fat and calories. This low-fat regimen is actually very dangerous because too much protein and not enough fat is consumed; the diet lacks critical fat-soluble activators.

Elimination of refined carbohydrates (sugar, white flour, and most alcohol) and restriction of even whole foods containing many carbohydrates (whole grains, foods made from whole grains, and fruits) may cause the dieter to eat more foods of animal origin and more vegetables. Most people with weight problems have eaten diets high in refined carbohydrates, so such changes are beneficial.

But the quality of the animal foods used is an important issue. The Atkins Diet in particular stresses the use of fatty foods; the book presents evidence that refined carbohydrates rather than animal fats are the villains of the American diet. There is truth in this, but as we have seen, fats derived from modern commercial animals and milk products are very different in quality from those derived from animals living under natural conditions. In particular, they lack adequate quantities of the fat-soluble activators I have made reference to above (vitamins A, D, and K₂).

These diets may achieve goals of weight loss and decrease the risk for diseases associated with being overweight. This is no small accomplishment for the overweight person who has found it impossible to remain on other weight-loss regimens. But the individual wishing to optimize his or her health must adapt a diet built on primal wisdom.

The Gerson Diet

Max Gerson was a physician who began practice in the mid-1920s in Bielefeld, Germany. He studied under Professor Ottfried Foerster, a renowned neurosurgeon of the day. Gerson’s specialty was diseases of the nervous system.

Because Gerson cured his own migraines with a natural-food diet, he began treating his migraine patients similarly; they did well also. One such patient reported that his skin tuberculosis or lupus (cutaneous lupus erythematosus) cleared up as well. Gerson found this hard to believe, for lupus was supposedly incurable. Laboratory reports and slides proved the lesions were indeed healing, and Gerson began treating other lupus patients. They too recovered.

Because Gerson was a specialist in nerve diseases, the medical community claimed he could not treat skin diseases and attempted to revoke his license. The case went to court, and the judge asked the physicians charging Gerson if they cured lupus. They replied that lupus was incurable. The judge responded, “Well, then, why don’t you let this doctor do it?” and dismissed the case. Gerson went home, removed his shingle on which were the words “Internal and Nervous Diseases,” and put another one up in its stead: “General Practitioner.”

He began treating tuberculosis, meningitis, and other diseases with his natural-food diet. The wife of Albert Schweitzer, in very serious condition with tuberculosis, in 1928 went to Gerson. She recovered fully under his care. Years later, her husband, at the age of seventy-five, recovered from diabetes under Gerson’s care; he lived to be ninety. On the cover of Gerson’s book we find Schweitzer’s words: “I see in Dr. Max Gerson one of the most eminent geniuses in medical history.”

In 1929 Gerson began treating cancer, often with favorable results. His dietary regimen then consisted initially of fresh vegetables and fruits (many raw) and freshly prepared juices. During the course of treatment, buttermilk, pot cheese, yogurt, and egg yolks, all raw, were added. A mineral supplement was used, as were frequent enemas.

As he developed his therapy in Germany and then in America after escaping and emigrating here in the late 1930s, other health-enhancing elements were added to the diet. They included fresh green-leaf juice, fresh raw calf ’s-liver juice, injections of raw liver extract, iodine, desiccated thyroid gland, potassium supplements, and coffee enemas. The details of this therapy and theory are presented in his book, A Cancer Therapy, Results of Fifty Cases, published in 1958. Gerson died in 1959.

His book presents proof, with complete medical records, X-rays, and diagnoses of terminal cancer by accepted, established medical authorities, that a significant number of Gerson’s patients (previously diagnosed as terminal) recovered from cancer. All fifty of the cases reported were alive and free of all signs of cancer at the time of the book’s publication. Most had initially become Gerson’s patients in the 1940s and early 1950s.

For more than twenty years, Gerson submitted reports of his work to medical journals. The medical establishment steadfastly blocked publication of it, even attempting unsuccessfully for years to revoke his license for practicing “unorthodox medicine.” The cancer orthodoxy has long maligned Gerson’s work as unproven and dangerous, grouping it with that of others who have dared suggest better ways of treating cancer patients—ways that do not involve surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.

