Whole Health (22 page)

Note:
those with high blood pressure should use liquid chlorophyll instead of baking soda. Take 1 tablespoon mixed with a few ounces of water—three times daily.

SUBTRACTING FOOD ALLERGENS AND INTOLERANCES

Many of my patients struggle with the notion that they are as sensitive to foods as they are, and refuse to believe it. A woman I recently saw had just returned from a cruise with friends. As she explained it, her friends ate everything from soup to nuts. She, on the other hand, cut just a few minor corners, only to get pounded with severe inflammatory symptoms. She was distraught, to say the least.

I explained to her that each and every one of us fits into one of two categories. I categorize one group as acute/chronic types and the other as chronic/acute types. I wanted her to understand that she needn't feel so all alone with her food problem. While she may be acutely sensitive to foods, by adhering to her anti-inflammatory, hypoallergenic diet, her overall health would improve dramatically—at the chronic level—over time. On the other hand, her friends on the cruise who ate virtually everything in sight may be more tolerant at the acute level, but they are more likely to suffer from chronic
disease over the course of time. The state of our dietary practices in America today is becoming an increasingly serious problem.

Over the past three decades, there has been growing interest in food intolerances and food allergies. It's estimated that as many as 90 million Americans suffer from either genetic food intolerances or food allergies of some kind. Food intolerances are responses that occur when something in a given food irritates a person's digestive system. Symptoms may include rash, hives, nausea, diarrhea, itchy skin, shortness of breath, chest pain, swelling of bronchial passageways, and anaphylaxis.

Food allergies are an immune reaction. They occur when the body's autoimmune intelligence activates in defensive response to a food by producing antibodies to the food, as if the food were an invading pathogen. Allergic food reactions are varied, and may include stomach pains, hives, headaches, asthma, bronchial congestion, muscle and joint aches, nausea—and even irrational, “neurotic” emotional and mental behavior. The most common allergens are milk and dairy products, wheat, corn, shellfish, citrus, legumes (including peas, beans, soy products, and inflammatory nuts such as peanuts), eggs, and “nightshade” vegetables or fruits such as tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and cabbages.

To clinically confirm a food allergy, diagnosis requires either a radioallergosorbent skin test (RAST), where the skin is scratched and exposed to food extracts to observe antibody reactions, or immunoglobulin blood tests, in which blood platelets are exposed to food extracts so that they will display either positive or negative aggregation response.

When you understand the why and how of food allergies and intolerances, it's easy to see why they are so common. If, for twenty-five of the past thirty generations, a family gene pool was not exposed to dairy products, and therefore lacked specialized enzymes capable of digesting milk, there would be a strong probability for dairy allergies.

In his noted article “The Significance of Mutation in Preventive Dentistry,” Hal Huggins, D.D.S., wrote of “an ancestral dietary concept, which is based upon the hypothesis that a species lives and eats the foods in one area for 1,000 years or more, and becomes adapted to the foods in that area. If a species moves to a new habitat, it comes in contact with new foods that require different intestinal bacteria to digest them, and modifications must be made. The species may need another 1,000 years to adapt to the new diet.” (
Let's Live
, March 1989, p. 68.)

Digestion is highly specialized, substantially increasing the likelihood of food intolerances wherever there exists an overexpanded variety, abundance, and/or volume of food.

Just think, there are 75 trillion cells in our bodies, with more than 1,000 enzymes (many of which are digestive) at work in each cell. Most enzymes participate in only one chemical reaction upon a single substance, although some do act upon compounds. There are, on average, more than 50,000 digestive enzymes in the body, some specifically for protein digestion (proteases), some for fat digestion (lipases), and some for carbohydrate digestion (amylases). A single cell contains thousands of enzymes for thousands of different specialized actions. At the same time, each food, according to its classification, requires separate enzymes and enzyme compounds to perform various functions in the digestive process. Each food falls within a specific pH (acid/alkaline) range that dictates the efficiency with which each enzyme performs its work, just as each enzyme performs optimally at a specific pH.

The less work required of our digestive systems, the more efficient the digestion. The more overworked a digestive system, as is often the case today, the more nondigestive toxic residues build up in the body. This buildup requires immune antibodies to neutralize their subsequent pathogenic presence.

As long as allergens are being ingested, the immune system must continually engage in reaction to them. This constant
preoccupation with food-related toxins forces the immune defense system to become distracted from its other important functions, such as protection from invasive bacteria and viruses, as well as immune antibody and DNA repair.

Accumulated toxicity from food allergens also forms degenerative concentrations of protein putrefaction and starch fermentation in the colon, both of which interfere with our protective microfloral (bacterial) synthesis. The predominant bacteria in the colon,
Escherichia coli
, are employed to release such gases as methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, lactic and acetic acid, as well as such toxic gases as indole and phenol. These protective
E. coli
bacteria are also responsible for the microbial synthesis of the vitamins and minerals responsible for our body's daily maintenance functions. I believe that these toxic accumulations in the colon from food intolerances are a major cause of Americans' weakened immunities.

Many current health care practitioners believe that food allergies, despite the fact that they are one of the most misunderstood and undiagnosed issues, remain one of the truly primary causes of the present health care crisis. As the body, mind, and spirit are continually bombarded with the stressful tasks of adapting to modern life, there is a breakdown in digestion. Stress often predetermines digestive efficiency, and thus, food tolerance. As this breakdown spreads its inflammatory influence to other body systems, it may well begin to paint a more systemic picture of immunosuppression.

