RETOX DIET AND SUPPLEMENTS
Diet and nutrition are the primary building blocks in the foundation of human health and longevity, and the essential elements of life provided by food cannot be replicated or replaced with any form of modern technology. Owing to mass production and corporate control of the world’s food supplies over the past century, the human diet has become as polluted with toxic wastes as everything else produced by the modern-consumer industry. The industrially refined foods that most people consume today are contaminated with poisonous pesticides and preservatives, chemically altered with artificial flavors and coloring agents, and further denatured by irradiation and genetic modification. In the refinement process, most of the essential nutrients are stripped from the food, and the few that remain have little or no nutritional value. Prior to the advent of chemically processed foods, the famous American physician Dr. Charles Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinic, described the central role of wholesome food in human health as follows:
Normal resistance to disease is directly dependent upon adequate food; normal resistance to disease never comes out of pill boxes. Adequate food is the cradle of normal resistance, the playground of normal immunity, the workshop of good health, and the laboratory of long life.
Modern Western eating habits, particularly the fast-food and snackdiet approach propagated by the American food industry, are far from adequate sources of nutrition for human health. These diets are composed almost entirely of the three most acid-forming types of food: animal products (meat, fat, eggs, and dairy products); refined white starch (white bread, pastries, potatoes, and starchy snack foods); and refined white sugar (candy, ice cream, sweet confections, and sugary soft drinks). In North America, Western Europe, and Australia, these three categories of food account for over 90 percent of the calories consumed by most people in those countries; they also contribute to at least 90 percent of the diseases and degenerative conditions people in those countries suffer. Overwhelmingly imbalanced in favor of highly acid-forming foods such as meat, milk, sugar, and starch, and virtually devoid of the alkalizing elements found in fresh fruit and vegetables, modern Western diets saturate the human body with toxic acid wastes, poison the blood and tissues, weaken resistance and immunity, and fling open the gates to chronic disease and degenerative conditions. The only way to deal with this daily dietary threat to health and longevity is to rationally redesign your diet and reform your eating habits in ways that reduce formation of acid wastes and ways that increase alkalinity. This means reordering your priorities in food choices and adopting the basic laws of food combining to govern your eating habits.
THE YIN AND THE YANG OF IT
The science of combining food in ways that prevent acid-forming reactions of fermentation and putrefaction in the digestive tract, while increasing alkalinity and reducing production of toxic wastes, is known in nutritional science as “trophology.” Following these principles in your daily diet and personal eating habits is the first basic step in applying the “art of rational retox” to your daily life. Proper food combining is one of the most effective measures one can take to prevent the development of blood acidosis and tissue toxemia, and it provides a practical way to control the balance of acid and alkaline elements in the body.
In TCM, the “Great Principle of Yin and Yang,” which lies at the heart of all functions of life, manifests its polar dynamics in diet and digestion in the form of alkaline (Yin) and acid (Yang) balance. As we can see from this terminology, traditional Chinese physicians regarded “alkaline” as a manifestation of the cooling, calming, nourishing “water” element of Yin, and “acid” as a reflection of the heating, agitating, depleting “fire” element of Yang. From this viewpoint, modern Western diets are extremely imbalanced with an excess of highly acid-forming Yang foods such as meat, milk, eggs, fat, sugar, and starch, and this imbalance is further aggravated by the acidifying effects of eating these foods in wrong combinations, which drives the internal organs ever deeper into the inferno of what TCM calls “fire-energy excess” (huo-chi da). The obvious solution to this problem of excess acid-forming “Yang” is to rebalance the diet in the direction of more alkaline-forming “Yin” factors.
Strictly applied, trophology becomes a highly complex discipline that can interfere with the enjoyment of food. Since everything we eat reacts in a Yin or Yang way with anything else we eat together with it, as well as with whatever is already in the stomach, if we’re too fastidious about food combining, we finally reach the point that we dare to eat only one single type of food at a time. Eating under such restrictions is impractical as well as boring, and it detracts from the natural pleasure food can provide. Fortunately, such a strict approach is also unnecessary. You may compose meals that are properly balanced trophologically as well as fully satisfying gastronomically by following the “75 Percent Rule,” whereby the basic laws of food combining govern about 75 percent of your food choices whenever you compose a meal, with a 25 percent margin of error for indiscriminate self-indulgence. This is a rational approach to food combining that is both practical and effective, and it may be applied with equal ease at home or in a restaurant.
For example, if the rule states, “Don’t combine meat and starch at the same meal,” you don’t need to be a fanatic about it and pluck out the few slivers of chicken or shrimp you find in a Chinese stir-fried noodle dish that is over 90 percent noodles and vegetables. Nor need you worry about having just one small whole-grain dinner roll with a meal of meat and lots of vegetables. On the other hand, eating a large baked potato slathered with sour cream together with a thick steak, or a greasy cheeseburger on a starchy white bun, is definitely a violation of the rules, punishable by acid indigestion and other gastric distress. By following the 75 Percent Rule in applying the laws of food combining to your daily diet, you’ll avoid all of the worst acid-forming pitfalls in food, while still allowing yourself to enjoy a few dietary indiscretions.
To simplify the matter for those who wish to try trophology as a practical measure for preventing indigestion, controlling internal acidity, and reducing tissue toxicity, the most important rules for balancing alkaline-forming Yin and acid-forming Yang in a diet on the basis of proper food combining are presented below in terms of their practical applications to six major categories of food: complex animal proteins, starchy carbohydrates, fats, sugars, fruits, and vegetables.
Putrefactive Protein
What we’re discussing here is the complex, concentrated protein found in foods from animal sources, such as meat, fish and fowl, eggs and dairy products, not the light, simple protein contained in nuts and seeds, beans and grains, and other vegetable sources. Vegetable proteins are far less complex than animal protein, and therefore they are much easier to digest. They also combine well with most other foods. Meat, eggs, and dairy products, however, cause digestive disaster when wrongly combined with other foods, or even when improperly combined with each other.
The first and foremost rule of food combining is, “Don’t eat concentrated animal protein and starchy carbohydrates together.” Yet this very combination forms the mainstay of modern Western meals—steak and potatoes, hamburgers and french fries, toast and eggs, spaghetti with meatballs. The earliest recorded prohibition against this digestively noxious food combination appears in the Hebrew scriptures in the Bible, when Jehovah instructs Moses to teach his people to eat their meat and bread at separate meals: “At evening ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread.” This means that bread and other starchy carbohydrates are the foods that should be eaten for breakfast in the morning, without any meat, and that meat should only be eaten for dinner in the evening, without bread. This advice accords exactly with the first law of trophology.
Simply by following this single cardinal rule, a primary source of acid indigestion and toxic putrefaction in the stomach and bowels is eliminated from the diet. Whenever meat, eggs, or cheese are eaten together with bread, rice, or other starch, the starch starts to digest in the mouth with secretions of the alkaline enzyme “ptyalin,” and this alkaline-forming digestive process continues when the starch reaches the stomach, blocking digestion of the protein by pepsin, hydrochloric acid, the other acid-forming enzymes required to digest animal proteins. Consequently, the alkaline requirements of starch digestion conflict in the stomach with the acid requirements of protein digestion, resulting in the digestion of neither and the fermentation and putrefaction of both. This internal struggle in turn produces more toxins and acid wastes that further inhibit digestion and allow bacteria to gobble up all the available nutrients in the food and dump their own acid wastes into your digestive tract.
