John McKenna - Good food: can you trust what you are eating?

I wish to dedicate this book to my mother, Kathleen McKenna, for the high standards that she lived by, especially in the selection and preparation of food. She was a wonderful mother whose love was boundless. She dedicated her life to caring for her children and so I in turn dedicate this book to her as a mark of respect and as repayment for all the wonderful things she did for me while growing up. I love you very much and wait to be reunited in spirit.

I have rewritten this manuscript five times. Initially I just wanted to shed some light and convey some common sense on what has become the single most important issue affecting people in the Western world. In effect, I wanted to contrast my diet growing up in Northern Ireland and my diet during the years I spent in different parts of Africa with the diet of people living in Europe today. The Western diet has undergone a revolution in the space of a few decades.

Then I realised I had to address other issues, such as the way people are informed about nutrition. I also had to deal with the food pyramid, which is the main tool used by schools, universities and governments to educate the population about good dietary habits. In dealing with the topic of the food pyramid I was obliged to deal with the thorny issue of animal or saturated fat in the diet and the even thornier issue of sugar. Dealing with the reduction of animal fats in foods and the replacement of this fat with sugar led to a lot of political intrigue.

This unfortunately led to the unearthing of serious events that took place in the United States during the 1970s that now threaten the health of almost every nation that consumes processed foodstuffs. I not only had to research the negative role of food manufacturers in shaping the diet of modern people all over the world, I also had to examine the effects of the chemical industry on farming, which has undergone a revolution in my lifetime. This led to looking at the issue of natural pastures versus unnatural pastures as well as the issue of soil as the link between all living creatures and the planet we occupy. This in turn led to ecological and philosophical issues that drive our society. Each draft has attempted to dig a bit deeper into the issue of food and how it affects all of us.

However, despite all the negative effects we humans have had on the world we live in, I wanted to describe some of the magical events that make life possible and make good food possible for you and your family. I have witnessed this magic first hand growing up in Northern Ireland and working in Africa. Writing these various scripts has given me some insight into my own life. I now better understand why I had to grow up in the heart of the countryside to appreciate simplicity, especially simple foods. I also understand why I spent so many years living and working in Africa, where I was able to see how more isolated people lived and what foods they ate. This African experience provided a powerful contrast to my Western way of eating and living.

Writing this book has also helped me realise my deep interest in all things nutritional. For most of my clinical practice Ive used diet and nutritional supplements to treat a range of medical conditions. In rural Africa, diseases of the Western world such as heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, etc. dont exist. However, once these rural people enter urban areas and start abandoning their traditional diet in favour of a more Western diet, all these Western disorders begin to manifest. Reversing these diseases, including many forms of cancer, is possible simply by altering their diet amazing but true. The chapter devoted to Dr Weston Prices research is powerful testimony to this fact (see ).

The real message that I wanted to convey in this final draft of the book is a little deeper than that. Its a message of self-reliance. Dont expect society to change to suit your opinions or needs. Its time to become less reliant on the structures in your society and more reliant on your own ability. The power lies with you. There are vested interests at work trying to control you, your government and all the structures designed to protect you, such as the Food Safety Authority (the Food and Drug Administration in the US ), national associations such as your national heart association, professional bodies such as your national association of dieticians, medical and scientific research, etc. These vested interests have effectively gagged the people in power in these structures so that you get misinformed and misled and never learn the truth. Its high time you stopped listening to voices that have been blatantly compromised and start listening to your own inner voice, your gut instinct.

Its important to trust in Nature and in your own true nature, i.e. your gut feeling, and lead your life in as true and as wholesome a way as possible. Take control of your diet and move it slowly away from packaged food to food that grows in the fields. Become less reliant on supermarkets and more reliant on fresh foodstuffs. This will not only benefit your health, but that of your offspring for many generations to come, as you will read about in this book.

Food must be grown, collected, cooked and eaten in a more respectful and more spiritual way respectful of the earth or soil its grown in and respectful of the physical body its put into. In contrasting the way of life in Africa and Europe, its apparent that there is a distinct lack of spiritual wisdom guiding Western society, which is controlled by short-term gain money. However, this is about to change. The structures are beginning to crumble and will be replaced with a simpler system. In the meantime, free yourself of any dependence you may have on these structures and feed your body good food.

JOHN McKENNA

THE FOOD CLINIC

E-MAIL : thefoodclinic7@gmail.com

GROWING UP IN IRELAND

I suppose the best place to start discussing diet and food is to examine the diet I grew up with, what I experienced in Africa and then what changes I saw on my return to Europe many years later.

During my lifetime, a revolution has taken place in the types of food people eat and how foods are prepared. Its light years away from my childhood experiences and even further away from the diet of most rural Africans.

I was born and brought up in the heart of the countryside in Northern Ireland, and when I say the heart I mean I lived two miles from the nearest village and eight miles from the nearest town. We didnt have electricity for the first 11 years of my life. We used Tilley lamps and paraffin lamps as a source of light and we used an Aga stove fuelled with anthracite to heat the house and the water as well as to cook food.

My mother was a nurse and had a keen interest in nutrition. She prepared most of the food in the house and made sure that everything was as natural as possible. To give you a good idea of her obsession with good health, she used to give me a raw egg beaten in milk, much to my disgust, most mornings before I went to school. We all got a daily dose of cod liver oil and a dessertspoonful of Scotts Emulsion. She took great care to buy the best food possible and in so doing educated me about what constitutes good food.

We got most of the staples like eggs, chicken, milk, butter, vegetables and potatoes from the local farmers, so the produce was fresh but mostly organic as well. All other foods were bought once a week, usually on market day, in the local town. My mother was a very good cook and loved baking too and so made most of our bread and tarts and cakes. We therefore had a very simple but very healthy diet.