MIXED MEALS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 232, 3 December 1943, Page 3

MIXED MEALS

Sir,-Dr, Bell raises the question of the eating of starch and protein at the | Same meal, Yes, there seem to be many people who eat mixed meals and keep healthy; but colds and rheumatism and stomach troubles are very prevalent, and doctors have not yet told us why this should be. In my ’teens I had an attack of rheumatic fever,- and afterwards was continually suffering from stomach trouble and rheumatism. Doctors gave me temporary relief. Naturally I searched for a permanent cure. I turned vegetarian, but other troubles arose-pulmonary; colds were a nightmare. Six years ago I began the starch and protein gegime-separate. Always the lean kind, I have at last gained weight, have an excellent appetite, taste my food much better, and what is vital, have lost the old complaints, and rarely get a cold. What I find commendable about this diet is-hunger is not always gnawing a hole in one’s stomach, and one can eat anything, provided the mixture is right. My rule is-nothing acid with a starch meal, which can include vegetable salads and sweets and sweet fruits, and no sweets or starch with a protein meal, which should always include vegetables or salads and acid fruits

HEALTH

FIEND

(Wellington).

(Dr. Bell, at our . request, ies: "It is always g puzzle to know how it is possible to be consistent in this particular dietary regime when green vegetables contain about as much protein as they do carbohydrate, bread contains one a. of protein to every five parts starch (and "starch-reduced" bread one of protein to two or three'of starch), milk contains one part of protein to one part of carbohydrate, peas contain one part of protein to three parts of starch. At what particular level of combination of protein and carbohydrate does one draw the line? "Sometimes people stumble on the thing that suits them, and give the wrong explanation for it, Some years ago, I was discussing

this particula: regime with a doctor friend who is an F.R.C.P.; we came to the conclusion that in the cases where it is successful, it might do one of several things: (1) Convince the patient through the very strength of its assertions (2) Decrease the total carbohydrate and the total calories (3) Eliminate entirely a food towards which a patient has an allergy. "That it does sometimes eliminate a food entirely — not always to the benefit of the patient-can be illustrated from the following instance. A woman whose husband would not allow his children to eat meat and potatoes at the same meal, told me with a worried look that as they took their meal té school, where they could not very well eat potatoes all by themselves, and as they had their meat meal in the evening, the ultimate result was that they ate no potatoes at all, and ‘they were so fond of them, too.’ I have no doubt that many a potato was surreptitiously eaten before father came home, "A strong claim is more convincing ‘than a weak one, if neither can be proved; this might easily have been Hitler’s motto, as it has been the guiding principle of many a cult that has its day and then ceases to be. Those of us with memories remember the Abrams Box; no less a person than Upton Sinclair believed in it. In those days of 20 years ago, tadio was a mys , and the Abrams Box convinced those who did not understand radio and electricity. Earlier than that, before proele understood electricity and magnetism, sha Perkins claimed to draw disease from the body by means cf two rods, one of brass and the other of iron. When wood was substituted for the metals, physicians still got the same mar. vellous results. Perkins himself made a fortune, and then joined the Quakers."’),