DIET
The metabolism of food has three aspects: digestion, assimilation, and residue.
1) DIGESTION - Food and drink enter through the mouth. Digestion is fragmentation or breakdown of food as small as possible. This is accomplished by heat, the vital power of the body. The body cooks food beginning with mastication and saliva in the mouth and is continued in the stomach and the small intestine. The number of different kinds of enzymes that accomplish this breakdown of food by heating is well beyond the knowledge of modern medicine which only has knowledge of a handful of them. The body is much more complicated than the cosmos.
2) ASSIMILATION - This digestive process leads to the liver. The liver is a factory that sends these foods to become the different parts of the body. The best parts become blood. The four humours are manufactured in the liver. As an essential organ, the liver equals the heart. Without a liver, no one can survive even for a short time.
3) RESIDUE - The unuseable parts are dispensed to the large intestine.
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THE TEMPERAMENTS OF FOOD
The two most essential temperaments are heat and cold. All foods, drinks, and herbs can be classified as either hot or cold.
HOT FOODS SPEED OR INCREASE BODILY METABOLISM.
COLD FOODS SLOW BODILY METABOLISM.
Furthermore, each food can be classed according to one of four degrees of intensity of either hot or cold. A food or drink of the first degree temperament is one that is mild and is mostly reacted upon by the body instead of influencing the body. Water is an example of a first degree cold drink. Fourth degree foods, herbs, or drinks are the poisons. Fourth degree hot foods speed up metabolism faster than the rates which can accomodate life. Fourth degree cold foods slow or stop bodily metabolism to a rate too slow to sustain life. In a proper diet, hot and cold foods balance each other. This concept even applies to the fourth degrees as this is how one can logically discern an antidote to a poison. Unfortunately, most nutrition systems are classified according to nutrients rather than the way the foods assist the body. If we select foods according to their degree of heat or coldness (whether they speed or slow metabolism), then our diet can assist the metabolism of the body. One should eat to live rather than live to eat.
HEATING FOODS
Meat and Fish: lamb, liver, chicken, eggs, goat (male), fish (general).
Dairy Products: sheep's milk, cream cheese, cream, clarified butter (ghee).
Vegetables and Beans: beet, radish, onion, mustard greens, red lentils, white lentils, kidney beans, leek, eggplant, chick peas, red pepper, green pepper, carrot seed, squash.
Fruits: peach, plum, orange, lime, mulberries, red raisins, green raisins, olive, ripe grapes, pumpkin, all dried fruits.
Seeds and Nuts: sesame, almond, pistachio, apricot kernels, walnut, pine nuts.
Grains: thingrain rice, basmati rice.
Oils: sesame oil, corn oil, castor oil, mustard oil Be ~ gts black tea, coffee.
Herbs: cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, fenugreek, ginger, celery seed, anise seed, rue, saffron~ garam masala (blend), curry powder (blend).
Other: honey, rock candy, all sweet things, salt, all modern medicine.
COOLING FOODS
Meat: rabbit, goat (female), beef.
Dairy Products: cow's milk, mother's milk, goat's milk, butter, buttermilk, dried cheeses, margarine.
Vegetables and Beans: lettuce, celery, sprouts (general), zucchini, spinach, cabbage, okra, cauliflower, broccoli, white potato, sweet potato, carrot, cucumber, soybeans, tomato, turnip, peas, beans (general).
Fruits: melons (general), pear, coconut, fig, banana, pomegranate.
Seeds and Nuts: none.
Grains: brown rice, thick grain rice.
Oils: sunflower oil, coconut oil.
Beverages: green teas.
Herbs: coriander (dry), dill, henna.
Other: refined sugar, vinegar, bitter things, sour things.
When food is not eaten according to this natural metabolic principle, the foods are not digested properly which leads to accumulation of superfluous substances which will eventually reach a limit called the healing crisis. The healing crisis involves fever which is a heat that cooks down the excess matter in order to eliminate it from the body. This is exclusively accomplished in five ways different ways which include mucus, vomiting, and diarrhea (which is a rapid evacuation from the body of toxic substances). Unfortunately, western medicine attempts to control diarrhea, stop vomiting, and stem nausea with drugs. Thus, western medicine attempts to hault the very processes the body uses to eliminate toxic substances and turns these substances and chemical drugs inward to the body creating unnecessary complications.
The basic diet of the majority of americans (milk, beef, potatoes, salads, white sugars, cheese, butter...) is virtually all cold foods. Excess cold foods leads to imbalance of the phlegm humour which produces diseases common to americans such as arthritis, headaches, constipation. When this trend reaches an advanced stage (an excess of the black bile humour) diseases such as cancer and emphysema develop.