Fit For Life Review

 

Review by a Registered Dietitian

By Ellen Coleman, RD, MA, MPH. She is a registered dietitian and exercise physiologist. She is a member of SCAN (Sports, Cardiovascular, and Wellness Nutrition), American College of Sports Medicine and is the nutrition consultant for The Sport Clinic.

Natural Hygiene, an offshoot of naturopathy, denounces medical science and promotes periodic fasting and food combining (popularized by the book Fit for Life). This foolish diet book, which sold over one million copies, shows how a weight loss program founded on unscientific concepts can be a huge commercial success.

The authors, Harvey and Marilyn Diamond (Harvey acquired a Ph.D. in nutritional science from an unaccredited school), espouse the theory of "food combining". This theory states that when foods are combined inappropriately, they become "rotten" and cannot be absorbed from the intestinal tract. This toxifies the body and makes people fat.

The Diamonds contend that people gain weight not due to overeating and inadequate exercise, but because they eat protein rich foods at the same time they eat starchy foods. The authors say our digestive tracts cannot assimilate more than one of these "concentrated foods" at a time, since the enzymes that digest protein nullify the enzymes that digest carbohydrate, and visa versa.

As a result, the Diamonds claim, food cannot be digested when they are eaten together. In the process, they add, all the food's nutrients are destroyed and toxic by-products are stored in fat tissue, where they cause a "bloated appearance".

The Diamonds believe that the energy wasted on the incomplete digestion of these foods reduces the body's ability to eliminate the "toxic residues" deposited in the fat tissues after previous meals. Their solution is to eat only one "concentrated" food per meal, and to make 70% of the diet foods with a high water content such as fruits and vegetables. The Diamonds favor fruits and vegetables because foods high in water can "wash the toxic waste" from the inside of the body, instead of "clogging" the body.

These theories totally disagree with our knowledge of physiology and nutrition. The concepts of "food combining" originated at the turn of the century, when people knew little about basic physiology and nutrition.

Food combining frequently contradicts itself. If so much of our food is not completely digested, then many of the calories consumed would be lost in the stools and couldn't be stored as fat. Decreased calorie absorption causes weight loss, not weight gain.

The theory that eating "concentrated" foods together results in a loss of nutrients is ridiculous. Eating animal and vegetable protein in the same meal causes more efficient utilization of the vegetable protein. Likewise, the non-heme iron in plant foods is better absorbed when consumed with meat or another source of heme iron. And, non-heme iron is better absorbed when consumed with fruits or vegetables high in vitamin C.

Some people did lose weight by following the dietary advice in Fit for Life because low calorie fruits and vegetables were emphasized. However, food combining urges people to eliminate major food groups. Reputable nutrition experts indicate that eating a variety of foods from the Food Guide Pyramid is necessary for adequate nutrition.

Food combining may create deficiencies in zinc, vitamin D, vitamin B12, and possibly protein, since the diet limits animal protein and eliminates dairy products. The ban on dairy foods certainly jeopardizes calcium intake, since dairy products account for nearly 75% of the calcium in the American diet.

The following article is reprinted with permission from the author.

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