The second basic rule regarding consumption of animal proteins is, “Don’t combine meat and dairy products at the same meal,” such as meat and milk, fish and cheese. This rule is so important that it, too, is mentioned in the Bible. It became known as the “second Mosaic law” of diet, whereby Moses forbade his people to consume meat and milk together at the same meal. Moses’s advice in food combinations is wise and is based on sound science, for the strongest gastric enzyme activity on meat occurs during the first hour of digestion, whereas milk is digested mostly during the last hour of digestion, and eggs somewhere in between. Consequently, if animal flesh and dairy products are eaten together at the same meal, neither can be properly digested, and both putrefy instead. While it is fine to combine two types of meat, such as beef and chicken, lamb and fish, tuna and shrimp, no meat should be eaten together with milk, cheese, or eggs.
Starchy Carbohydrates
Starch is the culprit in carbohydrates that causes acid indigestion, and since most carbohydrates eaten today are highly refined, their starch content is unnaturally elevated. Whole grains, which contain far less starch, gram for gram, than refined varieties, are easier to digest and combine much better with other foods, but anything that consists mainly of refined starch, such as white bread, pastries, white rice, or noodles should be eaten separately from all concentrated animal proteins such as meat, eggs, and cheese.
Most people today eat starchy carbohydrates in the morning, in the form of toast, porridge, or cereal. Whole-grain versions of these foods are by far the better choice: they contain less starch and supply more vital nutrients than refined varieties, and they cause fewer severe acid-forming reactions when improperly combined with other foods. One of the worst breakfast combinations today is packaged dry cereal made from factoryprocessed grains, heavily sprinkled with refined white sugar and soaked in pasteurized cow’s milk. Children suffer most from the ravages of this indigestible food combination for breakfast. A breakfast made of such sweetened carbohydrates is a major factor in the obesity, constipation, skin problems, and low resistance to disease that plague children today.
Since proper digestion of starch must begin in the mouth with thorough insalivation by the ptyalin enzyme, chew all carbohydrate foods very well before swallowing, and do not drink any liquids with them. Any beverage taken together with starch dilutes salivary secretions of ptyalin in the mouth, preventing proper predigestion of starch in the mouth and resulting in fermentation in the stomach.
Fat
Fats such as butter and oil may be combined with most carbohydrates and all vegetables, but they should be used sparingly with concentrated animal proteins such as meat and eggs. Fat impairs the digestion of meat in the stomach by inhibiting the gastric secretions required to digest meat. Consequently, for two to three hours after ingesting significant amounts of fat, levels of pepsin and hydrochloric acid in the stomach are sharply reduced, resulting in the putrefaction of any meat or eggs eaten along with the fat. You should therefore eat fats and proteins separately, or combine only very small amounts of one with normal portions of the other, and avoid eating “marbled” meats such as bacon and fatty steaks. The only exception is lamb: the fat in lamb is readily digested by the human body.
Sugar
Refined white sugar is the single most acid-forming food substance in modern diets, and its presence in the stomach interferes with the proper digestion of almost all other foods. When sugary desserts or soft drinks are consumed at the same meal with meat, for example, the sugar blocks secretion of the gastric juices required to digest meat, resulting in putrefaction, fermentation, and extreme acidity. When eaten with starchy carbohydrates, sugar shuts off salivary secretion of ptyalin in the mouth, and the starch lands in the stomach without the essential enzyme required to predigest it, resulting in fermentation production of acid wastes. To a lesser degree, sugar also causes fermentation and “acid indigestion” when eaten with fruits and vegetables. Therefore, the best policy toward foods and beverages that contain a lot of refined sugar is not to combine them with proteins, starchy carbohydrates, or any other category of food at the same meal. If you wish to occasionally indulge your “sweet tooth” by eating ice cream, cake, pastries, and other sweet confections made with refined sugar, it is best to eat them alone, preferably with some hot tea, and it also helps to flush the stomach with a glass or two of alkaline water an hour or two later.
Fruit
Fresh fruit requires virtually no digestion in the stomach. Instead, it moves quickly into the duodenum, where it dissolves and releases its nutrients for rapid assimilation. If its swift passage through the stomach is blocked by the presence of any other food, however, fruit gets delayed in the stomach, and its rich stores of natural sugars are immediately raided by the ever-present bacteria in the stomach. This causes everything in the stomach to quickly ferment, producing acids, generating gas, and disrupting the entire digestive process. Melons and citrus fruits ferment even faster than other fruits and cause even worse gastric distress when combined with other foods, including other types of fruit. They should never be eaten together with anything else. Wait at least one hour after eating any melon before eating any other type of food, and half an hour before eating another variety of fruit.
If eaten in sufficient quantity and variety, fresh fruit can provide all the essential nutrients required for life, including amino acids, which are the basic building blocks of protein, as well as vitamins, minerals, and active enzymes. Besides nourishing the body, fresh fruit also alkalizes the digestive tract, cleans the bloodstream, and detoxifies the tissues.
Vegetables
Vegetables are the great common denominator in most food-combination equations. They combine very well with all proteins, including meat and eggs, as well as with starchy carbohydrates like noodles, bread, and rice, as well as with fats. Vegetables assist digestion and assimilation of other foods by supplying essential minerals and enzymes that facilitate digestive functions. They also assist elimination by providing fibrous bulk to propel digestive wastes through the bowels. Most vegetables have strong alkaline-forming properties as well. Vegetables may therefore be eaten in unlimited amounts to complement meals based on either proteins or carbohydrates. The only food with which they don’t combine well is fruit.
When raw vegetables are eaten whole, as in salads, they can take a long time to digest and release their nutrients owing to their high cellulose content. When extracted as pure juices, however, with the cellulose pulp removed, their nutritional value and alkalizing benefits increase significantly and are delivered more swiftly. The best way to eat fresh vegetables whole is to cook them very briefly by steaming, stir-frying, or poaching, which softens the cellulose content sufficiently to allow easy digestion without destroying their nutritional value with prolonged exposure to heat.
SHORT LIST OF ALKALINE-AND ACID-FORMING FOODS
To assist readers in learning how to compose harmoniously balanced meals based on the relative alkaline- and acid-forming properties of various foods, the chart on page 242 divides a wide selection of common food items into alkaline and acid categories, and lists them in order of their relative strength. The number next to each item indicates the degree of its alkaline- or acid-forming effects, compared with the base number 1 for the least alkalizing or acidifying item on the list. For example, tofu is the least alkaline-forming food in the alkaline category and therefore has a rating of 1. Strawberries, with a rating of 56, are 56 times more alkalizing than tofu, and ginger is 211 times stronger. Similarly, oysters are 80 times more acid-forming than asparagus, but only slightly more acidifying than salmon. This chart is based on information from Herman Aihara’s excellent booklet, Acid and Alkaline.
