Whenever I'm asked about "food combinations"—which is frequently—I feel like the old country doctor who was asked by an anxious young mother whether castor oil was good for her child. To which the old doctor replied: "If you can get it down him, it is. If you can't, it isn't!"

If a food combination is good nutrition, it's all right. If it's not, it isn't!

Let's start out with an all-protein diet—the simplest possi­ble diet, composed of the one food element capable of sup­porting the body in ladiant health.

In the spring of 1906, the now world-famous Vilhjalmur Stefansson made his first trip to the Arctic as the anthro­pologist of a polar expedition. Six months later, through a series of unforeseen events, he found himself separated from the rest of the expedition, and forced to live for a year with the Eskimos in the far northern part of Canada.

During all the time of his enforced stay with these people of the Far North, Stefansson's diet consisted of protein-meat (mostly caribou or seal), meat broth and fish eaten with whale oil. No salt, no bread, no vegetables, or fruit—nothing but meat and fish. An all-protein diet.

At first, he only nibbled at the fresh salmon trout roasted specially for him (the Eskimos eat their fish boiled). In his diary he wrote "what a terrible time" he was having. But after several weeks, much to his surprise, he found himself enjoying the boiled salmon along with his Eskimo hosts; and he would tear into a chunk of caribou meat with the same zest with which he formerly had tackled a porterhouse steak.

The following spring, after six months of this meat-and-fish diet, Stefansson visited a whaling vessel some 200 miles away, and enjoyed New England cooking for a few days. But after this "fling," he returned wholly without regret to his Eskimo diet of meat and fish. Not only that, but he discovered his health couldn't be better, and he was full of an unaccustomed energy while living on this all-protein diet which, contrary to his expectations, did not prove at all monotonous. For, as he expressed it: "You never become tired of your food if you have only one thing to eat."

Nor was this experience on an all-protein diet unique with Stefansson, since he found that the white men he took with him on later polar expeditions also thrived on an exclusively meat-and-fish diet.

This dietary experience prompted Stefansson many years later to volunteer for an all-meat diet experiment at a New York hospital. An experiment, by the way, that caused dis­tinguished American and European physiologists to make flat predictions that the two subjects (Stefansson and a young Dane named Andersen who had been on one of the Arctic expeditions) would not be able to hold out any longer than from three to four days to an outside of three weeks. In fact, one of the most distinguished of the doctors made the state­ment that he found it easier to believe that Stefansson and the members of his expeditions were "lying" than to be­lieve that they had remained "healthy" for several years on an exclusive diet of meat and fish.

Thus it was with a great deal of personal satisfaction that Stefansson and Andersen, both hale and hearty, ended their twelve months of living on nothing but meat and fish. In Stefansson's case, however, an exception had been made to include milk products and eggs (all of them high-grade pro­teins, of course) because he was lecturing throughout the country during that year, and it was not always possible for him to obtain meat or fish for his off-hour meals. But Andersen tasted nothing but meat (that included poultry) and fish for the entire twelve months.

There was no denying the evidence presented in the healthy bodies of these two determined subjects. Both ended the year of their all-protein diets with better health than when they had started it. Moreover, Stefansson, who had been de­clared ten pounds overweight at the beginning of the year, had lost those unwanted ten pounds soon after beginning the diet, and had then maintained his ideal weight without further difficulty.

In Andersen's case, he had been cured of a tendency to suffer one head cold after another, as had been the case when he began the experiment. He also had been troubled with an intestinal toxemia which had cleared up by the end of the year on the all-protein diet.

This remarkable experiment—which was recorded at length in the medical and nutrition journals—is not recited here to stampede you into a hasty change-over to an all-meat diet. For one thing, you would probably find it too expensive to consume the six pounds of meat, or more, which Stefansson estimated he and Andersen ate each day. But here is the irrefutable answer to the outmoded belief that "too much meat is bad for you"; that it "causes" arthritis, high blood pressure, kidney disorders, hardening of the arteries, even diabetes.

Incidentally, despite the lifelong subjection of the Eskimos to violent extremes in temperature (from the sweltering heat of their igloos to the way-below-zero temperature of out­doors), Stefansson reported having found no rheumatism or arthritis among the Eskimos with whom he lived. Neither did they have decayed teeth, head colds, pneumonia, harden­ing of the arteries, diabetes or diseased kidneys. All of which should give us pause for thought.

Regardless of any dietary or religious prejudices you may have against eating flesh foods (meats, fish, poultry, eggs, cheese and milk) the fact remains that they are truly man's "elixir of life"—his pep tonic, his youth-restorer, all com­bined in one!

An all-protein diet, while ideal for health, is not wholly practical for the average person. The expense of such a diet, for one thing, prohibits its widespread adoption; and I have mentioned the experience of Stefansson and Andersen merely to prove that an all-protein diet is one "food combination" that is good nutrition. But because the number of persons who can afford to follow an all-protein diet, or who would wish to do so, is extremely limited, I have worked out a modified high-protein diet in Part II, which still provides abundant protein, yet is kind to your pocketbook.

But, in planning your Eat-and-Grow-Younger diet of high-protein foods, I have tried to keep in mind the only import­ant nutritional taboos which have a basis in scientific fact:

1.  Never combine high-proteins (red meats, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese, milk) with high-starches (rice, mac­aroni, spaghetti, white bread, rich desserts) at the same meal. And if, for some valid reason, you are forced to eat more high-starch meals than high-protein, then by all means take liberal amounts of concentrated B-vitamins, since the more starch you eat, the more your body is leached of the B-complex factors that have the specific task of postponing the day when you must take your final farewell of youth.