I have found that blood and skin tests alone are not reliable enough in determining food intolerances and allergies. I have consistently observed thousands of patients who have been clinically tested and cleared, but continue to exhibit severe symptoms from food intolerances and allergies, and I believe this to be one of the most important, yet nebulous, areas of health care.

I have noted that no two people react the same to any one allergen. For example, one person exposed to a dairy allergen might exhibit migraine headaches while another exhibits bronchial
congestion. Furthermore, a person might be exposed to a food one day and show no reaction, while as many as five days later a severe latent reaction might occur. To further complicate matters, the symptoms might be as elusive as a slight mood shift, or mental “fog.”

An array of self-help diet books instruct their readers about “rotation diets,” which are designed to allow the digestive tract time to clear itself before a certain food is eaten again. For example, if I were to eat apples on Monday, then I would abstain from apples for the next three days and eat apples again on Friday. There are many variations on this theme, with each advocate adding a personal theory and a change here and there. Nonetheless, the basis for rotation remains the same—simplifying the digestive workload.

Just as with blood and skin tests, the flaw in rotation diets is that they are either too general or they fail to consistently address subtle energetic human responses (thoughts and emotions) to potential allergens. We are composed of energy, which makes up 99.999 percent of our matter. The very innermost core from which our entire being emanates is composed of energy. Whole Health asserts that the secret to a more accurate diagnostic testing lies in the sixth-sensory potential of our unconscious mind, and the ever-changing field of energy it generates.

FOOD ENERGY

When it comes to material diagnostics, the Western world remains at the forefront. We've developed remarkable technologies that enable physicians to analyze the status of one's health via the mediums of blood, saliva, urine, and DNA. The Western world has clearly devoted itself to a material bias, but as the new millennium unfolds, there is a growing interest in the potentials and applications of energy-healing systems.

When I began developing the Whole Health system more than thirty years ago, I had no more than an innate knowing about self,
world, and universe as conjoined parts of one unified energy field. And while my first visions of food as medicine were simply attuned to concepts of clean, healthy, and organic eating, I had no real technical understanding of how the energy of food could affect the energy of human beings. Like the rest of my culture, I believed that “food as medicine” was all about good nutrition, and that good nutrition was strictly about material nutrients. Yet somehow I also felt that there was much more to it all.

As I began my work, I immediately noticed that thoughts, emotions, climate, weather, lifestyle, relationships, and dreams all had a way of exerting a profound effect on all of the people I was counseling.

I will never forget a young woman who came to see me who was constantly sick with colds and flu, and allergic to virtually everything she was surrounded by. I recommended a healthier diet and some natural vitamins, to no avail. Then one fateful day, toward the end of an office visit, she happened to mention that she and her husband were not getting along. She began to open up to me, explaining that he was a verbally abusive, imperative type and that she was very intimidated by him. I simply shared some uplifting words of encouragement and reminded her, “We are all only as powerful as our willingness to be so, and as deserving as our willingness to affirm.” I didn't see her for many months. I thought that perhaps I'd overstepped my boundaries. Then, many months later, she came knocking on my door. I barely recognized her! She looked transformed. No longer immunosuppressed, and no longer having allergic reactions, she was absolutely radiant. She proceeded to tell me that she had been profoundly moved by our earlier conversation and that it inspired her to find the strength to demand that her husband leave the house. He did so—and she moved on to lead a much happier, fuller, healthier life.

I felt awakened to the power of subtle human energy. This experience made me acutely aware of the fact that subtle energies
from within us make all the difference in the realms of our material human health. All the health food and vitamins in the world couldn't do for her what only her mind could. Her experience represents all of us. She made it clear to me that she and you and I have not yet been fully accounted for within the present health care system. She couldn't be doctored. She had to be healed. What she had couldn't be tested in her blood, saliva, urine, or DNA.

As the years went on, her face was accompanied by thousands of other faces. Someone has to stretch the present limitations, I remember thinking. We can't continue to simply run material tests and give out material medicines to all these people. They are comprised of vital energies that require attention as well.

RAW VERSUS COOKED FOOD

The question of raw versus cooked food can only be answered through personalization. Whole Health is a system that ascribes to energetic individuality. We are comprised of a myriad of subtle energies and we are all very different and ever changing. Whole Health therefore suggests that the question of raw versus cooked food be individually tested and retested each season. As the seasons change, we change. Simply use the EMT pass/fail testing technique. Hold up your partner's arm and test their strength response when calling out the terms:
cold/raw food
and
warm/cooked food
. You will instantly resolve the great debate!

THE WHOLE HEALTH WEIGHT LOSS PLAN

For those interested, here's a sample Whole Health meal plan designed for general weight loss.

A NOTE ABOUT EMOTIONAL EATING DISORDERS

It is estimated that eight million Americans have eating disorders of one kind or another. Seven million are said to be women. I recently saw a woman who said, “I have an eating disorder.” She said it in such an affirming way, she seemed to link the condition with her identity. I reminded her that she wasn't an eating disorder, but rather she was a sensitive human being with a potentially broken heart. Some overeat the pain away with food. Some stop eating, as they are fearful of eating too much, gaining weight, and risking rejection because of being unattractive. I have often explained to my patients that many of us who are overwhelmed with heartache suffer from the continued subconscious recall of our emotional pain. These painful images and feelings continue to revisit our
nervous system. Substances that appear to offer immediate gratification (like foods) then become our chosen distraction. They offer no long-term help. They typically only leave us with continued suffering and accompanying health problems.