LIVE FOOD FOR LIVING PEOPLE
It stands to reason that “dead food” hastens death, and “live food” prolongs life, which is indeed the case. The rational choice for the “retox diet” is to eat only live foods. The best definition of “live food” was formulated back in the 1930s by Dr. E. V. McCullum, the pioneering nutritional scientist at Johns Hopkins University in prejunk-food America. McCullum‘s advice was: “Eat nothing unless it will spoil or rot, but eat it before it does!” That eliminates all processed and packaged foods produced with chemical preservatives, artificial flavors, synthetic dyes, and other unnatural additives, as well as any food that has been highly refined, irradiated, or genetically modified. Such food products are designed with only one purpose in mind: to extend the “shelf life” of the product. They do nothing to extend the life of the consumer. One way to trim dead food from your diet is to eat 40–50 percent of your daily fare in the form of raw or very lightly cooked foods. Raw and “rare” cooked foods are only edible when fresh and complete with the essential elements of life. This natural freshness and vitality cannot be duplicated with the artificial flavors, chemical preservatives, and other additives used to produce processed foods. Live raw foods help clear the stagnation and eliminate the toxic debris produced in the digestive tract by dead, processed foods by supplying the active enzymes and vital trace elements required to digest this inert toxic sludge, and by providing fresh fiber bulk to dredge these wastes quickly through of the bowels and out of the body.
Another way to insure the life in the food you eat—as well as your own—is to strictly eliminate all items from your diet that contain chemical preservatives, dyes, flavoring agents such as MSG, and any other non-nutritional additives. Thousands of toxic chemicals, including some that are known carcinogens, are commonly used to manufacture junk food, fast food, and other so-called convenience foods. All of these synthetic additives are extremely acid-forming and leave toxic residues that are very difficult to excrete lodged in the tissues. This policy applies equally to fresh produce grown with pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers, all of which contribute heavily to acidosis and toxemia. Although organically produced foods are more expensive and difficult to find than factory-farmed food, they are well worth the extra cost and effort. If the price of organic foods is a bit “rich” for your budget, the solution is to buy them anyway, but to buy less. Eating just a small serving of organically grown, nutritionally complete food does more to nourish the body and prolong life than eating a whole bushel of processed factory food.
Last but not least deadly on the list of dead foods that should be banished from your diet are the “impostors”: artificial food substitutes that pose prettily on the supermarket shelves, brightly packed and labeled to catch your eye, pretending to be “healthy alternatives” to real foods.
Among the worst offenders here are margarine, “non-dairy creamer,” and all other fake foods made from hydrogenated vegetable oils, as well as all synthetic sugar substitutes such as saccharin and aspartame. Not only are these fake foods dead, they were never alive to begin with, so they contain nothing whatsoever that supports life. All of them wreak havoc with human metabolism. These phony fat and sugar substitutes are all extremely acid-forming, extremely toxic to the tissues, and, if consumed to excess, can also become highly carcinogenic.
THE CRON DIET: CALORIE RESTRICTION/OPTIMUM NUTRITION
The “CRON” diet, which stands for “calorie restriction/optimum nutrition,” was developed by Dr. Roy Walford as a means of extending the lifespan of any species. Dr. Walford, “Biosphere” veteran and author of Beyond the 120 Year Diet, based the CRON diet on extensive, long-term studies he conducted with rats, dogs, and other mammalian species. He designed the CRON diet to take advantage of the scientifically proven correlation between low calorie/high nutrient diets and longevity. The basic rationale for this direct link between the CRON diet and long lifespan is simple: maximum nutrition with minimum calories means maximum metabolic energy with minimum toxic waste. It also means that the body requires less energy to digest food and eliminate wastes, allowing more energy to be reserved for sustaining internal cleansing and immune functions. By reducing internal acidity and tissue toxicity to minimal levels while supplying optimum nutrition, the CRON diet counteracts the conditions that give rise to disease and degeneration, and provides the proper balance of essential elements and energy needed to support health and prolong life.
Traditional Chinese physicians have known about the life-prolonging benefits of calorie restriction for thousands of years. Their dietary prescription for health and longevity is succinctly summarized in the ancient dietary axiom to eat until only chi-ba fen bao, or “70–80 percent full.” Traditional Chinese cuisine was exquisitely well balanced to provide optimum nutrition, so the only dietary factor that required attention in Chinese food was quantity. The “Chinese Rule,” to eat only until you’re 70–80 percent full, is still a convenient measure for determining how much to eat at any meal, and for knowing when to stop.
Another effective way to reduce the quantity of food eaten while also increasing its nutritional value is to chew, chew, chew your food until it is well enough masticated to dissolve in the mouth before swallowing. This technique is particularly helpful when eating carbohydrates, which require predigestion in the mouth to properly digest in the stomach. Chewing food well helps prevent the acid-forming reactions of putrefaction and fermentation in the stomach, increases assimilation of nutrients, and reduces transit time of digestive wastes through the bowels.
Remember, however, that to effectively extend the human lifespan, both aspects of the CRON diet must be equally implemented—not just “calorie restriction” but also “optimum nutrition.” Following a lowcalorie fad diet consisting mainly of denatured, “convenience” foods and eating them in indigestible combinations provides the body with nothing but “empty calories” and has the opposite effect: it ruins health and shortens life. In the following pages, we’ll take a brief look at several major categories of food commonly consumed in modern diets, and establish a few rational guidelines for determining what foods to include and which ones to strictly eliminate when designing a new diet balanced for health and longevity.
GUIDE TO EATING MAMMALS, BIRDS, AND FISH
In prehistoric times, when the human species still depended on meat to survive, people got their meat not at the supermarket but by killing mammals, birds, and fish in the wilderness and eating them raw or slightly cooked the same day, fresh off the bone. Today, most humans still retain this primitive taste for the flesh of other species, even though meat products have become totally unnecessary and often very harmful factors in the human diet. Moreover, the meat that people get on their dinner plates today is a far cry from the fresh flesh of healthy, wild animals that their ancestors ate.
The meat sold in markets today is loaded with powerful synthetic hormones and chemical steroids that are fed to livestock to stimulate rapid growth, increase weight, and bring entire herds into heat simultaneously for breeding purposes. When humans eat this meat, the hormones are absorbed into their bodies and stimulate rapid growth in their tissues as well. Consumption of such chemically contaminated meat has become a major contributing factor in the widespread obesity today in the wealthy, meat-eating countries of the West. These chemical growth stimulants and synthetic sex hormones also severely disrupt the delicate hormonal balances within the human body, especially in ovulating women and growing children. The extraordinarily high incidence of breast and cervical cancer, ovarian cysts and other reproductive disorders among women in the Western world is due in large part to this contamination of the human food chain.
