Food Combining for Health: Get Fit with Foods that Don't Fight

by Doris Grant, Jean Joice

Over 50 years ago, Dr. William Hay concluded that the body uses acids to digest proteins and alkalis to digest starches, and that mixing the two might lead to painful indigestion and more serious problems such as ulcers, allergies, and obesity. Though criticized at the time, the Hay System has been vindicated by modern research, and provides essentially the healthy, whole-food diet of mostly alkali-forming foods such as fruits, green vegetables, and salads advocated by many leading nutritionists today.

Food Combining for Health shows how to separate incompatible foods.

Explains how the Hay System can alleviate the symptoms of chronic diseases such as arthritis and diabetes, while increasing energy and well-being in those without specific health problems.

Includes recipes and seasonal menu suggestions.

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Born Doris Margaret Louise Cruikshank, she was educated at Banff Academy. She attended the Glasgow School of Art, where she won a scholarship to study in Rome. But was withdrawn when she became engaged to Gordon Grant, whom she met through their mutual interest in music and married in 1927.

In 1931 Doris Grant became ill with a severe rheumatic condition which would not respond to orthodox treatment. Only after taking up Dr. Hay‘s food combining diet did she find her cure.

Hay suggested that she write a book for the British market, and this was published in 1937. After the outbreak of war, Doris Grant wrote Feeding the Family in Wartime (1942), which emphasised the importance of a balanced diet in a time of severe restrictions, and offered a selection of recipes.

Two years later she published Your Daily Bread, the first of her bestsellers. In addition to supplying recipes, this cited a wide variety of evidence about how beri-beri became prevalent in such places as Norway, Labrador and Java after white flour and other "civilised" foods became fashionable. Refined white bread, from which wheat germ had been removed, was a "murdered food", she concluded.

Her groundbreaking book, Food Combining for Life, written with Jean Joice, has sold over a million copies and has been translated into 15 languages.

One of her most celebrated achievements was the "Grant Loaf". To produce three of these loaves required 3 lb of stone-ground wholewheat flour; two pints of water; two teaspoons of salt; three teaspoons of Barbados sugar (or, alternatively, a tablespoonful of honey); and three teaspoon measures of dried yeast.

But the key element in the Grant Loaf was the result of an error which she made when she started to make her own bread: after several months Doris Grant realised that she had forgotten to knead her dough. She then conducted an experiment, using kneaded and unkneaded dough, in which her friends confirmed that the latter tasted best.

(source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obitu... & http://www.harpercollins.com.au/autho...)

Reviews

[Freya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good advice. It addresses the science of what happens inside the digestive system as opposed to outside it like most scientific nutrition books.

[Saleris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. I don't follow it slavishly (I can't), but the ideas I have from it (and the sister vegetarian book) makes food combining work for me and my diet limitations.

[Judith Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Food Combining works for me!