Elaine Magee - Food Synergy: Unleash Hundreds of Powerful Healing Food Combinations to Fight Disease and Live Well

To all the nutrition researchers around the world
who continue to unlock the synergy secrets within our food chain.
Thanks so much for all your hard work
(and your willingness to answer my many e-mails).

CHAPTER 7

Synergy is like adding 1 plus 1 and getting 4 instead of 2: The total is greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Sometimes we dont see the forest for the trees. And the field of nutrition is no exception. We can get so focused on the health benefits of a certain vitamin or nutrient that we miss a crucial link: Different components within a single food can work together for maximum health benefit, and certain components of different foods can produce amazing results when eaten together. For many years, the science of nutrition has focused on specific pieces of the puzzle instead of the power inherent in the whole picture.

This book will help you learn how to tap into that power.

For example, if you are a woman plagued by PMS, milk can be a powerful ally in combating symptoms. However, if we are to truly appreciate the dynamic healing power food has to offer, instead of saying Drink your milk! we need to shift our thinking to Drink your milk fortified with vitamin D! (Calcium plus vitamin D work synergistically to ease PMS symptoms.) Likewise, if you are a man, you need to shift from Eat your broccoliits good for you to Eat your broccoli and tomatoesthats even better for you! (Components in broccoli work together with components in tomatoes to decrease prostate cancer growth).

The good news is that researchers are starting to pay more serious attention to the interaction among nutrients, even though the concept is hardly new. I remember sitting in Nutrition 101 about 20 years ago and learning that vitamin C enhances the bodys absorption of iron. If you eat vitamin Crich foods like citrus fruits and leafy greens and pair them with iron-filled foods like lean meats and fish, you absorb more of the mineral. Chances are youve been doing this unwittingly for years, but thanks to relatively recent scientific findings, researchers are increasingly applying their intellectual muscle to studying this phenomenon of food synergy. The bottom line: Armed with the knowledge of what foods and food components go together for maximum favorable health effects, you can achieve the highest level of health possible.

We all want the best value when we spend our money, right? And most of us over the age of 40 are very concerned about preventing cancer, stroke, and heart disease as we grow older. Well, food synergy is about getting the biggest health bang for your buck by pairing various foods and nutrients in meals and snacks. Think of it this way: Have you ever eaten a meal that was high in fiber and contained a sensible serving of protein and found that you actually ate less than usual but still felt satisfied? Have you ever noticed that when you include lots of calcium- and vitamin Drich foods in your diet, your PMS symptoms seem to vanish? These are examples of food synergy in action.

But heres the caveat. Most of the health benefits derived from food synergy are long-term, and theyre powerful, helping to prevent major chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, and stroke. With baby boomers hitting their fifties (Im a member of this distinguished group), this new way of looking at things through the lens of food synergy seems perfectly timed.

Of course, while the need to know more is strong and growing stronger, its important to recognize that theres still a great deal to learn. Case in point: Over the past 10 years, scientists have identified hundreds of biologically active plant-food components called phytochemicals (also called phytonutrients). A decade ago, we didnt even know about phytochemicals, such as the powerful antioxidant lycopene (a red carotenoid found mainly in tomatoes), anthocyanin (a powerful antioxidant that gives berries their deep blue color), and pterostilbene (which appears to turn on a switch in cells that breaks down fat and cholesterol).

Its not that food synergy hasnt been studied over the years. Researchers, however, tend to isolate a nutrient or phytochemical and then study its effects without necessarily looking for relationships between foods or nutrients. But over the past 5 years or so, the veritable floodgates have opened, and now I see so much research about components in food and between foods working together for maximum health benefits that I can hardly keep up with it.

In the course of writing this book, I referred to an outstanding academic text titled Food-Drug Synergy and Safety, edited by Lilian U. Thompson and Wendy E. Ward, researchers with the University of Toronto. Top nutrition researchers from all over the world (including the Netherlands, Canada, Finland, France, New Zealand, Japan, and the United States) wrote the chapters. Reviewing their work and reading through the many examples of known and suspected food synergy, I definitely got the feeling that weve only begun to scratch the surface. Youll see this groundbreaking text cited often throughout this book, and I consulted with the editor and some of the chapter authors as well.

In writing Food Synergy, my goal was to create a scientific guidebook to boost awareness of the leading research, explaining it in understandable terms. But more important, I wanted to create a handbook with helpful solutions and advice for real people. It was my aim to not only give you the most up-to-date information available on food synergy but also show you how to put the power of food synergy into action in your own life. My hope is that you will also discover how all of this seemingly disparate scientific research actually comes together in a way that makes perfect sense.