An account of Gerson’s story is told by journalist S. J. Haught in a book first published in 1962 and entitled Has Dr. Max Gerson a True Cancer Cure? (reprinted in 1983 as Cancer? Think Curable—The Gerson Therapy). Haught’s original intention was to expose Gerson as a fraud; his story was to be called The Unveiling of a Quack. He was converted to Gerson’s side by the evidence.

In the years since Gerson’s death, many people have applied his therapy. His daughter Charlotte established a clinic in Mexico and attempted to incorporate recent developments in natural therapy, while dropping critical elements such as the raw liver juice and other animal foods.

In Gerson’s time, chemotherapy for cancer patients was in its infancy, and most people seeking his help had not been exposed to toxic chemotherapeutic agents. Because these agents depress the immune system, poison the liver, and leave the body weakened, he found that after chemotherapy people did not respond well to his dietary regimen. Today, most cancer patients seeking nutritional therapy have already had chemotherapy, although many seek to improve their nutrition while on chemotherapy.

Also enhancing Gerson’s results was the superior food widely available in his day. More people had been raised on fresh, high-quality foods superior to those generally available today, and this may have enhanced their ability to recover from cancer. The foods readily available for use in his therapy were similarly superior.

The most intangible element in any therapy is the influence of the physician on the patient. Gerson’s therapy is difficult both psychologically and physically, requiring a strict dietary regimen, months of hard work, and attention to detail. An inspirational and even charismatic physician-healer can make an immense difference in the patient’s outcome, simply by virtue of his ability to inspire the patient and the family to follow his program with care. By all accounts, Gerson was such a man.

Several aspects of the Gerson Diet are of special interest in light of our knowledge of traditional diets. Fresh raw calf ’s-liver juice and fresh raw green-leaf juice are the central foods; both supply nutrients richly provided in primal diets.

Gerson wrote that liver juice is the most powerful weapon we have against cancer. (For most patients, drinking raw juice was more tolerable than eating raw liver.) The high vitamin A content of the juice is, in the opinion of many experts, the key to the success Gerson had. The therapy calls for three preparations daily, each made from eight ounces of liver. The juice concentrates essential nutrients, especially vitamin A. Gerson used a special press, the Norwalk juicer, to extract the juice from the liver. He stressed that liver utilized must be fresh, raw, and taken from animals raised without the use of hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides. Such liver is difficult to find fresh today.

Injections of crude liver extract and vitamin B₁₂ were also part of the therapy. Gerson noted that leukemias in particular required greater doses of liver juice, liver extract, and vitamin B₁₂.

Research by Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi gives an indication of the importance of nutrients found in liver for successful cancer therapy. Szent-Gyorgyi received the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology in 1937 for his isolation and identification of vitamin C. He also discovered the function of bioflavonoids, and his work on contractile proteins is a foundation of muscle biochemistry and physiology. He reported in 1972 that his experiments had demonstrated that the growth of inoculated cancer in mice was strongly inhibited by extracts of liver. Other researchers have reported similar findings.

Fresh raw green-leaf juice is the other dietary mainstay of Gerson’s therapy. As with liver, the use of juice allows the patient to take in far more nutrients than possible with solid foods alone.

Salads, lightly cooked vegetables, fruit and fruit juices, and some whole-grain foods were used, as well as buttermilk, raw cottage cheese and yogurt, and egg yolks. Other foods of animal origin Gerson considered essential were thyroid and pancreas. Thyroid tablets were used to stimulate metabolism, for Gerson had found that nearly every cancer patient had an underactive thyroid gland. Pancreas tablets taken with meals aided digestion. Iodine and iodide were given liberally.

Consistencies in the work of Gerson, Weston Price, and Francis Pottenger, Jr. are evident. Cancer remains the most difficult clinical problem that patient and physician must face. The Gerson therapy is no panacea, but many physicians and other healers today successfully use parts of Gerson’s regimen given that many elements of the Gerson therapy are of benefit in treating cancer and other chronic diseases. An understanding of Gerson’s work provides an essential piece of the puzzle that must be solved in order to effectively treat and prevent these diseases.