Owing to the appalling conditions in which commercial livestock is raised, these animals must also be heavily dosed with antibiotics to keep them alive long enough to reach the slaughterhouse. Over 40 percent of the antibiotics produced in the USA are fed directly to cattle, pigs, chickens, and even to commercially farmed salmon and trout, and whoever eats these products regularly receives a continuous infusion of powerful antibiotic drugs that weaken natural immune responses, kill all the friendly lactobacteria in the digestive tract, and produce a state of chronic acidosis. In addition to all these toxic drugs and hormones, commercial livestock also assimilates all the poisonous pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers used to grow the crops for their feed, and these toxins, too, pass into the body of the consumer. Anyone who wants to know more about the atrocious conditions livestock today suffer and how these hapless creatures are systematically drugged, poisoned, and fed on dead, denatured food that often includes such delectables as sawdust, paper pulp, and the processed cadavers of other animals that died of disease, should read John Robbins’ latest book, The Food Revolution, and its prequel, Diet for a New America. The conditions Robbins describes prevail in the commercial meat industry throughout the world, not just in the United States, and anyone who still eats factory-farmed meat or fish after reading these books has no one to blame but themselves for the consequences.
Even without all the toxic contamination in modern meat products, beef and pork have always been difficult for the human body to digest and process. In addition, both are extremely acid-forming. The main digestive challenge of these products is in the fat content: the type of fat in beef and pork inhibits gastric secretions in the stomach, clogs digestion, and puts a huge strain on the liver, where all fat must be processed. After conducting extensive studies in sixteen countries, researchers in Canada established a close causal link between high consumption of pork products and cirrhosis of the liver. In countries where pork is commonly consumed together with alcohol, such as beer and wine, the incidence of cirrhosis soared to one thousand times higher than average. Daily consumption of beef and pork can also establish the conditions that lead to development of bowel cancer.
Other than wild game, which is almost impossible to get these days, the only red meat that is both beneficial to health and relatively safe to eat is lamb. Sheep generally graze in open pasture and get plenty of fresh air and natural sunlight, rather than being cooped up day and night in cages and pens and fed on dead industrial feed. Surprisingly, it is still possible to buy lamb that has not been poisoned with drugs and steroids. And unlike the fat from cattle and pigs, lamb fat digests quite easily in the human body. Lamb fat is a rich source of carnitine, an amino acid that transports fat into the cells for metabolism. Since the human heart is the biggest burner of fat in the body, carnitine carries fat from the liver to fuel the heart. This process, which can only be performed by carnitine, helps prevent cirrhosis and other liver damage caused by excess accumulation of fat in the liver. In the Himalayan, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean regions, where lamb has always been the main meat food, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, bowel cancer, and other ailments associated with high consumption of beef and pork in Western countries, are relatively rare.
When eating red meat, cook it on the rare side to preserve some of its enzymes to assist digestion and prevent damaging the proteins with excessive exposure to high heat. Additionally, using some strong mustard, horseradish, or fresh ginger as a condiment for meat stimulates secretions of the gastric juices required to digest it.
Consumption of poultry is even worse for humans than eating beef and pork. The way chickens are produced for market today is far more of a horror story than the conditions under which pigs and cows are raised. In the standard, commercial chicken farm, up to forty thousand chickens are cooped up in steel cages in their multistoried poultry prison, with two or three birds jammed together in each cell. The chicks are fed on dry pellets of noxious industrial feed laced with hormones and antibiotics. Anyone who wants to learn the whole, ugly truth about this foul business is again referred to John Robbins’s books.
Ninety percent of the broiler chickens produced in America today are so jacked up on growth hormones that they cannot even stand up under the bloated weight of their obesity, and those that try to stand often break their legs. Could this possibly be a factor in the rampant obesity seen today among chicken-chomping children in America and other wealthy societies that have adopted Americans’ fast-food diets? The average tissue mass of a typical chicken breast in America today is seven times greater than it was only twenty-five years ago. Again, one wonders what effects the hormones that produce these big-breasted chickens have on the breast tissues of the women who eat those chickens.
“Free-range” chicken is certainly much safer to eat than “jail-bird” chicken, but the term has become so abused by the commercial chicken industry that it is difficult to find a chicken these days that has been allowed to range freely in nature, foraging for its own food. In many cases, the free-range label only means that caged chickens are occasionally let out of their cells and allowed to range freely around a fenced, concrete yard that is barren of vegetation, just like convicts in a prison yard. Then they are locked up again and fed the same denatured commercial feed that fully confined chickens eat. The only label designation that now assures you of getting a real chicken that has been naturally raised without drugs and other chemicals is the term “non-caged, freerange chicken.” If you cannot find these genuine free rangers in your local markets, the only remaining options are to delete chickens from your diet, or else to raise them yourself.
If you wish to make flesh a regular part of your diet, the best choice is fresh seafood. Deep-water ocean fish such as tuna, swordfish, and salmon are rich sources of essential fatty acids that cleanse the blood vessels of excess cholesterol and other fatty plaque deposits, dissolve clots, and prevent sludging of red blood cells. These cleansing effects help prevent arteriosclerosis, heart attacks, and strokes. Fresh seafood also supplies the essential minerals and trace elements from the sea that are required for balanced brain and nerve functions, which is why fish has long been known as “brain food.” Frozen seafood is an equally good source of nutrition, as long as the fish has been “fresh frozen” soon after the catch and not processed in factories. Commercially farmed seafood, however, is not a good food choice. Like other commercial livestock such as pigs and chickens, farmed fish are fed on industrially processed feed and heavily dosed with drugs and hormones that pass into your body when the fish is eaten. Similarly, unless you catch it yourself in a clean river or lake, freshwater fish is usually contaminated with the toxic pollutants that industry—particularly the commercial beef industry—dumps into public waterways.
FAT AND OIL
The first and foremost rule that governs healthy, rational choices in dietary fat and oil is this: strictly avoid all artificial substitutes for butter and cream, including margarine, “shortening,” nondairy creamer, and nondairy whipped cream. All of these gummy, plasticine products are made with hydrogenated vegetable oils, which are forged at searing heats of over 500 °F, then bubbled through with hydrogen and hardened with nickel. When natural fats are replaced in the diet with these artificially synthesized fats, the body incorporates them into the construction of new cells, which become defective and malfunction as a result.
Because the cells of the brain and immune system require the most fat, these are the tissues that suffer the most damage from regular consumption of hydrogenated vegetable-oil products. Here’s how Dr. Cass Igram, author of Eat Right or Die Young, describes the damage done to white blood cells and immune response when artificial fats made from hydrogenated oils are consumed:
These cells incorporate the hydrogenated fats you eat into their membranes. When this happens, the white cells become sluggish in function, and their membranes actually become stiff. . . . This (response) leaves the body wide open to all sorts of derangements of the immune system. . . . In fact, one of the quickest ways to paralyze your immune system is to eat, on a daily basis, significant quantities of deep-fried foods, or fats such as margarine . . . [which] is associated with a greater incidence of a variety of cancers.