2.  Avoid combining pure fats with high starches in the same meal. For instance, bacon (almost 100 per cent fat, and of the wrong kind, too), fried potatoes, cream, white sugar, white bread and jelly are a rather common breakfast menu in some homes, yet nothing could be worse nutrition.

It's absolutely impossible to plan a meal that doesn't in­clude some carbohydrate with its proteins; or some fat with its carbohydrate. But the thing to keep in mind is this: A meal should be predominantly either protein or carbohydrate. And when it is predominantly protein, it should include only those natural starches found in vegetables, fruits, milk and honey or raw sugar. This means, as one example, omitting a rice or macaroni dish and pie with your steak, substituting the carbohydrates to be found in a green salad, a cooked vege­table and a fruit or custard dessert.

This is a good place to clear the lowly white potato of the many unfounded dietary crimes charged against it. Potatoes, either baked or steamed in the skin, are a good food and do not come under the heading of the starches to be omitted from a protein meal. Every baked potato you eat provides 200 units of thiamin, 25 units of riboflavin, 20 milligrams of vitamin C, 13 milligrams of calcium, 53 milligrams of phos­phorus, 1.5 milligrams of iron, and 3 grams of protein. So enjoy a baked or steamed-in-the-skin potato whenever you de­sire, and forget all those things you've heard about ''cutting out potatoes because they make you fat." It's not the potato that adds the calories, but the grease it's fried in, or the gravies poured over it.

There are sound physiological reasons behind the two "food combination" taboos given above.

Nature has provided each human body with two separate digestive processes—an acid process for digesting proteins, and an alkaline process for carbohydrates.

Proteins, as explained in an earlier chapter, are digested principally in the stomach by the gastric juices which nor­mally are strongly acid in the healthy stomach, containing as the most important of their ingredients free hydrochloric acid.

Carbohydrates—the sugar-and-starch foods—are not di­gested in the stomach. They receive their processing in the small intestine from alkaline digestive juices which consist mainly of secretions from the pancreas (an endocrine gland). Those of you who are cooks, as well as those who know a little about chemistry, know that to neutralize sour milk, or molasses (both of which have an acid reaction) always calls for the use of a certain amount of baking soda as an alkalizer.

Now this is what happens when your stomach, secreting its acid juices to digest proteins, is also presented with a load of high-starch food at the same time: The carbohydrates automatically restrict the secretion of the acid stomach juices, since your very sensitive stomach divines that starch is on the way down, and starch is definitely not its business. This load of starch food, after it reaches the stomach, also com­bines with some of the already secreted hydrochloric acid that was intended for the protein foods, and carries the acid on into the small intestine, thus depriving the half-digested protein of the acid needed to finish the job. Not only that, but the introduction of this "stolen" acid into the intestine, -where all is supposed to be alkaline for processing starches, upsets the balance of the pancreatic hormones and enzymes intended to digest the starchy food. This fact was developed some years ago in a study conducted at the Mayo Clinic.

So when you eat high starches with your high-protein meal, you interrupt the digestion of both types of foods. As a result, you lose the maximum nourishment you should obtain from your protein foods, and you burden the intestinal tract with an improperly digested meal.

As for the other nutritional taboo, this is why pure fats and high starches are incompatible in the same meal. Fats are intended to leave the stomach, undigested, and pass into the upper intestine where the gall bladder empties its bile to digest them. During this process of digesting fats, certain fatty acids are produced which immediately neutralize any alkaline secretions that have been called forth to digest starch foods. The one substance which splits the starch molecule and permits its complete digestion is called amylop-sin—and amylopsin can work only in an alkaline solution. Therefore, when the fatty acids produced by digestion of pure fat foods are present in the upper intestine at the same time as the alkaline pancreatic secretions, the digestive fluids become neutralized, and amylopsin immediately stops working. This leaves the starch foods only partially digested —and that means gas pains, belching and constipation.

Nature makes combinations of food elements that we should be wise to heed. Fat and protein are found in com­bination such as the fat in meat, and the cream (fat) and pro­tein in milk. But nowhere in nature will you find pure fat combined with a high-starch food. Consequently, nature did not provide us with a digestive mechanism capable of di­gesting pure fats and high starches at the same time.

But you won't need to worry over much about "food com­binations," if you follow these simple rules which are worked out for you in the menus and recipes given in Part II:

1. Build at least two meals a day around a high-pro­tein food—red meat, gland and organ meats, fish, poul­try, eggs, cheese or seed cereals—combined with fresh salad, vegetables, a cooked vegetable or two and fruits either fresh or cooked. This is the safest food combination to follow, because it not only allows the two diges­tive processes to function properly, but also because it assures you a regular intake of essential proteins, min­erals, and vitamins.

2. When you use cereals and breads, choose only those which will also provide a certain amount of protein, minerals and vitamins, such as whole grains and the seed cereals (millet, sunflower seed, sesame seed).

3. Eat your butter, cream and oil-dressed salads with your protein meals, since fats make a good combination, with proteins.

4. Use only acid beverages with a protein meal—buttermilk, citrus juices—since sweet milk drunk in any quantity with a protein meal neutralizes the acid stomach juices. This applies to plain sweet milk, cocoa, hot chocolate, milk shakes and malted milks. Of course, tea or coffee may be taken with any meal.

5. The time for that "one per cent dissipation" on sweets you're allowed is either between meals, or with a high-starch meal—never with a high-protein meal.

I have always hesitated to dwell at length on "food com­binations" in my lectures because of the possibility that I might be misunderstood, thereby becoming the unwitting cause of creating another food "faddist."

My advice to you is: Be sensible, not a faddist. Don't adopt "food combinations" that violate all the rules of good nutrition and human physiology. Your hold on youth depends on facts, not fads.

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