Did you ever go to a soda fountain for a fancy sundae after taking an examination? Or have you sometimes rewarded yourself for finishing a difficult job with an especially good meal in a restaurant? Do you recall with pleasure certain meals at birthday parties or holidays? Food is often used in one way or another to express or to cover up our feelings of happiness, love, security, worry, grief, loneliness, and so on.

The baby who is held when he is fed associates his food with warmth and security. But a child who is scolded for being messy may associate certain foods with unhappiness. Some teenagers overeat to compensate for a poor record in school or unpopularity with their classmates. Elderly persons living alone often eat far too little, because they are lonely and unhappy. People who are grieving or who can’t face the problems that beset them are known to gain excessive weight in some instances, because they find relief in eating excessive quantities of food.

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GENERAL HEALTH

The Airola Optimum Diet of three basic foods – seeds, nuts and grains; vegetables; and fruits – supplemented with the special super-foods and food supplements named above, will assure you a complete and adequate supply of all required nutrients for optimum health, including sufficient amounts of complete high quality proteins. A moderate amount of eggs, fish or meat may be added to this basic diet, if desired (particularly the fish in coastal areas or meat in far northern regions with long winters), but their inclusion is not necessary. In temperate, subtropical and tropical climates, the highest level of health and extended longevity can be best achieved and maintained without meat.

Furthermore, when diet is used therapeutically, that is as a part of an overall program in healing disease, the pure vegetarian or lacto-vegetarian diet is always preferable. Animal proteins, especially meat, always have a detrimental effect on the healing processes.

But even in a diet aimed at preventive or prophylactic purposes, an excessive consumption of animal proteins should be avoided. A high animal protein diet is definitely detrimental to health and may cause or contribute to many of our most common diseases.

In this era of “high protein cult” you have been brought to believe that a high protein diet is a must if you wish to attain a high level of health and prevent disease. Health writers and “experts” who advocated high protein diet were misled by slanted research, which was financed by dairy or meat industries, or by insufficient and outdated information. Most recent research, worldwide, both scientific and empirical, shows more and more convincingly that our past beliefs in regard to high requirement of protein are outdated and incorrect, and that the actual daily need for protein in human nutrition is far below that which has long been considered necessary. Researchers, working independently in many parts of the world, arrived at the conclusion that our actual daily need of protein is only 25 to 35 grams – even less if raw proteins from milk and vegetable sources are used (raw proteins being utilized twice as well as cooked). Independent researchers, not associated with or paid by dairy or meat industries, also point out that, contrary to past beliefs, proteins from many vegetable sources are superior or equal to animal proteins in their biological value – not inferior, as some meat cultists claim. Almonds, sesame seeds, soybeans, buckwheat, peanuts, sunflower seed, pumpkin seeds, potatoes, and all leafy green vegetables contain complete proteins, which are comparable in quality to animal proteins. This revealing information comes from the most reliable and respected nutrition research organization in the world, the Max Planck Institute for Nutritional Research, in Germany.

But, what is even more important, the worldwide research brings almost daily confirmation of the scientific premise and which shocked high-protein-brainwashed Americans – that proteins, essential and important as they are, can be extremely harmful when consumed in excess of your actual need. Especially an excess of cooked animal protein can cause serious health disorders.

The metabolism of proteins consumed in excess of the actual need leaves toxic residues of metabolic wastes in tissues, causes autotoxemia, over-acidity and nutritional deficiencies, accumulation of uric acid and purines in the tissues, intestinal putrefaction, and contributes to the development of many of our most common and serious diseases, such as arthritis, kidney damage, pyorrhea, schizophrenia, osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, heart disease and cancer. A high protein diet also causes premature aging and lowers life expectancy.

All the above mentioned results of a high-animal-protein diet are well documented by reliable scientific research.

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GENERAL HEALTH