Food Combining for Health: The bestseller that has changed millions of lives. Doris Grant

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СКАЧАТЬ a purely nutritional state, the result of an imbalance in the body’s chemistry; he found this was evident from observation of many cases. He also found it evident that ‘exposure to weather, or occupational pursuits, have nothing to do with the creation of the condition, except in a secondary way’.

      To help correct the chemical balance and increase the delicate alkaline reserve in the bloodstream, Dr Hay particularly recommended a sufficiency of acid fruits such as oranges, grapefruit and lemons (the juice of a lemon in a glass of water on waking is very beneficial); these acid fruits are especially high in alkaline salts – lemons most of all. Unfortunately, many arthritic sufferers make the mistake of avoiding all ‘acid fruits’ thinking thereby to help their condition, whereas they are merely worsening an already deficient intake of vitamins. As there seems to be much confusion regarding the term ‘acid fruits’, the reader is urged to re-read its classification in Chapter 2.

      

      Dr Hay also recommended:

      

      

Celery juice; this has proved invaluable in dissolving and removing years of accumulated acid deposits in the cartilage of arthritic joints. In The Home Herbal (Pan Paperback), Barbara Griggs recommends celery seeds for arthritis and rheumatism because their ‘high alkaline value helps to counteract acid formation in the blood and clear it out of the system’. Arthritis sufferers will find her other recommendations most helpful.

      

Wheatgerm, bran, kelp (seaweed, obtainable in tablet form at health-food shops) and cod liver oil. Dr Hay claimed that these supplements are also very beneficial for all departures from health.

      

Gentle exercise, rest and natural sunlight. Research by Dr John Ott, famous pioneer of time-lapse photography, confirmed the great benefit to arthritis of natural sunlight. In Health and Light (The Devin Adair Co., Conn., USA) he proved with regard to his own arthritis that spending as much time as possible out of doors, walking or gardening, and receiving natural sunlight energy (even on dull days) directly through the eyes, minus sunglasses, spectacles or contact lenses, is highly beneficial in the control of this disease.

      

The elimination from the diet of vinegar, spices, tea, coffee and alcohol – especially sweet wines and liqueurs.

      

Calmness and emotional control; tension, fear, anger, hate etc., do much to aggravate arthritis symptoms and increase suffering.

      It must therefore be repeated again: arthritis is a purely nutritional state and its logical treatment is a nutritional one. Unfortunately, arthritis research foundations have been issuing statements for many years that nutritional therapy is totally without merit, thus discouraging most doctors from paying attention to their patients’ diet. Any cure or improvement resulting from nutritional therapy has therefore been dismissed as a ‘spontaneous remission’. There is now, however, too much solid evidence of sustained benefit from such therapy to justify this concept. In particular, the Arthritic Association has had much success in promoting a high-potassium diet based on the work of Charles de Coti-Marsh, which is very much in accord with the ideas of Dr Hay.

      Obesity

      This is a far more serious condition than most people realize; it is now closely linked with diabetes, cholesterol-rich gallstones, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure and stroke. Roughly half the people in the UK are overweight, and obesity among children is now reaching epidemic proportions. One in ten six-year-olds is now classed as obese, and the epidemic is spreading at nearly one per cent a year.^*

      It is generally believed that people become obese because they eat too much. Dr Hay believed that obesity is far more often evidence of an imbalance in nutrition than the result of eating too much, and that its cause lies very frequently in the mixture of starchy food and proteins, or starches with acid fruits. He also strongly indicted refined carbohydrates, as did Dr T.L. Cleave 50 years later.

      The logical treatment of obesity, therefore, whether this is of slight or severe degree, is to correct the faulty eating habits that led to this condition. Compatible eating is especially effective. According to many reports I have received from Hay system followers, merely avoiding warring mixtures is sufficient gradually to reduce excess weight – without even trying to do so; without feeling hungry; without wearisome calorie counting; and without resorting to crash slimming diets, appetite-suppressors and dangerous fat-reducing drugs. Dr Hay warned that all so-called fat-reducing remedies ‘should be avoided as you would the plague’, as they are a snare and a delusion, and their very slight results are paid for at a fearful cost in vitality and health. His warning received ample confirmation in a report by the consumer magazine Which? of 13 April 1983; it had harsh words for certain quick-slimming products which not only fail in their objective but also have unpleasant side-effects.

      Attempts to lose weight quickly are not recommended. Any change in the diet should be made gradually. To start losing weight it is therefore sufficient just to become accustomed to separating the incompatible classes of foods into different meals. When this separation is well established, the number of alkali-forming meals should be increased. An excellent and easy way of doing this (if desired) is to make breakfast consist solely of fruit, or fruit and yogurt, making the fruit one kind of fruit only. Doing so will cause no drop in energy for the day’s work – the energy for today is provided by the foods eaten yesterday; eating a large breakfast actually ties up some of one’s energy during the morning. Dr Hay always counselled that ‘the best breakfast of all is no breakfast at all’! – but not if eating orthodox meals.

      Many people are not at all hungry for breakfast, but sheer habit forces them to eat. Dr Hay always taught: ‘never eat anything of any kind at any time unless you feel really hungry … you will get far more nourishment out of foods that are eaten when you are very hungry than if these same foods are eaten without proper hunger’. This excellent rule is not only of importance for slimmers but also for everyone who is health conscious. Dr Cleave considered it of such importance that he listed it as rule number one in his Natural Diet for Health (The Saccharine Disease, page 188): ‘Do not eat any food unless you definitely want it.’ It is a fact that most of us eat far more food than we need. There is truth in the saying that ‘we live on a third of the food we eat – the doctor lives on the other two-thirds!’

      There is no need to go without any good, unprocessed, unrefined, whole food while reducing weight, provided that it is eaten compatibly. Even the so-called fattening foods, bread and potatoes, can be eaten with impunity provided that the bread is wholewheat bread (preferably home-baked – see Part Four), the potatoes are cooked in their skins and the skins eaten, and care is taken not to ‘plaster’ both the bread and potatoes with too much butter. Fats should be used with care by slimmers, especially in the form of full-fat cheeses; the cottage cheeses are best, as long as they contain no added salt. The intake of salt should be drastically reduced in the diet of slimmers (and considerably reduced in the diet of most people).

      It is well established that sodium (salt) intake is directly associated with blood pressure, and that a reduction in the dietary intake by 50mmol per day could lead to a 50 per cent reduction in the number of people needing anti-hypertensive therapy, a 22 per cent reduction in the number of deaths from stroke and a 16 per cent reduction in the number of deaths from CHD. Unfortunately, it is the СКАЧАТЬ