CHAPTER FOUR - Starches

The vegetable kingdom produces vast quantities of starch.  It is present in particularly large proportions in all grains, the roots and stems of many plants.  Starch molecules are long-chain carbohydrate molecules, closely related to each other as you will see in CHAPTER FOURTEEN. (Be patient, it will still be published!) Nutritionally they are very important, but because modern commercial practices have led to their being "cornered" by vested interests, many of the products arising are so unnatural that they now constitute a threat to man's well-being.  I have enlarged a little on this theme in chapter fourteen.

Wheaten products and potatoes feature strongly in the diet of many people.  For ourselves we have always favoured whole-wheat bread over other breads, and potatoes cooked in their jackets.  As pointed out later on, we know that we cannot be sure that we are getting truly whole-wheat meal so, having conducted this study, we are now cutting down our consumption of our bread to two slices each and then only two or three times a week!  We have considerably reduced our usage of potatoes too!  At this point a modified Atkins approach is used - "COUNT ALL STARCHES and DI-SACCHARIDES".

CHAPTER ONE - GENERAL

We first adopted the all-fruit breakfast style, as suggested by the Diamonds, about 1992.  Initially, we weren't too conscientious about it, but we certainly found some improvements in our health.  A friend of mine has been on the Atkins routing for several years.  He has a particularly awkward problem threatening diabetes and reports favourably on it without needing to invoke medical assistance.  I decided to make a serious study of it as it is very close to the Munro ideas, but more systematic.  Munro, without actually saying so, made me very conscious of the fact that the caloric theory is pointless, even stupid, so I gave up counting calories.  Atkins confirmed this idea and substitutes a guide by counting carbohydrates.

At this point is seems necessary to put in an aside.  Why should we bother further with our pursuit of a natural, drug-free state of health?  We are really doing very well;

• Rona was containing her blood pressure problem without medical drugs, using herbs;
• her thyroid problem was being controlled with a little extra vitamin plus a homeopathic preparation;
• I couldn't avoid some medication being in the hands of an ophthalmologist for conditions threatening blindness;
• we had a mere passing acquaintance with colds and 'flu.
• We were pretty poor customers of our GP and apothecary.

Well, we just felt we had not really completed the search, the search for perfection - what we felt our Creator was holding out to us; after all, had we not been singled out as evidence by so much prompting and guidance?

While my study of Atkins' ideas was in progress, Rona came across a very slim, unobtrusive book one day while we were visiting the public library.  It was called  "I Live on Fruit" by Essie Honiball.  It was the first edition of her book and it contained photographs of what she looked like before and after she adopted a diet consisting solely of fresh fruit (in season) and a small portion of plain, untoasted nuts under the guidance of a man who had been studying the subject for years and years.  At the time she started under his care, she was really just "skin and bone" weighing something like 30 kg and not responding to any of the treatments prescribed by her doctors.  A few years later she was well covered at about double that mass.  It was the photographs that really caught my attention as they reminded me of how emaciated my first wife looked at the time of her death.  It also reminded me of a book we had acquired while we were living in Tasmania. "Live Food Juices", in which Dr Kirschner describes curing a patient of a similar wasting disease using only carrot juice - one U.S gallon per day!  He showed similar photographs.  I couldn't get to read Essie's book quickly enough.  Since then we have acquired the latest edition of her book - she has been on the diet for over 30 years now and is living in Montagu.  She's done a really marvelous job spreading the knowledge.

Now I had a variety of approaches to the question of healthy eating to compare.  Each of them had some merit, none were without merit.  I know that, from my own observations and from what I had reported to me by persons who felt much the same as I did.  It seemed obvious that in the case of some bodily constitutions, conditions had arisen, maybe of genetic origin, such that tolerances differed widely.  There is also a great possibility that years of dieting in a particular manner induces either weaknesses or strengths in a particular direction.  What then, is the best way to go about finding a diet which can really be described as an ALL ROUND health diet, suitable for everybody?

Certain points stood out very plainly as I considered this matter.

1. The first point is that modern western man tends to be an over eater.  There is a simple explanation for this that I will cover later.
2. The second point that came clearly through, was that most people ate far too much starchy food.  The dangers that lurk therein will be explained later.
3. Less obvious but often confirmed by medical experience, is the heavy consumption of protein, especially animal protein.  I'll attempt to cover this later as well.

The conclusion at which I arrived after comparing all of the books and ideas available therein, pointed very clearly to the concept of wholeness so that "wholesome" meant what it said in the strictest possible way, beyond our meagre understanding of what our Creator had in mind for our well being, that is to say, almost holiness.

At this stage, I think it best to summarize the approach we are using at present and maybe mention what we believe to be our ultimate goal, rather than bore you with our reasonings - such will be provided in the final chapters.  By following this procedure, you can get to the nitty-gritty quite quickly.

In discussing diet, authors often do so under the heading PROTEIN, CARBOHYDRATE, FAT, and probably various minerals and vitamins.  In discussing health the chances are great that EXERCISE and BREATHING will also receive some attention.  For reason which will become apparent later, I propose following a slightly different procedure; the headings I'll be using are MONO SACCHARIDES, DI and TRI-SACCHARIDES, STARCHES and CELLULOSES (i.e. four separate headings in the place of CARBOHYDRATE), FAT, PROTEIN, EXERCISE, BREATHING, "MEDICINAL" HERBS, ELIMINATION, MENTAL STATE and IMPLEMENTATION.