Source: Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity, Daniel Reid, Fireside, New  York,  p 100


Correctly combining foods makes all the difference in the world to proper 
digestion and metabolism. Without complete digestion, the nutrients in
even the most wholesome food cannot be fully extracted and assimilated by the body.


Moreover, incomplete digestion and inefficient metabolism are the prime 
causes of fat and cholesterol accumulation in the body. A low calorie diet 
of overcooked, processed and improperly combined foods will still make you 
fat and leave sticky deposits in your arteries, just as the wrong mix of 
fuels will leave carbon deposits on the spark plugs of an engine, clog the 
pistons, and create foul gaseous exhaust.

On the other hand, if foods are properly combined for consumption, then 
regardless of how many calories or how much cholesterol they contain they 
will not make you fat or clog up your veins and organs, especially if at 
least half your daily food intake is taken raw.

If one follows the rules of Trophology, there is no need to be a fanatic 
about controlling one's diet, no need to count calories, and no need to 
worry about cholesterol.

Note also that there is no such thing as a food that is 100 percent 
protein or 100 percent carbohydrate. What counts is whether protein or 
carbohydrate is the major nutritional element in any particular food.


Generally speaking, if a food item contains 15 percent of more protein, 
than its categorized as 'protein food', while 20 percent or more 
carbohydrate makes it a 'carbohydrate food'. When combining different 
types of food in a single meal, it doesn't matter much if a little bit of 
protein is added to a basically carbohydrate meal or vice versa, 
especially if plenty of raw vegetables are included to provide active 
enzymes and fibrous bulk.

Ideally, one should consume only over variety of food at a single sitting.
A glance at nature proves this point.

Carnivorous animals never consume starchy items with their meat, but they 
do supplement digestion and occasionally purge their bowels by chewing on 
wild weeds that have medicinal properties. It has also been observed by 
bird watchers for centuries that birds eat bugs and worms at one time of 
day, seeds and berries, at another, but never both together. What makes 
modern man think that his digestive tract is so different from all other 
species in nature?

Even though traditional Chinese diet relies heavily on rice, a closer look 
at Chinese eating habits shows that, up until the mid-twentieth century, 
the rice was consumed according to the rules of Trophology.

For example, when Chinese families eat at home, their meals are usually 
heavy in fresh vegetables and bean curd products and very light in meats. 
When Chinese go out for a big banquet in a restaurant, rice is generally 
not served at all, specifically so that it does not interfere with the 
enjoyment and digestion of the meat, fish and fowl that always appear on 
banquet menus. Today, however, modern lifestyles have eroded these healthy 
eating habits among urban Chinese, much to the detriment of their health 
and longevity.

Back in the 1920's, before modern world had much impact on Chinese 
lifestyles, an extensive study was conducted in China by Western 
nutritional experts to compare the typical eating habits of Chinese and 
Americans. The regions surveyed were located in central and coastal China, 
and rural areas where traditional lifestyles and eating habits had not 
changed much for many centuries, but where relative peace and prosperity 
gave local households the full range of choice of foods.

The study revealed that the average Chinese derived over 90 percent of 
their food energy from grains and grain products, with only 1 percent 
coming from animal products and all the rest from fresh vegetable sources. 
A blend of 90 percent carbohydrate and 1 percent protein, supplemented 
with the enzymes and roughage of fresh fruits and vegetables is about as 
close to a perfectly combined diet as is practically possible.

The same study then turned towards the eating habits of typical Americans, 
with most revealing results: 39 percent of the average Americans food 
energy came from grains, 38 percent from animal products and most of the 
remaining 23 percent came from refined sugars. Vegetables and fruits 
accounted for a minuscule portion of the American diet. One could hardly 
concoct a more poorly balanced diet from the point of view of Trophology! 

According to the results of Dr. Pottenger's experiments with cats, the 
damage from such denatured diets can be transmitted to the next generation.
Let's take a close trophological look at the 'Great American Meal', which 
is rapidly spreading digestive and metabolic malaise throughout the world 
via huge corporate fast food chains.

That all-American meal consists of a cheeseburger with French fries, 
washed down with a milk shake or sweet cola. A cheeseburger contains two 
different varieties of concentrated protein- meat and cheese. On top of 
that goes a big, fluffy bun of highly refined white flour- pure starch. 
Next comes a big bag of deep fried potatoes, thereby adding more 
concentrated starch, further fattened by deep-frying in stale oil, to the 
meal. Finally this mess is washed down with a big frozen milk shake, 
adding pasteurized milk to the meat and starch and the fat, plus several 
spoons of refined white sugar to thoroughly gum up the works.

Breaking one or two rules of Trophology at any given meal is bad enough, 
but the 'Great American Meal' breaks at least six! Small wonder that in a 
recent nationwide health survey in America, reported by an Associated 
Press bulletin in July 1996, 49 percent of the population reported 
chronic, daily stomach pain, gastro-intestinal distress, constipation, and 
other ailments of the digestive tract. This website can bring long term 
relief to these people, and help the other 51% avoid these sort of 
problems.




The dietary situation in the Western world is far more serious than any 
government health authorities care to admit. This is largely because the 
food industry has become one of the largest, most powerful businesses in 
the Western world, especially in America, where the processed food 
industry is represented by one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which decides what foods may be 
sold in the market, is staffed primarily by professional bureaucrats, not 
nutritional scientists, and it conducts no scientific tests whatsoever. 
Instead, it relies on tests and reports submitted by the very corporations 
which want to get a new food product onto the market! 

Raw certified milk has become illegal in most states, and gone are the 
days when people could go down to a local open-air market to purchase 
fresh produce, as is still common in Asia and much of Europe. 


And so Americans continue to suffer among the world's highest incidence of 
heart disease, cancer, digestive disorders and other deadly ailments.
Facts are facts, so have a look at the following startling facts about 
diet and malnutrition in America, compiled by American medical scientists 
and published in March/April 1958 edition of the American Journal of 
Clinical Nutrition.

A careful comparative examination of the diets and health of beggars in 
India and apparently healthy young American teenagers revealed that in 
India the average daily calorie intake of the typical beggar amounted to 
less that half that of the typical American.

Yet only 6.25 percent of the beggars showed any sign of nutritional 
deficiency, while a staggering 75 percent of the American teenagers showed 
signs of severe malnutrition. Only 1.25 percent of the Indian beggars 
suffered dental cavities, compared with over 90 percent of the young 
Americans. Conclusion: the typical beggar in India derives greater health 
from his meager diet than the average American teenager does from 
his 'rich' diet.

A similar study in Mexico found similar results. The September 1951 issue 
of Harper's Magazine reports the results of a long-term study of the 
dietary habits of Mexican peasants, conducted by MIT's Dr. Robert Harris. 
States the report,
To the surprise of the investigators, these poverty stricken Mexicans 
showed less evidence of malnutrition than did Michigan school children....
Analysis of all their foods by Dr. Harris' group showed that the Otomis 
(Indians dwelling in the arid Mesquital Valley north of Mexico City), like 
the slum dwellers of Mexico City, were obtaining, nearly adequate 
quantities of all nutrients except riboflavin. In fact, their nutrition 
was definitely superior to that of the average person living in the Boston 
and New York areas of the United States!"