FOREWORD

Dear Tom,

Optimal Nutrition for Optimal Health is certainly not another dietary fling. If that is what readers are looking for, they should look else­where. This book is for people who want to know "why." When you know the "why" behind nutrition, the real problems become more evident. Overweight and underweight are not the problems. It is what the body does with the food we eat that we need to understand.

Tom, what separates you from most human beings is your ability to look at the various parts of a topic, make logical sense of each part, and locate what is really essential. The two most important as­pects of nutrition—chewing your food and drinking water—are things we learn very early in life, and therefore we have little re­spect for them. You allow us to know "why" and provide us with new reason for looking at the complete picture. The complete pic­ture is different from the whole picture. We can all look at the whole picture and miss most of the detail. When we look at the complete picture, we learn to recognize each component and learn where it fits into the whole.

Your interesting little trip down the intestinal tract impresses upon us the fact that the intestine is not a superhighway but a series of organs, each totally dedicated to one job, as if that were the only

xii Foreword

job in the world. But, as usual, you reassemble the body at the end, to show us that all systems have a common goal.

Folks, you will not get to know the real Tom in this book, for he is being very scientific and only occasionally biased. Controversial, yes—but thaf s because his experience may differ from that of peo­ple who have not traveled outside the four walls. I picture him typ­ing with his left hand and saluting with his right hand.

I'm glad you exposed the rusty-nail method of iron fortification in cereals, Tom. Some of us are ready for that information, and ready to wander away from the herd action that industry would like us to adopt.

Such a different definition for the word supplement. A supplement should provide what is lacking. Boy, what a controversial concept! Most supplement sales are based on the idea that if a little bit is good, megadoses are wonderful. Diseases are hard enough to over­come, but with overdoses of supplements, especially the ones that are most heavily advertised, disease treatment becomes a con­frontation with two enemies—the patient's lifestyle and the disease itself. Nutrition based on something other than TV ads can over­come both to a substantial degree. We just seldom give our body a chance to do what it is designed to do: Body, heal thyself.

Does Tom practice what he preaches? Well, for the most part, like most of us with passions, yes for 90 percent of the time. Then there are the tortuous human interludes. At a buffet recently, Tom looked at me and commented, "Don't let it be said I don't eat my vegeta­bles." Then I watched as he picked up a piece of carrot cake.