our food: When one eats no meat, one needs no sugar— if at the same time the diet includes whole grains. Thus my friend found herself plunked, with practically no transition, into a totally different dietary mode. From a diet high in meat protein, fat, sugar, alcohol, and soft drinks, she went to complex carbohydrates( whole grains, beans, vegetables), low fat, little natural sugar( fruit was only an occasional snack), herb teas, and, at times, apple juice. Ah yes, and no milk, butter, cheese, or yogurt either. I must say she handled the shock well. Only the first day was there a reaction— her bloated hands. But soon the aduki beans went to work, and within two days the bloating had vanished. On the morning of her third day with us, I gave Elida a shiatsu acupressure massage. I am by no means an expert masseuse, but I know enough to do it for family and friends. One of the things I know is that if I find a pressure point that hurts, it means that energy is blocked there and I must keep on massaging it gently but firmly until it begins to hurt less. Well, when I got to working on her feet, Elida started gasping. The mildest pressure hurt her. But I kept it up anyway as we joked about how much suffering it takes to get better. After I finished, Elida stood up. A look of disbelief crossed her face. She stared at me.“ I can’ t believe this,” she said.“ I can feel my feet. I can feel my feet!” By the fifth day of her stay, her strong constitution had begun to assert itself. She was walking from thirty to fifty blocks at a clip. She had lost about six pounds. She had reduced her insulin intake. Her feet felt normal. And she looked radiant and felt terrific. I began to relax. We talked a lot about the experience. Elida was amazed that she didn’ t desire sugar.“ I think that it must be because of the balance of the other foods,” she commented one day.“ At home I go crazy if I don’ t eat something sweet several times a day.” I explained that she was getting all the complex carbohydrates she needed for energy and brain function from whole grains and beans; in her normal way of eating she only got carbohydrates from sugar, some fruit and potatoes, and alcohol. She also realized something else, without my really having mentioned it specifically.“ I can’ t believe how much fat and protein we eat at home,” she commented over bean salad at lunch one day.“ Do you realize that among the five of us we consume close to twenty pounds of meat a week? And so much cheese! If I can convince my cook to change her cooking, not only would we all get healthier, but we’ d save a lot of money as well.” I nodded. She munched on her bean salad for a while, pensively.“ This is a revelation,” she said,“ and it’ s so simple.” Perhaps you think, dear reader, that I will now proceed to tell you why and how spartan vegetarian food will cure everything that ails us. And so I would have done with great and earnest conviction years ago, certain of the truth and goodness of my path. But as the food philosopher George Ohsawa † pointed out so pithily,“ What has a front has a back, and the bigger the front, the bigger the back.” Fortunately, time, rather than intelligence or study, eventually helps us see the other side of things. As my friend Elida healed herself on vegetarian food, so my husband, John, got sick on it. He had become vegetarian out of intellectual conviction a year and a half before we met; not much had bothered him in his general health, except some allergies, but he became convinced that a change in diet was in order because it made so much sense according to the books he was reading. He made the transition to a diet of raw fruit, vegetables, salads, some whole grains, and lots of almonds and sesame seeds. That winter, 1978 – 79, he felt extremely cold and also became quite thin; although friends and relatives pointed out that he wasn’ t looking well, he insisted that he was. Yet his energy was low, his interest in work minimal, his emotions shaky; depression stalked him like a hungry ghost. He thought that he was just going through a healing crisis and stuck it out for ten months; but eventually he decided that he needed some extra protein and added more whole grains, beans, and fish twice a week. That made him feel better, though still far from great. I myself had also been a pure vegetarian( without fish, eggs, or dairy products) from the fall of 1979 to the spring of 1980; perhaps as like attracts like, we became a couple and eventually married. At the time, John was doing daily cooking demonstrations at a large department store and soon joined me as a teacher at my school. I clearly remember his breakfasts in those days. I’ d get up, make breakfast and school lunches for the kids, eat the leftovers, and run off on errands or business. John, in addition to what I’ d already cooked, would make elaborate and beautiful vegetable dishes and then sit and chew conscientiously for half an hour. I calculated that between chopping, eating, and cleaning up, he would spend two hours on breakfast. And then came lunch. And then dinner. I loved his food. It was beautiful and delicious, for his Middle Eastern background and his training as a chef had given him a fine touch with seasonings. The kids were especially fond of his vegetable stir-fry and his bulgur ‡ with fine noodles. We shared the family cooking, which was a blessing for me. Yet although the girls and I did quite well on our simple fare, I could see that John did not. His energy level and his moods were always low, and he constantly felt somewhat unwell. Disconcerting as it was for me that my husband was not thriving on our wonderful, healthy food, I began to encourage him to eat animal protein more often.