Back in 1976, I read a book that changed my life and the entire course of my career. It was written by a British author named Richard Mackarness and titled Eating Dangerously (it was called Not All in the Mind in Great Britain). The topic was that food – even healthy or natural items – can make you sick if you have unknown food allergy.
You might think, “I’d know if I had a food allergy.” However, it is shocking how many people have mild to severe intolerances to common foods and are completely unaware!
I took the theories suggested by Mackarness and put them into practice with my own patients. I placed them on a suggested eating plan that avoided common allergen foods. Their health rapidly improved.
Aches and pains vanished. Chronic diseases they’d been diagnosed with gradually faded. People felt better, looked younger, and lost weight (permanently). Over the years, many of my patients were removed from various medications for ailments they didn’t actually have. Since mainstream medicine treats symptoms rather than the patient, this remains a common issue.
Make no mistake, the wrong food can hurt you.
I’m not just talking about junk food! Let me clarify that right now. It’s a common misconception that natural whole foods pose no real threat if you don’t have a known dangerous allergy (such as peanuts).
That could not be further from the truth.
Even good-for-you whole foods (such as milk, eggs, fruit, and so on) can make some people very ill. I’ve had thousands of patients whose lives were being ruined by eating wholesome foods they couldn’t tolerate but were in the dark about an unknown food allergy.
A food which is right for one person may be disastrous in the metabolic pathways of another. It can happen with any food, any individual. Avoiding these foods is the key to a long and healthy life.
The trouble is that you (or your doctor) may not be aware that foods are affecting you negatively. You might not feel “your best” but not really have a clue why. Achy joints, upset stomach, lack of energy, or trouble sleeping can have many different causes. Unless a food makes you violently ill, it doesn’t usually hit your radar as the source of your health issues.
Hidden allergies or genetic intolerance can occur to foods eaten frequently, even daily, and yet remain undetected. Curiously, a person may even become addicted to his or her incompatible foods – overeating or bingeing on the very thing causing problems!
In 1985 I published my own Food Allergy Plan (the foundation of this book). Theron Randolph MD, the doyen and founder of this discipline, described it as the best book of its kind in the world.
At the time, most people were unaware they needed it! Patients with migraines thought they had migraines, not an unknown food allergy, so they’d buy a book about migraines. The same was true with many other maladies like depression, chronic pain, severe fatigue, and so forth.
A shocking number of patients with these conditions are due to toxic food reactions.
Your Genetic Relationship with Food
The problem is much more pronounced today – more than 30 years later – because we have endless issues with our food supply. Genetic incompatibility with food is as important as allergies to food.
Our DNA controls the performance of numerous metabolic pathways and that in turn regulates how we deal with substances introduced into our bodies. Foodstuffs, of course, are nothing more than a conglomerate of chemicals (with a little life energy thrown in!). New research suggests a continual interaction between foods and health, in which certain foods are found to enhance or suppress the action of genes, some of which are protective and some of which may be very harmful.
That means you can regulate your own genes by what you eat, helping them or blocking them. It’s all very new and shocking to a body of science that is steeped in the belief that DNA is the inviolate blueprint of our lives but the truth is clearer every day. There is no logic in the search for a universally healthy diet and those authors who proclaim they have one are misleading you.
Forget the fad pre-determined diets. What works for one person may not (and likely will not) work for you because your genetic makeup is unique. There are as many unique individual correct diets as there are combinations of genes – and that’s almost infinite!
Each of us must discover his or her own personal safe diet.
The Story of Arthur
Arthur was in his sixties when he first contacted me. His health had deteriorated to the point where he laid in bed over 20 hours a day, with scarcely strength to move. His heart was weak, enlarged, and he’d been waiting for a suitable donor to come along for a transplant.
He’d heard about me through patients I’d successfully treated and made an appointment. I put him on the recommended diet program that I eventually outlined in detail in my book Diet Wise.
Within two weeks, he started feeling better. After a month, he drove himself to my office. By the time we completed testing for food culprits, it was clear that wheat was his number one enemy. When he tried to re-introduce it, he collapsed into his earlier debilitated condition.
Arthur’s ideal diet required him to avoid wheat and one or two lesser bandit foods, which he did dutifully. His health recovered to the state where he was fitter than men ten years his junior. He never ended up getting the heart transplant (but no longer seemed to need it). The last time I visited Arthur at his home – before I left the UK for good – he was building a large garden shed at 78 years old. He decided he wanted a small workshop and proceeded to build it by himself!
It was night and day from the first time I met him. A success story that still makes me smile!
Diet: The Key to Recovery
There’s a growing awareness that correct eating and good health go hand in hand. It has been estimated that over half of all illnesses reported to doctors are caused or worsened by toxic foods.
This is not a rare problem!
In Diet Wise, I talk about numerous patients who were told they had incurable diseases – but recovered after following the path I recommend. Afflictions such as brain damage, heart enlargement, and infertility may seem to have nothing to do with what a person eats, yet the patient improved dramatically. How can this happen?
The important principle is total body load. If you can relieve some of the stresses to your body and its’ basic systems, your body will have the ability to do the rest…because your body wants to run efficiently.
Good health is often taken to be the mere absence of disease. Aches and pains are considered “normal” and an upset stomach is considered stress or trouble with preparation.
Yet abundant energy, well-being, clarity of thinking, and a vibrancy for life should be your lot.
The mainstream medical profession is entrenched in the belief that diet is unimportant. They blunder on, suggesting the latest drug, always ready to perform expense tests or surgeries…uncaring about the patient’s overall quality of life while they deal with symptoms they don’t understand and take one prescription after another.
What distresses me most is the abuse (and disbelief) the patients themselves receive because of unknown food allergies. They don’t feel well and can’t figure out why. When the doctors can’t either, it’s assumed to be psychological (a figment of their imagination) or attention-seeking behavior. I’ve met so many sad and dispirited human beings who express such relief when they realize someone is willing to listen and believe them.
If your own doctor can’t (or won’t) help you resolve the issues you’re feeling in your own body, then you have no choice but to try to sort things out for yourself. I highly recommend my Diet Wise plan to help you determine if you might have unknown food allergies.
If you do – and you resolve them – then you are going to be amazed at how good you feel. You are NOT alone. There ARE answers to what you’re dealing with. You CAN feel better.
Don’t wait another day…