Real dairy butter, which is the only part of cow’s milk that the human body can properly digest, is actually a rich source of metabolic energy. If butter comes from cows that are healthy and allowed to graze in green pastures, it is an excellent dietary source of fat nutrition. Ghee, also known as clarified butter, is made by skimming off all of the white protein particles from melted butter to produce a pure, clear “butter oil.” This oil may be used for cooking at high heat without scorching the oil and producing free radicals. Fat rendered from beef (tallow) and pork (lard) should be eliminated entirely from the diet; both are highly acid-forming, extremely hard to digest, and damaging to the liver.
The best overall choice in oil for cooking food, mixing dressings, and other culinary purposes is high-grade olive oil. Olive oil can be used to cook food at high temperatures without producing an excess of free radicals, and it contains only the “good fats,” such as the monounsaturated variety. Other healthy choices in edible oils include sesame, sunflower, peanut, and various other nut oils, preferably cold-pressed from organic sources. Many of the mass-produced, processed cooking oils on supermarket shelves today, including corn, soy bean, canola, and the dubious “blended vegetable oils,” are not beneficial to human health, and some of them are downright hazardous to health, especially any oil that has been “hydrogenated.” To be sure, always read the label.
DAIRY PRODUCTS
If health is the first priority in choosing foods for the human diet, then there’s so much good reason not to consume pasteurized cow milk products from commercial dairies that it is difficult to understand why people who wish to stay healthy still do. Cow milk contains 400 percent more protein than human milk, including large amounts of casein, a tough protein substance so strong and sticky that it is often used to make book-binding glue and postal paste. Imagine what this stuff does to your bowels.
Pasteurization kills the active enzyme in milk that is required to digest it. Since most people don’t produce this enzyme in their bodies, the milk stagnates in the stomach and the indigestible protein putrefies into a slimy sludge that oozes through the digestive tract and plasters gummy layers of mucus to the intestinal walls, forming a tough, rubbery lining that increasingly binds up the bowels. The reason that babies froth at the mouth and regurgitate foamy white phlegm after being fed pasteurized cow’s milk is because their newly functioning stomachs, which are genetically designed to digest human milk, cannot digest the bovine casein protein in cow milk.
Today, commercial dairy milk is rendered even more hazardous to human health by the high doses of synthetic hormones that are fed to dairy cows to make them produce more milk. Residues of these powerful hormones, which can force a cow’s mammary glands to produce five to six times more milk than untreated cows are able to, enter the human system when this milk is consumed. The residue can cause severe imbalances in the human endocrine system, especially in women and children. Women are particularly sensitive to these bovine hormones because they interfere with the delicate balance of female hormone cycles in the body, and in growing children these bovine growth factors can cause abnormal development, causing excessively rapid growth of tissues. Synthetic bovine hormones in commercial dairy milk, for example, has been indicated as a major factor in premature puberty in young girls.
In recent years, family physicians throughout the United States have reported an alarming rise in premature puberty among girls as young as eight and nine, including full breast development, sexual fertility, and pregnancy. Dairy hormones in the daily diet have become the major suspect in this abnormal development. These dairy hormones cause glandular deviations in adult women, as well. In Food and Healing, nutritional therapist Annemarie Colbin writes, “The consumption of dairy products, including milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream, appears to be strongly linked to various disorders of the female reproductive system, including ovarian tumors and cysts, vaginal discharges, and infections.” In many cases, these problems quickly disappear soon after all dairy products are strictly eliminated from the diet.
Women in the Western world are advised by their doctors to drink pasteurized cow milk as a source of calcium to prevent osteoporosis, and yet the incidence of osteoporosis among dairy-consuming Western women continues to grow unabated because the human body cannot assimilate the calcium in cow milk. Owing to its high phosphorus content, which blocks absorption of calcium in the bowels, cow milk is definitely not a viable source of calcium for the human body. In fact, the acidity produced in the body by the putrefaction of milk products forces the body to leach calcium out of the body’s own bones to restore alkaline balance in the bloodstream, and this process contributes further to osteoporosis. Doctors properly trained in basic nutritional science would never recommend cow milk as a dietary source of calcium for human nutrition, especially when so many richer, more bio-available sources of dietary calcium than milk are available, none of which causes the digestive distress produced by processed dairy products and all of which deliver far more calcium.
For example, while 100 grams of cow milk contains 118 mg of calcium, the same amount of almonds supplies 254 grams of calcium. Many other foods also deliver significantly more calcium than cow’s milk. For example, 3½ ounces of broccoli delivers 130 grams of calcium, while the same 3½ ounce weight for each of the following foods delivers the following weights in calcium: kale 187 grams, sardines 400 grams, kelp has a whopping 1,093 grams; and 100 grams of the humble, organic sesame seeds supply a megadose of 1,160 mg of organic calcium to the body. So who needs cow’s milk?
People who wish to include dairy items such as milk, cheese, and yogurt in their diets should choose products made from goat’s milk, which has slightly alkalizing properties and contains the same basic proportions of protein, calcium, phosphorus, and other nutrients as human milk. And since it contains very little fat, goat’s milk is relatively easy to digest and is low in calories.
GRAINS
Most grains are warming, acid-forming “Yang” foods and are best eaten with cooling, alkaline-forming vegetables to insure digestive and metabolic balance. The only major food grain that is alkalizing is millet, which was the first grain to be cultivated as food in ancient China. Wheat, on the other hand, which has for centuries been the most popular grain food in the Western world, is one of the most highly acid-forming grains, and it can cause allergic reactions in people who consume it daily. Rye is a much better choice than wheat, especially for making bread, because it is less acid-forming, supplies more well-balanced nutrition, and rarely causes allergic reactions.
Grains are easier to digest and more nutritionally complete when consumed in whole form rather than refined. Whole grains are truly “whole foods”: they contain carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Newcomers to the science of food-combining often ask why a protein food such as meat and a carbohydrate food such as bread must be eaten separately to avoid indigestion and acidosis, whereas foods that contain both protein and carbohydrate, such as whole grains, may be eaten without causing trouble in the stomach. Dr. Herbert Shelton, author of the booklet Food Combining Made Easy, answers this question as follows:
There is a great difference between the digestion of a food, however complex its composition, and the digestion of a mixture of different foods. To a single article of food that is a starch-protein combination [e.g., whole grains], the body can easily adjust its juices, both as to strength and timing, to the digestive requirements of the food. But when two foods are eaten with different, even opposite, digestive needs [e.g., meat and bread], this precise adjustment of juices to requirements becomes impossible.
When boiling grains in whole form as a staple food for meals, they should first be washed well, drained, then soaked in pure water for two to three hours or overnight before cooking. Alternatively, you may first toast the grain till golden brown in an oven or a dry pan over a mediumhot flame, prior to boiling. This toasting process, known as “dextrinization,” converts much of the starch content into simple sugars, making the cooked grain easier to digest and less acid-forming in the stomach. The chart below gives the cooking times, proportions of dry grain to water, and cooked yield for boiling brown rice, wild rice, buckwheat, and bulgur:
The other way to prepare whole grains as food is to grind them into flour and bake bread. Bread is one of the most ancient and widely consumed foods in the Western world, but virtually all of it today is made with baker’s yeast, which ruins much of the bread’s nutritional value and causes allergic reactions in people who are sensitive to yeast. The problem with yeast as a leavening agent for bread is that it renders the calcium and magnesium in the flour insoluble and therefore unavailable to the body. Calcium and magnesium are the two most important macrominerals required for human health, and they play especially important roles in detox and alkaline balance. Whole grains are one of the best dietary sources of these essential nutrients. Even when high quality organically grown grains are used to make bread, if the dough is leavened with yeast, it robs the body of an important source of dietary calcium and magnesium and makes bread more acid-forming in the digestive tract.
