Then there are the raw fooders.  Most of them are raw, Organic fooders who go so far as to eat only unfired, unground cereals that have been soaked in warm water (at less than 115 degrees or you’ll kill the enzymes) for many hours to soften the seeds up and start them sprouting.  This diet works and really helps a lot of people.  Raw organic foodism is especially good for “holy joes,” a sort of better-than-everyone-else person who enjoys great self-righteousness by owning this system.  But raw fooding does not help all people nor solve all diseases because raw food irritates the digestive tracts of some people and in northern climates it is hard to maintain body heat on this diet because it is difficult to consume enough concentrated vegetable food in a raw state.  And some raw fooders eat far too much fruit.  I’ve seen them lose their teeth because of fruit’s low mineral content, high sugar level and constant fruit acids in their mouths.

Then there are vegetarians of various varieties including vegans (vegetarians that will not eat dairy products and eggs), and then, there are their exact opposites, Atkins dieters focusing on protein and eating lots of meat.  There’s the Adelle Davis school, people eating whole grains, handfuls of vitamins, lots of dairy and brewers yeast and wheat germ, and even raw liver.  Then there’s the Organic school.  These folks will eat anything in any combination, just so long as it is organically produced, including organically raised beef, chicken, lamb, eggs, rabbit, wild meats, milk and diary products, natural sea salt in large quantities and of course, organically grown fruits, vegetables grains and nuts.  And what is “Organic?” The word means food raised in compliance with a set of rules contrived by a certification bureaucracy.  When carefully analyzed, the somewhat illogical rules are not all that different in spirit than the rules of kashsruth or kosher.  And the Organic certification bureaucrats aren’t all that different than the rabbis who certify food as being kosher, either.

There are now millions of frightened Americans who, following the advice of mainstream Authority, have eliminated red meat from their diets and greatly reduced what they (mistakenly) understand as high-cholesterol foods.

All these diets work too—­or some—­and all demonstrate some of the truth.

The only area concerning health that contains more confusion and contradictory data than diet is vitamins.  What a rats nest that is!

The Fundamental Principle

If you are a true believer in any of the above food religions, I expect that you will find my views unsettling.  But what I consider “good diet” results from my clinical work with thousands of cases.  It is what has worked with those cases.  My eclectic views incorporate bits and pieces of all the above.  In my own case, I started out by following the Organic school, and I was once a raw food vegetarian who ate nothing but raw food for six years.  I also ate Macrobiotic for about one year until I became violently allergic to rice.