Raw-Food Diets and Fasting

Raw-Food Diets

Some diets advocate the exclusive use of raw foods. The program known as natural hygiene was described in books by Herbert Shelton, who for many years maintained a health spa in San Antonio, Texas. The natural-hygiene diet is strictly vegetarian—no animal foods are included (this is known as a vegan diet). Sprouts, fruits, and raw vegetable juices are emphasized. The regimen is frequently combined with therapeutic fasting as an approach to treating chronic diseases. While Shelton promoted an exclusively vegan diet, he was known to eat animal foods. I’ve noted over the years that this is common in longtime advocates of a strict vegan diet.

A strength of this program is that raw vegetables (especially sprouts and greens) and their juices are for many people very beneficial foods. An exclusively raw diet eliminates harmful foods, and individuals partaking of them often experience improvements and may even apparently recover from serious chronic diseases.

Improvement or recovery may be tenuous, however. Deficiency symptoms typically appear sooner or later, and there is usually difficulty staying on the strict regimen. Tremendous cravings often occur—the body knows something is lacking. The gaunt, hollow appearance of individuals who have followed a vegan raw-food diet over long periods of time speaks to a need for missing nutrients.

One case of mine was a four-year-old girl whose mother had been a strict raw-food vegan since the sixth month of her pregnancy with the child. This child had never consumed any food of animal origin, eating only raw vegetables, sprouts, nuts, seeds, and fruits. Markedly undersized for her age and with tiny bones, the pains she experienced in her legs suggested rickets. She was chronically tired, with little energy for playing or learning.

I suspected deficiencies of essential fatty acids, fat-soluble activators vitamins A, D, and K₂, calcium, vitamin B₁₂, and protein. I persuaded her mother to include grass-fed raw milk and eggs in the child’s diet, though she would not include cod-liver oil or fish. Within a month, the child had gained weight and had more energy, and the pains in her legs had disappeared. Within a few months her fatigue was gone and, although still small, she had grown considerably.

Her case is typical of children who have been on vegan raw-food diets for extended periods of time. While the mother had not encountered major problems of her own, the diet lacked nutrients required for the growth and optimal development of her child.

Fasting

Many people who advocate a raw-food diet recommend periods of fasting, sometimes for a week or two or even more. In my opinion, a brief fast is optional. The elimination of harmful foods allows the body a rest, and extended periods of fasting may achieve good results. Although a fast helps cleanse the body, nutrients must nevertheless soon be provided. Individuals not undernourished, however, may fast for several or more days with considerable benefit and no great discomfort. A consistent recovery from chronic disease, with much less discomfort to the patient, may be achieved when proper foods are introduced.

Most chronically ill patients need not necessarily fast to recover their health. The individual experiencing an acute gastrointestinal problem is an exception. When recent internal bleeding has occurred, fasting under a physician’s supervision until the bleeding has stopped may be the best course. This may take up to a few days. The proper foods, carefully prepared, may then be introduced, including broth, soups, and cooked vegetables.

A brief fast is almost without exception the best natural way to deal with acute illness or recovery from surgery. The acutely ill have no appetite; food is taken only at the urging of family members or out of boredom and habit. A sick child, like a sick animal, will not touch food. The natural response to the onset of illness is loss of appetite. When no food is taken, the body can most efficiently marshal its energy to fight illness, rather than being forced to channel energy into digestive processes. Stored reserves are more than adequate for energy. Recovery from colds, flus, and other acute illnesses is most rapid when a fast is initiated at the first sign. Rest is in order, and feeding usually should not begin until the temperature is normal and a strong appetite has returned.

Fasting is but one way to treat acute illness and is at times best combined with other methods. Antibiotics are overused, but they may be lifesaving in certain acute problems. Herbal medicines are of benefit in most situations. When in doubt, seek a competent physician.

