Introduction: The Power of Food Some of the best years of my life were those I spent in high school in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina. I had a wonderful group of friends and still have strong bonds of affection with many of them. Among these is Elida, one of my closest buddies; she and I and two other girls were known as“ the Four Bewitchers”— actually a name we had invented for ourselves, hoping to live up to it. Much water has passed under the bridge since then, and Elida and I had managed to see each other only three times in the twenty years since I’ d left Argentina; but we kept in touch. Imagine my delight when I received a letter from her, in August 1981, in which she told me that she was coming to New York for two whole weeks. The first week she would be alone; her husband, Pedro, would join her for the second. She called me from her home in Rio de Janeiro a few days before her departure to ask me to find her a hotel. Instead, I invited her to stay with us. The children were away for the summer, so their room was free; they’ d be returning just a day after Pedro was due to arrive, so everything would dovetail perfectly. Elida and Pedro could spend the rest of their stay in a nice hotel. Elida was thrilled. So was I. Time and distance seemed not to have cooled our friendship. I wondered whether a week together would strengthen or weaken that old bond. How much could she have changed? I remembered her as an attractive, vibrant brunette who always gestured when she spoke and had an enthusiastic lilt to her voice. She used to laugh a lot, too. I looked forward to a week of much chatter and reminiscence, albeit with vague trepidation: How would Elida feel about the spartan vegetarian fare in our home? Finally, she arrived, and it didn’ t take me too long to find that, indeed, our friendship was as strong as ever. However, I was startled by the physical changes in my friend. Elida’ s health was not good; she had diabetes, was taking an insulin shot daily, her hands were bloated, and she was overweight. She was often tired and was unable to walk more than a few blocks at a time. I found that there was even more to worry about.“ Why do you walk so stiffly?” I asked her at one point.“ I can’ t feel my feet,” she said.“ What?”“ That’ s right, I can’ t. Look,” she said, and showed me the nails on her big toes; they were black and blue.“ I wore some tight shoes last week and couldn’ t tell that they were cutting off my circulation. Now I’ m going to lose those nails.” I was horrified.“ You have to do something! At this rate, you’ ll get gangrene, and soon you’ ll be walking around with a wooden leg!” I looked her squarely in the eye.“ You’ re my age, and that’ s too young to have a wooden leg.” She giggled, but there was no mirth in her eyes.“ What does your doctor say?” I asked. She shrugged.“ Nothing. He gave me medication, but it doesn’ t seem to help, so I don’ t bother. He told me to stop eating sugar but doesn’ t tell me what else to do.” We just looked at each other. I could see her native vitality still shining through her ill health. If allowed to work, that vitality would help her heal very quickly.“ Well, my dear friend,” I said,“ there must be a reason why you’ ve landed in my hands for a whole week. Let’ s see what happens after a few days of birdseed and rabbit food.” She laughed.“ I’ m willing to try,” she said. On the second morning after her arrival, Elida called me into her room to show me her hands.“ Look,” she said. They were puffed up like balloons, and she could barely remove her ring.“ If I don’ t eat sugar, I blow up. My kidneys don’ t work. When I eat sugar, it acts like a diuretic and I urinate gallons, and then there is no bloat.” She had spent the day before eating with us, and that meant that she’ d had nothing with sugar in it. It’ s not that she hadn’ t known about my lifestyle. Our sporadic contact had kept her up to date with my involvement in natural foods, my cooking classes, and my interest in natural healing. She had even asked for a copy of my cookbook, The Book of Whole Meals, and I had sent it to her. She knew as well that I had recently remarried and that my husband was a vegetarian cook also. Thus she was quite prepared for a change in her diet. What she found was a fairly austere home regimen, enlivened with two or three weekly outings during which we partook of fish or perhaps poultry. For breakfast, there was brown rice and vegetables; for lunch, bean or lentil soup, whole-grain bread, and salad; for snacks, fruit, or rice cakes with apple butter; for dinner, a grain, beans, vegetables, salad. For Elida I added aduki beans cooked with kombu seaweed *, of which I offered her a small bowl twice daily; these small red Japanese beans are traditionally considered to be strengthening for the kidneys. Sure enough, Elida reported with glee that they were a much better diuretic than sugar. I also decided to manifest my feelings as a caring friend and strongly admonished her to stay away from sugar and alcohol 100 percent. What I didn’ t tell her is that such sacrifice would be quite easy to undertake if she ate