The solution here is to “go back to the basics” and eat only whole-grain breads that are prepared with natural “sourdough” leavening. Sourdough produces precisely the right balance of pH and other vital factors that allow calcium, magnesium, and other minerals in whole-grain flours to become soluble during digestion and makes them easy to assimilate into the bloodstream. When Celtic sea salt is used in making sourdough bread, it further increases the bread’s bio-available magnesium content and improves the fermentation of the dough, making the bread even more digestible. Using sourdough cultures to ferment flour for bread, pancakes, and other leavened-grain products is similar to using lactobacteria to ferment milk and make yogurt: the bacteria predigests the protein and starch in the flour, rendering it far easier to digest in the stomach.
Whenever eating grains, don’t forget to chew well before swallowing. Chewing grains thoroughly saturates the starch with ptyalin enzyme from the salivary glands in the mouth, without which the grains cannot be properly digested in the stomach. When grains are wolfed down without sufficient mastication in the mouth, they ferment rather than digest in the stomach, producing acid indigestion and gas.
FERMENTED FOODS
Fermentation has been used as a way to prepare food for at least as long as fire has, and fermented foods play an important role in healthy human diets. Fermentation by “friendly” bacteria breaks down complex carbohydrates and proteins in food, predigesting them so that they are easier to digest and assimilate. Fermentation also increases the vitamin content in food, especially B vitamins, and provides abundant supplies of bio-active enzymes that assist digestion and help regulate pH balance in the digestive tract. The bacteria cultures used in fermented foods support the colonies of “friendly” flora in the lower bowels, which facilitates regular bowel movements.
In Western diets, yogurt and sauerkraut are good examples of fermented foods that provide both nutritional and digestive benefits. Traditional Asian cuisines feature a wide range of tasty, nourishing foods made by fermentation. Koreans eat a fiery fermented side dish called kimchee, made with cabbage, carrot, garlic, and chili, at almost every meal. Thai dishes are liberally laced with a pungent, fermented fish sauce called namphla. Chinese cooks use lots of fermented soy sauce, chili pastes, and bean curd products and prepare a variety of fermented vegetable side dishes known as pao-tsai. Indonesians eat a delicious, nutrient-rich ferment of soy beans called tempeh, and Japanese cuisine features richly fermented miso paste for soups and sauces, fermented fish and vegetable side dishes, and the remarkably nutritious, strongly flavored ferment of whole soy beans called naddo, which is one of the few nonanimal dietary sources of vitamin B12. All of these traditional Asian, fermented beans and vegetables are easier to digest and richer in nutritional value than commercial yogurt made from pasteurized cow milk, and they are therefore the best choices in fermented foods.
“SUGAR BLUES”
Sugar Blues is the title of a book by William Duffy, in which he states, “The difference between sugar addiction and narcotic addiction is largely one of degree.” The average daily consumption per person of refined white sugar in the United States has reached an astounding fifty-three teaspoons, which amounts to about half a pound of sugar per person per day. This certainly qualifies as substance abuse. Such a high rate of sugar consumption definitely becomes addictive, causing symptoms similar to drug addiction.
Whenever such massive quantities of industrially refined sugar enter the body, the immune system treats it as a toxic substance, which it certainly is at those dosages, and this triggers a continuous autoimmune response that throws the whole system off balance. One of those emergency responses is the constant secretion of insulin from the pancreas, which is needed to break down the massive overdose of sugar in the bloodstream. Over time, this causes the pancreas to swell up from overstimulation, and to finally collapse from depletion, at which point diabetes develops. Meanwhile, the excess insulin activity in the bloodstream suppresses release of growth hormone in the pituitary gland, which weakens immune response and lowers resistance.
Refined sugar is one of the primary causes of obesity and arteriosclerosis in the Western world. When sugar is consumed to excess, the liver converts most of it into triglycerides and stores it as fat, transforming the rest of it into the “bad” cholesterol that gets deposited as a sticky sludge in the walls of the arteries. Sugar is also a primary cause of osteoporosis and tooth decay because the extreme acidosis it produces forces the body to re-alkalize itself by leaching calcium from bones and teeth.
In addition, excessive consumption of refined white sugar has extremely deleterious effects on human behavior, particularly in children. The hyperactivity, learning disabilities, and other behavioral disorders experienced by so many children today is largely due to excessive intake of sugar. Studies conducted by Dr. C. Keith Connors at the Children’s Hospital in Washington DC have established what he calls a “deadly link” between excessive daily consumption of sugar—especially when combined with starch—and the development of hypertension, violent behavior, and learning impediments in children. In 1991, to reduce the exposure of children to this health hazard, Singapore banned the sale of all sugary, carbonated soft-drinks at schools and youth centers, setting off a howl of protest from peddlers of the most popular and profitable brands of these addictive drinks. By contrast, many public schools in the United States sign exclusive contracts with the major producers of these acidifying, enervating, habit-forming drinks, in exchange for a cut of the profits, allowing children to freely nurse their sugar habits throughout the day from vending machines. Trial studies have shown that chronic violence among inmates in prisons drops dramatically when all foods made with refined sugar are withdrawn from prison diets. There’s no reason to think that the same would not hold true for chronic violence in schools.
Artificial sweeteners such as saccharin and aspartame are even more hazardous to health than refined white sugar. These synthetic sweeteners should be strictly avoided, particularly in light of evidence linking them with a wide range of disorders, including cancer, nerve damage, immune dysfunction, and metabolic problems that lead to obesity. The best alternatives to refined white sugar are whole, natural sweeteners such as unrefined, raw cane sugar, honey, and maple syrup. The latter is an especially good choice because it is a complete whole food in itself, brimming with many essential vitamins, minerals, trace elements, and other nutritional factors drawn from deep within the earth by maple trees.
For weight-watchers and diabetics, nature provides the perfect herbal sweetener in the form of a plant called “Stevia.” Stevia is extracted from the leaves of a shrub native to South America, and gram-for-gram it is one hundred times sweeter than sugar. A serving the size of a match head suffices to sweeten any hot or cold beverage, and Stevia may also be used for cooking, sweetening porridge, and other culinary purposes. It also tastes good. Not only is Stevia harmless to diabetics, it actually helps them by improving the efficiency of insulin activity in the bloodstream. Stevia is by far the most rational and healthy choice as an alternative sweetener for people who have a “sweet tooth” but who don’t want to gain weight from all the extra calories in sugar, or who worry about developing diabetes from excess consumption of refined white sugar. The product is not expensive and may found at most well-stocked health shops or may be obtained from mail-order suppliers.