The Macrobiotic Diet of George Ohsawa and Michio Kushi

By the early 1900s, refined foods were being widely used in many Japanese cities.

Yukikazu Sakurazawa, born in Japan in 1893, became ill eating these foods. He recovered by eating brown rice, miso soup made with fish broth, vegetables, fish, and other traditional Japanese foods.

While living in Paris in the 1920s, he adopted the pen name, George Ohsawa, and called his teachings “macrobiotics.” The word macro is Greek for “long” or “great;” the word bio is Greek for “life.” The term macrobiotics was used by Hippocrates to describe healthy, long-lived people. Other classical writers also used the term, which came to mean living and eating in a simple and natural manner.

For forty years, Yukikazu Sakurazawa’s pupil Michio Kushi was the leader of the worldwide macrobiotics movement. The author of books on the subject, he did a great deal to popularize the use of whole and natural food.

Macrobiotics as taught by Kushi and his followers is a way of life, emphasizing a need to live in harmony with nature and one’s fellow man. The core is the macrobiotic diet, somewhat individualized for each person according to age, gender, climate, geography, activity level, and personal needs. A principle of the diet is that whole grains should be the major portion of everyone’s diet. Claims are made that the macrobiotic diet has been followed by ordinary people throughout history, that early humans and their forebears skewed more toward being herbivores than omnivores, and that whole grains were the principal food in all previous civilizations and cancer-free societies.

The standard macrobiotic diet consists of cooked whole grains (about 50 to 60 percent of daily food by volume); fresh vegetables, mostly cooked (25 to 30 percent of daily food); soup, featuring sea vegetables, and fermented soy products (5 to 10 percent of daily food); beans (5 to 10 percent of daily food); and small amounts of fruit, fish, and desserts prepared with natural sweeteners. Vegetables and fruits used should be those indigenous to the region where one lives. Tropical varieties are avoided, as are all dairy products, eggs, and meat.

In the Far East, population growth in geographical areas with limited resources necessitates the consumption of more grains and less food of animal origin. But traditional cultures have always utilized more animal foods than the tiny percentage that a macrobiotic diet advocates. The notion that whole grains formed the basis of the diet of all cancer-free societies is entirely contrary to information from scores of anthropologists, nutritionists, and medical researchers who have investigated this subject since the turn of the twentieth century. Both whole grains and animal-sourced foods of the proper quality have proved capable of forming an important part of the diet of cancer-free societies.

Macrobiotics as taught by Kushi and others can be a helpful regimen for a time. Individuals have recovered from chronic diseases on macrobiotic diets. One well-known case is that of Anthony Sattilaro, a physician who recovered from advanced bone cancer on a macrobiotic regimen, as detailed in his book, Recalled by Life.

Case Histories of Patients Following a Macrobiotic Diet

But a macrobiotic diet also has limitations. In one case, a fifty-sevenyear-old man came to me with a recent diagnosis of lung cancer, a spot the size of a quarter on his lung. He did not want conventional therapy and began a metabolic program integrating elements of the Gerson therapy with other approaches I have studied and developed. The tumor remained stable for nearly a year, to the surprise of his family doctor, who continued to monitor his condition. This was an oat-cell carcinoma, a type of rapidly growing lung cancer with a poor prognosis—few patients live more than a few months after diagnosis.

Growing impatient with the rigors of his therapy and the tumor’s continued presence, my patient learned about macrobiotics. After consulting with a macrobiotic nutritional counselor, he stopped his therapy and began a strict macrobiotic regimen. At that point, X-rays showed his tumor stable and still the size of a quarter. He reasoned that if macrobiotics failed, he would quickly return to the program I had designed for him.

His condition deteriorated within weeks, his lungs filling with fluid; he required hospitalization. His tumor had begun growing rapidly and a few days later he died.

Another case of mine was that of a twenty-three-year-old woman who had eaten the macrobiotic way for several years. She had a gradual onset of marked and occasionally severe abdominal and pelvic pain over the course of forty-eight hours. She consulted both a macrobiotic nutritional counselor and a medical doctor. The former modified her diet somewhat. Her symptoms became worse, and her medical doctor recommended hospitalization if she did not improve shortly.

