All extracts copyright 2000 Dr David Collison

We will all die. The process of ageing is inevitable, and in due course we will die. To die healthy sounds like a paradox. However there are well-documented instances of people, of great age, who go to bed without any signs or symptoms of disease, and just die in their sleep. At autopsy, there is no underlying disease process to account for their deaths. They died healthy. Mostly, when people die, they do so from disease — a coronary, a stroke, cancer, diabetes and its complications …. at a younger age than they should have. This book sets out dietary guidelines to help you live to a 100 or more years, free from disease and symptoms and, in the fullness of time, to die healthy.

CONTENTS

Introduction
Prologue
1....How Healthy Are We?
2....The Ideal Diet
3....The Typical Australian Diet
4....Dietary Guidelines
5....The Glycaemic Index
6....Water
7....Fruit
8....Vegetable and Fruit Juices
9....Raw is Better
10..Dairy Products, Osteoporosis and Calcium
11..Vitamin Supplements
12..Food Combining
13..Fasting
14..Why Organic?
15..A Few Other Guidelines
End Words

Appendix 1. Fruit, Nuts and Peanuts

Index

INTRODUCTION

           The gods do not send illness to men.
           Men bring it on themselves.

Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine
(c. 460 - 357 B.C.)

Good health is the most fundamental of rights. Sickness, and the suffering that results from it, are universal. No one is spared from their effects, either at a personal level or, less directly, from the illnesses affecting family and friends.

This book is about HEALTH.

Health is defined by the Macquarie Dictionary as:
“Soundness of the body; freedom from disease (morbid condition of the body or some organ or part), illness, sickness or ailment.”

Health is the absence of disease.

Absence of symptoms does not, necessarily, mean that there is no underlying disease process. For example, it is possible to have advanced narrowing of the arteries to the heart (coronary artery disease) with no symptoms whatsoever.

Generally it is accepted that, if we have no symptoms, we must be healthy. However, most of us have almost forgotten what it is to function at an optimum level, symptom free. Headaches, fatigue, backaches, anxiety, insomnia and two or three colds each year have come to be taken as an almost inseparable part of modern life, something we are supposed to put up with, and shut up about. Indeed people suffering from these things, for the most part, regard themselves as healthy. Are they? NO.

We should have NO symptoms.

We should be disease free.

This book is about one aspect of gaining and maintaining health: DIET.

This book sets out DIETARY GUIDELINES.

‘Guidelines’ are not a universal prescription for every person, and there is, of course, no one perfect diet for everyone. These guidelines will take us much closer to mankind’s natural way of eating, which will result in improved health, less disease, illness and suffering, and a later onset of disease.

Inevitably, some people will require variation from the recommended guidelines to suit individual needs. Professional guidance can be helpful and may sometimes be essential to help determine the perfect diet for you.