“THE SALT OF LIFE”
Salt has always been one of the most basic pillars of life in the human diet. Like so many other fundamental foods, modern food processing methods have denatured commercial salt supplies and stripped them of their most essential nutrients. The salt sold today in supermarkets for kitchen and table use is over 99 percent sodium chloride, and like refined white sugar, it is this industrially processed salt that is harmful to human health, not natural, whole salt.
The most important element missing from refined salt is magnesium, a deficiency of which contributes to heart disease, nervous system disorders, and immune deficiency. Clinical studies in Canada and the United States have shown a dramatic decline in the mortality rate among heartattack patients who were given intravenous injections of magnesium. Magnesium is also an essential supporting factor in phagocytosis, an important immune response whereby white blood cells destroy infectious bacteria and scavenge other pathogens in the body. Perhaps most important of all, magnesium regulates the balance of acid and alkaline elements in the cellular fluids, thereby keeping the biochemistry of the entire body properly balanced by automatically adjusting cellular pH levels. Dr. Jacques de Langre, author of Sea Salt’s Hidden Powers, cites magnesium as the single most vital element required to maintain proper pH balance in the body:
The human organism functions at its peak only when the balance between acid and alkaline is maintained. All substances that nourish the body are either acid or alkaline. Magnesium possesses the remarkable ability to maintain the acid/alkaline balance within the organism.
The best sources of magnesium and other essential minerals and trace elements are whole Celtic sea salt and Himalayan Glacial Salt, as discussed in previous chapters. Celtic sea salt is only 87 percent sodium chloride, plus the full spectrum of eighty-one other macro- and microminerals from the sea, all in precisely the proportions required by the human body. Himalayan Glacial Salt contains 30 percent less sodium than other forms of sea salt, and it may therefore be consumed in larger amounts for extra mineral supplementation. Those who wish to increase their intake of magnesium to correct blood acidosis and alkalize the cellular fluids may use the fluid bittern of Celtic sea salt, the liquid blend of magnesium chloride and Celtic sea salt, or pure magnesium chloride oil, mentioned in chapter 2.
SUPER SUPPLEMENTS
Debate continues to rage regarding the efficacy of vitamins and other concentrated nutritional supplements, and like most health issues, both sides have their valid points. For one thing, there’s a big difference between the benefits of synthetically manufactured supplements and those extracted from natural sources without the use of heat or industrial solvents. The efficacy of any given supplement also depends to a great extent on other supporting factors, such as diet, consistent dosage, use of medical and recreational drugs, exercise, and overall lifestyle. One thing can be said for certain: even the very best supplements cannot compensate for the ill effects of poor diet, malnutrition, excessive smoking and drinking, frequent use of pharmaceutical drugs, and a high-stress lifestyle. Unless you’re willing to systematically adjust all the basic factors of life, there’s no point in going to the expense and trouble of using costly supplements.
The supplements recommended below are all derived from natural sources, and each provides specific forms of protection against various factors that contribute to acidosis and toxemia. While some of these supplements also have excellent nutritional benefits, the primary reason for their inclusion here is their facilitating role in daily detox functions. All of them have potent alkalizing, detoxifying, and digestive properties that assist in the elimination of toxins and acid wastes from the tissues and that continuously purify the bloodstream, thereby helping to keep the whole system properly balanced.
Antioxidants scavenge and neutralize free radicals, which are highly reactive molecular fragments produced internally by natural metabolic processes as well as by pollutants assimilated from external sources, such as contaminants in food, water, and air. Free radicals are the cellular terrorists of the body, roaming randomly through the tissues, blasting holes in cell walls, damaging DNA codes, disrupting vital functions, and laying waste to the internal terrain of the body. Antioxidants are the special “commandos” introduced into the body with food, water, and air to hunt down free radicals and terminate their destructive activity. With the steep rise in free-radical activity today caused by toxic contamination within the body, antioxidants have become one of our strongest allies in the ongoing war against the cellular terrorism of free radicals.
Certain nutrients such as vitamins C, E, and beta carotene and the minerals zinc and selenium, play key roles in the body’s antioxidant defenses. Vitamin E breaks the self-generating chain reactions whereby free radicals operate, and it boosts the body’s overall immunity and resistance. Vitamin E also helps protect the tissues against damage from toxic chemicals such as mercury, lead, benzene, and other poisons and has inhibiting effects against the development of cancer and heart disease. Vitamin C effectively scavenges a wide range of free radicals and works within the cells as well to protect DNA from free-radical damage. Vitamin C also provides specific protection against cardiovascular disease and enhances overall immune response. Beta carotene is the strongest antioxidant for scavenging an extremely reactive type of free radical known as “singlet oxygen,” and it also inhibits the formation of cancerous tumors.
Selenium is a trace element that has been almost totally leached out of the food chain by modern farming and food-processing methods. Selenium is essential for the synthesis of peroxidase, one of the body’s most important antioxidant enzymes, which neutralizes hydrogen peroxide and other peroxide radicals that are produced in the body by fats. Selenium itself bonds with mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic, neutralizing these heavy toxins and carrying them away for excretion. Selenium has become so scarce in food that supplementary supplies are the only viable source for most people today. Zinc is the key element in the body’s other major antioxidant enzyme, superoxide dismutase (SOD), which scavenges free radicals in all of the body’s tissues and vital fluids.
Whatever other vitamin and mineral supplements you may wish to take as part of your daily diet, include therapeutic doses of vitamins E, C, and beta carotene, plus the minerals selenium and zinc, to insure sufficient antioxidant activity, especially if you live in polluted urban environments.
Recent studies in Japan, China, and the United States have shown that unfermented green tea from Japan and semifermented High Mountain Oolung Tea from Taiwan have very potent antioxidant properties and provide significant protection against cancer. While both green tea and High Mountain Oolung Tea have strong antioxidant activity, green tea can irritate the stomach when drunk in sufficient quantities to have therapeutic effects, and it is not nearly as fragrant and flavorful as the top grades of High Mountain Oolung Tea, which may be consumed freely throughout the day without upsetting the stomach.
The anticancer effect in those teas is produced by compounds known as polyphenols. Research in Japan has demonstrated that High Mountain Oolung Tea provides particularly strong protection against toxic damage and cancer formation in the lungs. In East Asia, where people smoke heavily, High Mountain Oolung Tea has long been the tea of choice among smokers, and those who drink it daily have a consistently lower incidence of lung cancer than smokers who don’t. One of the ways in which this tea suppresses growth of cancerous tumors is by inhibiting angiogenesis, a process whereby tumors generate growth of their own blood vessels to allow them to expand and multiply. Green and High Mountain Oolung teas also contain half a dozen types of catechins, which are potent phytochemicals that strengthen antioxidant defenses by stimulating production of peroxidase, SOD, and other important antioxidant enzymes in the body. On top of all that, these teas aid digestion, alkalize bodily fluids, purify the bloodstream, and gently stimulate the nervous system without racing the heart, as coffee does.
