“ What would you love to eat?” I asked one day.“ Steak,” he said, unhesitatingly.“ But I don’ t think I should.” Ah, the brainwashing! I almost agreed; but I believe in listening to the body’ s inner voice, and besides, I was curious.“ Why don’ t you try it,” I suggested,“ and see what happens.” I must confess to flapping around restlessly when he brought in a steak and cooked it. He confessed to feeling guilty. Yet he relished the meat and felt much better after eating it. Little by little, John began eating fish, chicken, or duck almost daily; every ten days or so he’ d have a steak. Slowly, he grew stronger, his moods improved, breakfast became a manageable fifteen or twenty minutes, and he stopped worrying about his adrenals. His allergies had improved when he’ d stopped eating dairy products; now, an occasional encounter with Brie or goat’ s cheese reactivated them slightly, but he didn’ t mind, for he loved the cheese. By the summer of 1983, John was working fourteen hours a day in a restaurant and living on fresh vegetables, whole grains, pasta, fruit, and animal protein every day, with modest amounts of coffee, beer, and wine thrown in for good measure. He felt better than he’ d ever felt during his three years on a healthy vegetarian regimen, a fact that we both found very interesting. It was obvious to us that his body had not reacted well to such a diet, although many other people thrive on it.“ Perhaps it’ s because I’ m a Leo,” he joked one day.“ Lions are not known to be vegetarians.” John’ s experience was a lesson for both of us about the fallacy of being stuck in any single, strict food ideology. Interestingly, though our marriage eventually faltered, we both changed and widened our approach to food because of it. He found himself using the information he’ d picked up from me to help friends and colleagues out of their own nutritional ruts, whether they had been too heavy on the meat, or on the cheese, or on the fruit. I became, I think, less rigid a“ health nut.” After I had practiced a mostly vegetarian way of eating for over twenty years, the thought that meat could make someone feel better and stronger was almost heresy— unthinkable. But one day’ s heresy is another day’ s truth, and so balance is achieved. Elida’ s case is not unusual. There is a rapidly growing number of people who are regaining their health through simple, natural eating. They have decided to take charge of their own health and life. They know that doctors and healers have their place as helpers in serious conditions, in emergencies, or when home remedies don’ t work. But in many conditions, violent medical intervention resembles bailing water out of a leaking boat instead of fixing the leak, whereas a change in diet may indeed fix it. John’ s case is also becoming more common, as people who have made a conscious dietary change to“ health food” become stuck in dogma and stop listening to the signals of their own body. What I found necessary, therefore, was to come up with a unified theory of food and healing that would take into account all the dynamics of their interaction, a theory that can be used to adjust new data as it comes in and integrate it with the old. That is what this book is all about. I have written it to share with you the theoretical principles of healthsupportive eating that I’ ve applied for over twenty years, and the practical tools based on them. The first part of the book,“ Dynamics of Living Systems,” lays out the principles, which are based as much on Eastern concepts as on Western logic; I have found, in my own life, that a combination of the two gives an amazing flexibility of response to problems. The second and third parts,“ Food,” and“ Healing,” show how those principles can be applied practically, in our daily lives, to help us in our continual quest to heal ourselves. I firmly believe that theory is useless if it is not based on practice. But I have also found that it is not possible to find one set of principles that applies to, explains, and helps solve all situations. Therefore I will present you with several mental models, all of which work some of the time, but none of which, I think, works all of the time. For example, if according to the“ scientific-nutritional” model it seems that a week of fasting would be harmful( because a person would apparently not get the full amount of nutrients such a model deems necessary), then we’ d have to switch to the“ natural healing” model to explain the fact that many people benefit greatly from just such a week. Or, to use a couple of models you’ ll encounter later in the book, from an expansive-contractive viewpoint it seems peculiar that people who eat a diet composed largely of fruit and vegetables also crave sweets( which many do). Both are expansive, and the idea is that if you eat too much expansive food, you’ ll crave its opposite, something contractive, such as miso or salt. Yet from an acid-alkaline viewpoint, this sugar craving makes perfect sense— fruits and vegetables are“ alkalizing”; and when eaten in large quantities, they will create a craving for sugar and flour, which are“ acid forming,” and thus balancing. If we insisted on organizing our food choices strictly according to the model of contractive versus expansive foods, we would try to exercise our will power and refrain from eating sugar, a foodstuff now widely regarded as harmful; but if we take into account the concept of the acid and alkaline content of foods, and see that what is missing in our diet is some acid-forming food, then we can satisfy that need by eating more whole grains and dried beans, which are acid-forming but healthful, and thereby easily and harmlessly defuse our sugar craving. One of the most important concepts I hope to put across is that there is no one diet that is right for everyone all the time. It is crucial that each person contemplating a change in diet monitor his or her own body’ s feedback,