Natural Holistic Health

Yet another book on diet, disease, do’s and don’t. It seems that we are so confused about eating and disease that we are constantly looking for a theory that actually works. It’s sad to say that the only people these theories work for are the authors and publishers in terms of profitability. What is remarkable is that we all have been through the Adkins disaster, the South Beach Diet craze, the Zone, and Blood type dieting, and yet we still don’t know what to eat.

The sheer number of diet theories is not an indication that they are all useless, and simply designed to add more complexity to an already confusing situation. There is some merit to each one of them. What is suspect is that they each attempt to formulate some theory about why diets don’t work, and then attempt to solve the problem by placing food in either a good or bad category for the reader to abide by.

What is unique about Eating Right for your Blood type, written by Peter J. D’Adamo, ND, is that it is formulated on research that shows the migration and evolution of human blood types. Furthermore, based on this theory, humans would have eaten what was available in the type of surrounding that they had evolved into. Eating foods that come from outside that evolved station would result consuming incompatible “protein lectins”, resulting in inflammation and disease. It is a great theory, and explains biology quite well. But the theory goes on to neatly place everyone in a box, based upon blood types, and recommend foods that are either suited to their blood type or not. There we have it, all neat and tidy, in a box.

Just like the Adkins Craze went too far, Eating Right for your Blood Type has become somewhat of a cult craze. Yes, there are books, tapes, products and even schools that train so-called experts in teaching and coaching the diet. It is a marketing bonanza. The problem arises when you look at this theory from a broader perspective.

Evolution didn’t stop with mutation of blood types. The Industrial Revolution happened and with that came food additives, genetic engineering of food sources, fast food and stress. We don’t look like, dress, behave or eat like our ancestors. More than ample evidence shows that french fries are not suitable for human consumption no matter what your blood type. It doesn’t take statistics from the National Institute of Health to figure out that stress kills. We all quietly know this. We know that we have evolved to the point where we are all dying from too much progress with a diagnosis of “chronic disease”.

Dr. D’Adamo ignores this most contemporary step in evolution completely. He also ignores the fact that there are precious few untainted food resources left that can be consumed safely. Because of our race for profits and progress, our meats have become injected and exposed to outrageous amounts of antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, and growth hormones. Finding safe meat is difficult. The same is true of fruits and vegetables. To blindly ignore the reality of our poisoned food sources, and to eliminate a rare source of vitamins because of an evolution theory, leaves many of us in a situation where it is impossible to find food.

The facts are that most of our contemporary diseases are not caused by an incompatibility in our genetic history and our food choices. Our diseases are caused by our contemporary life style. We eat too much processed food, we don’t sleep enough, we don’t smile enough, we don’t exercise enough, we don’t drink enough pure water, and we are paranoid and stressed beyond health.

Our ancestors are dead. We have to survive our immediate surroundings. To do that we MUST avoid those poisons that will kill: this would include smoking, alcohol, drugs, stress, artificial foods, artificial medicines, and artificial “entertainment”. Consuming dead things NEVER gives life.

To survive our contemporay culture, we need some common sense rather than another theory or book of do's and don'ts. Natural Holistic Health proposes guidelines like:
Eat only food that looks like food and bears no “ingredients list”. Engage in life fully by using your mind and body. Play, laugh and engage with real people. Go to bed on time. Drink plenty of water. Don’t worry about things over which you have no control. Don’t look for “quick fixes” as a way to deal with your own survival. Learn a healthy form of self discipline. Be happy. Eat the wonderful fruits and vegetables that are in season as it will be a year before you see them again. Detox Annually. Be the best you can be.