Jeffrey McCombs - The everything guide to the autoimmune diet: restore your immune system and manage chronic illness with healing, nourishing foods

Dear Reader,

As a child growing up in the era of astronauts and moon landings of the 1960s, I was swept up in the idea of exploring space and strange new worlds. As those dreams gave way to reality, I found myself following in my grandmother's and fathers footsteps by becoming a chiropractor instead.

After graduation, I found the idea of just adjusting patients on a daily basis to be too boring for my adventurous spirit and began studying every aspect of health and holistic healthcare. My fathers subsequent illness and passing became the rocket fuel for going beyond the bounds of modern and holistic medicine, and understanding health and sickness in expansive ways. As my knowledge base grew, my patients became even more complex, constantly challenging me to go even further in my understanding. In todays world, we all share the same fate. We live in a time in which the daily stresses of life and the burdens of toxicity are rapidly exceeding our ability to adapt and cope, often leading to a life of chronic inflammation and eventual disease.

This book provides a way to survive and thrive while creating a life of health and vitality.

Heres to your health!

Jeffrey S. McCombs, DC

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Avon, Massachusetts

Dedication

To John-Roger and the love that lifts us all.

Copyright 2015 by F+W Media, Inc.

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

An Everything Series Book.

Everything and everything.com are registered trademarks of F+W Media, Inc.

Published by

Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.

57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.

www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN 10: 1-4405-8732-9

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8732-0

eISBN 10: 1-4405-8733-7

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8733-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McCombs, Jeffrey, author.

The everything guide to the autoimmune diet / Jeffrey McCombs.

p. cm. -- (Everything series book)

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4405-8732-0 (pb) -- ISBN 1-4405-8732-9 (pb) -- ISBN 978-1-4405-8733-7 (ebook) -- ISBN 1-4405-8733-7 (ebook)

I. Title. II. Series: Everything series.

[DNLM: 1. Autoimmune Diseases--diet therapy--Cookbooks. 2. Autoimmune Diseases--diet therapy--Popular Works. 3. Cooking--methods. WD 305]

RC600

616.97'80654--dc23

2015006172

Always follow safety and commonsense cooking protocol while using kitchen utensils, operating ovens and stoves, and handling uncooked food. If children are assisting in the preparation of any recipe, they should always be supervised by an adult.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and F+W Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

Cover image

First, Id like to thank all the patients whom I have been privileged to serve and assist during the course of my 30-plus years of practice since 1984. It has been their willingness and patiencecombined with a sincere yearning to know more, do better, and live a longer, healthier lifethat has helped fuel my desire to assist them. Each of them has taught me to dig deeper, learn more, and go beyond the known and into the unknown to find the answers that they and so many others need. It is often through a willingness to abandon the safety of the known in order to discover new frontiers that a doctor finds the answers to the puzzles of imbalance that are reflected in disease. A doctor is forever a student to the patient.

Id like to thank Adams Media for the opportunity to once again share the wealth of information that I have gathered during my years of practice as a doctor of chiropractic.

Thanks go out to Faith Kincaid for sharing with us her juice recipes while preparing for delivery of her baby girl, Stella. A huge thank-you to Hugo Alvarado for creating all the wonderful food recipes in this book. There must be a restaurant business in this somewhere for you, or perhaps, your own book? Thanks again to Hugo, as well as Blanca Dominguez for holding down the office while I researched and wrote this book.

Thanks to my father, who held out the example of what a true doctor can be, and my mom, who taught me to reach for the stars. Love to my siblingsKim, Kelly, and Terryfor their lifelong support and love.

Loving thanks to Ana Maria and our children, Ethan and Ana Sophia. Two books in the period of a year is too much time for Papi to be away from both his family and fatherly duties. Your love makes it all possible. Time to play now.

The field of autoimmune science is rapidly evolving and ever changing. In fact, to say that there is a field at all at this point is still somewhat premature. Autoimmunity is currently divided among many different specialties, while one unifying theory is being birthed into existence by a few brave researchers. Until this new field is born, many people will have to wander about an uncharted map of autoimmunity searching for the answer to their dilemma.

Autoimmunity is like one of the earliest maps of the planet. Every country knows who they are, yet they know little about all the others. What is known of the world of autoimmunity is a loosely identified map of where everyone is, without knowing how they are all connected.