Foreword This is the most profound book on nutrition I have ever read. Filled with wisdom— derived from a kaleidoscopic array of sources— Annemarie Colbin successfully integrates modern medicine, folklore, alternative healing systems, legend, myth, and common sense. The result is a mosaic pattern that is as pleasing esthetically as it is practical on a personal level. Coming from a background of modern medicine, I, as well as hundreds of thousands of other M. D. s, was carefully educated in nutritional ignorance— indeed in disdain for food. The hospital“ dietician” was not— and is not even today— a teacher of physicians. The dietician’ s traditional purpose in life has always been to serve as a“ referral” for a patient who bothered the physician with too many questions about food. The very title of this book Food and Healing represents a joining of two concepts that most doctors regard as unrelated. But thanks to my patients, I have learned something about nutrition since my formal education ended. I now appreciate Mark Twain’ s answer to the question,“ Where did you get your education?” His response:“ Throughout my life— except for the years I attended school.” All doctors can learn from Annemarie Colbin what they didn’ t learn in school. And because of pressure from insistent patients, who now know that food is important, doctors have a new and powerful incentive to learn. Patients are increasingly aware of the aphorism that when it comes to nutrition, a doctor knows as much as his secretary— unless she has been on a diet, in which case she knows more. But this book is important for many other than M. D. s. For those whose backgrounds are in general nutrition, macrobiotics, herbology, vegetarianism, fruitarianism, homeopathy, iridology, faith healing, reflexology, massage therapy, natural hygiene, and other food and healing systems, Annemarie Colbin has provided an opportunity to make a giant leap forward. While other books are satisfied to downgrade— and even attempt to destroy— those they regard as competitors, Annemarie Colbin instead selects judiciously and comprehensively from each system, correlates aspects of different methods, highlights interrelationships between various approaches— all with thorough documentation and clarity of expression. Taste just a sample of the delicious morsels in this book:
•“ No one diet is right for everyone all the time.”
•“ In the modern western belief system …‘ it could have happened to anyone’ is the consoling, guilt-absorbing response. The sick one is a victim, not responsible for the state of his health.”
•“ Any cure of a major disease that occurred without official medical intervention is considered‘ spontaneous remission.’”
•“ Could the lack of an integrated energy field in baby formulas be the reason for the high correlation of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome( SIDS) and formula feeding?”
•“ The partial, fragmented, unwholesome, chemically tampered-with foods that the Standard American Diet( S. A. D.) consists of cannot, in the long run, adequately support healthy life processes …”
•“ Forcing a sick person to eat‘ to keep up his strength’ overlooks the fact that digestion uses up strength too.”
•“ Every food philosophy has its dogma and its devils, its sin and its salvation.” In accord with the definition of intelligence as the ability to identify and correlate important relationships, Food and Healing is a quintessentially intelligent book. I recommend it as the state-of-the-art work in the field— second best only to a personal consultation with its author.
Robert S. Mendelsohn, M. D. Author, Confessions of a Medical Heretic