Another primary source of an antioxidant defense in the body comes from the negative ions that are derived from ionized air and water. The best way to enlist this ally into your army of antioxidants is to drink ionized water and breath ionized air, as discussed in foregoing chapters.
Green Food
Green food has already been mentioned in chapter 5 as a potent cleansing supplement for detox diets, but it is also very useful in daily diets as a source of essential nutrients and blood purifiers. Green food’s strong alkalizing and internal cleansing properties make it an excellent supplement for counteracting the internal pollution and acidity produced in the body by modern diets and eating habits. Its full-spectrum profile of essential nutrients compensates for common nutritional deficiencies in modern diets, insuring the body a daily supply of all the vital elements it needs to function properly.
Enzymes
Enzymes are the “spark plugs” of human metabolism, providing the ignition that catalyzes every metabolic reaction in the body. Over five thousand different enzymes have so far been identified in the human body, and without them the whole system would grind to a halt. Here’s how Dr. Edward Howell, one of the world’s foremost authorities on enzymes, describes their importance in his book Enzyme Nutrition:
No mineral, vitamin, or hormone can do any work without enzymes. Our bodies, all of our organs, tissues, and cells, are run by metabolic enzymes. They are the manual workers that build our bodies from proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.
Among the thousands of enzymes in the body, the three most important types for detox and cleansing purposes are antioxidant enzymes, such as peroxidase and SOD, digestive enzymes such as those secreted by the pancreas to handle the advanced stages of digestion, and food enzymes, which are not produced in the body and can only be obtained from fresh raw foods. Food enzymes, which are destroyed by heat in cooking and by chemical additives in processed foods, are required for the first stages of digestion in the stomach, and if they are missing, complex foods such as proteins and carbohydrates cannot be completely digested. Unless your daily diet consists of at least 30–50 percent fresh, enzyme-rich raw foods, you should take capsules of food enzymes with all meals that consist mainly of cooked foods. The four primary food enzymes required for digestion are the following:
Protease
This enzyme digests protein as well as pathogenic bacteria, damaged cells, the membranes around viruses, inflammatory fluids such as pus and phlegm, and any other harmful substance that contains protein.
Amylase
Amylase digests carbohydrates in food and helps dissolve pus and phlegm in damaged tissues. Combined with lipase, amylase digests a wide range of viruses and helps eliminate impacted mucus from inflamed lungs and bronchial passages.
Lipase
This is the enzyme responsible for digesting fats. It also dissolves the fatty part of the membrane that envelops many types of viruses, and the fatty deposits in the arteries.
Cellulase
Cellulase digests the cellulose content in food, so that it may pass easily through the digestive tract as fibrous bulk to assist the elimination of wastes.
Food enzymes have strong alkaline-forming properties, which help reduce acid-forming reactions throughout the digestive tract and prevent blood acidosis. Because they improve digestive efficiency, food enzymes also reduce production of toxic wastes in the digestive tract, thereby preventing the development of toxemia. In addition to taking them for digestive purposes with cooked meals, food enzymes may also be taken on an empty stomach when ill, in which case they enter general circulation in the bloodstream, assisting other immune factors such as white blood cells on search-and-destroy missions against pathogens and pollutants and breaking down mucus, phlegm, and pus in ailing organs and damaged tissues.
Supplements containing both digestive enzymes and food enzymes are available in tablet or capsule form for convenient daily use.
“ALKA-AID”
In case of sudden gastrointestinal distress caused by excess acidity from wrong food combinations, highly acid-forming foods such as sugar and meat, excessive use of pharmaceutical or recreational drugs, or intake of poisonous substances, the following supplements may be taken for fast, effective alkalization in the stomach and digestive tract. All of them are natural products and perfectly safe to use. You may take more than one at a time for even stronger alkalizing effects.
Fresh Lemon Juice
Mix the juice of one large or two small fresh lemons (not limes) with four ounces of water, and take one teaspoon every fifteen to twenty minutes until the acid crisis passes. This is particularly effective therapy for kidney stones.
Apple Cider Vinegar
A great stomach alkalizer and digestive aid, apple cider vinegar contains malic acid, not the acidifying acetic acid found in other vinegars. It increases the flow of gastric juices in the stomach and counteracts acidity throughout the digestive tract. As a digestive aid, take 2 tablespoons with 1 teaspoon of honey in warm water, twenty to thirty minutes before meals; or take it any time of day or night on an empty stomach for swift alkaline relief.
A highly alkalizing source of natural potassium, ½ teaspoon of cream of tartar may be stirred into a few ounces of water and taken for immediate relief of acid-forming reactions in the body, including the acidity produced by stress and anxiety.
Charcoal powder
Pure powdered charcoal in capsule or tablet form may be used in cases of extreme stomach acidity due to food poisoning, fermentation and putrefaction, or poor digestion. Take four to five capsules, or stir one teaspoon of the powder into a glass of water, for quick symptomatic relief of strong acid reactions in the stomach.
Baking Soda
Sodium bicarbonate swiftly neutralizes almost any sort of excess acidity in the stomach, and it may be used as often as required for such relief. Take 1 level teaspoon stirred into a glass of water, and repeat again later if necessary.
SHORT LIST OF SUGGESTIONS FOR CULTIVATING RATIONAL EATING HABITS
Many people these days prefer to have important new information on healthy lifestyle habits succinctly summarized in list format, so that they can tack it to the kitchen cupboard or family bulletin board for quick and easy daily reference. The dozen dietary precepts listed below may serve this purpose:
Last but not least, always try to follow the “golden mean” of moderation in food. An ancient Chinese adage states, “Disease enters the body through the mouth,” and this dietary wisdom is echoed in a similar Western maxim, “We dig our graves with our teeth.”
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a group of scientists spent the better part of a decade traveling through Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Isles, searching out and investigating as many cases as they could find of individuals who had already lived past the age of one hundred and were still alive. Altogether they located nearly two thousand living centenarians, some of whom were already well past 150 and on their way to becoming “bicentenarians.” After carefully questioning these venerable elders and their families regarding their personal lifestyles and daily eating habits, the common factor discovered in all cases was moderation in food. Here’s an excerpt from their report, as quoted in Baroody’s book Alkalize or Die:
On reviewing nearly 2,000 reported cases of persons who lived more than a century, we generally find some peculiarity of diet or habits to account for their alleged longevity; we find some were living amongst all the luxurie . . . others in the most abject poverty . . . some drank large quantities of water, others little; some were total abstainers from alcoholic drinks, others drunkards; some smoked tobacco, others did not; some lived entirely on vegetables, others to a great extent on animal foods . . . some worked with their brains, others with their hands; some ate one meal a day, others four or five . . . in fact, we notice a great divergence both in habits and diet, but in those cases where we have been able to obtain a reliable account of the diet, we find one great cause which accounts for the majority of cases of longevity: moderation in the quantity of food.
Let’s leave the final word on this topic to the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes, who left us so much other sage advice regarding the foibles and follies of human behavior. “As houses well stored with provisions are likely to be full of mice,” he wryly noted, “so the bodies of those who eat much are full of diseases.”