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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!"