I suspected appendicitis, but physical findings and symptoms were more suggestive of an ovarian cyst. She had continued eating, though she had no appetite. I immediately instituted fasting, enemas, and herbal medicines; unless she improved by morning, or at any sign of her condition’s worsening, she was to be hospitalized.

Her symptoms had improved by morning. They had largely disappeared within seventy-two hours of instituting the fast, and she began eating small amounts of food, using considerably more raw vegetables and fish than called for in the standard macrobiotic diet. No further problems requiring treatment occurred.

Small children eating macrobiotic diets with their parents sometimes exhibit failure to thrive (being underweight, lethargic, and exhibiting slow growth) due to deficiencies of fat-soluble vitamins (especially vitamin D), vitamin B₁₂, essential fatty acids, calcium, and perhaps other nutrients. These children and their parents, who are often fatigued and sickly, suffer from a lack of raw food and animal-sourced nutrients; dietary adjustments invariably have led to marked improvement within weeks.

Some individuals do well for a time following a macrobiotic diet, while others do poorly. The amount of fish included in the diet has an influence—most people need more. In his recovery from bone cancer, Anthony Sattilaro regularly consumed modest amounts of fish. Vegetarian macrobiotic regimens including little or no fish most often lead to problems. I suggest adding fish broth made with fish heads, which are rich in vitamin A. Careful use of recommended amounts of beans, sea vegetables, and other special foods are required for balance in the macrobiotic diet.

A craving for sweets is common among people eating a macrobiotic type of diet. Naturally sweetened desserts are regularly consumed, and followers often report eating additional sweets. In contrast, loss of a taste for sweets is often a side effect of a whole-food diet that includes substantial portions of animal-sourced food.

The Spiritual Underpinnings of the Macrobiotic Diet

An expressed concern of the macrobiotic movement is world peace, a fine sentiment used to lure people into an ultimately dangerous diet. Whole grains as the staple food for mankind is seen as an important means of promoting this end, for more people may then be fed and more equal distribution of wealth achieved. Food plays a role in personality; this relates to the observation that people eating a grain-based diet may exhibit more passive and less aggressive tendencies than those eating a diet based on the consumption of animal food. Ironically, the macrobiotic and other vegetarian or near-vegetarian diets often make people angry, due to a vitamin B₁₂ deficiency. Hitler comes to mind.

Food certainly does play a pronounced role in shaping biological and cultural evolution. Government and industry leaders determining national policies seem unaware of this, as are most people. Macrobiotic leaders, however, are aware that the acceptance of a macrobiotic diet by large segments of the Western world’s population would have sociological as well as physiological effects. Perhaps it would be a step toward one world government—but what kind of world, and at what cost? The quantity versus the quality of life is at issue.

In the nuclear age, survival of the human species as we know it depends on controlling aggressive tendencies; the same aggressive traits that carried us through the evolutionary process now threaten to destroy us. But loss of our biological strength has resulted in an epidemic of disease, physical and mental abnormalities, and lost reproductive capacity that has caused far more suffering than any war yet fought. This suffering is directly due to changes in diet. The macrobiotic goal of reduced aggressive tendencies is laudable, but if we are to regain our biological strength and have both quantity and quality of life, we must maintain access to traditional animal-sourced foods, while largely eliminating the refined foods that have assumed so prominent a role in the modern diet.

Changes taking place in the American diet have been mirrored by changes in national health. The interrelationships are obvious when one considers the implications of our study of our evolutionary ancestors, primitive cultures existing in the earlier part of this century, contemporary hunter-gatherers and long-lived people, and current medical research on nutrition. Each of the diets considered in this chapter in some way utilizes beneficial aspects of traditional foods.

The next logical step—the creation and implementation of one’s own diet for optimal health—is a complex process that may appear deceptively simple. We begin that process in the next chapter with a consideration of the elements of change, balance, and proportions in relation to food.