The free-from-fear diet

23 November 2015 for the Observer as “What is Healthy Eating?“:

It’s easy to develop a case of the latest psychiatrically acknowledged eating disorder, orthorexia nervosa – an obsession with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy. I got one for just £65. That’s the price of an introductory session at London’s Hale Clinic, an alternative therapy centre a couple of stuccoed blocks from Harley Street.

The Hale was opened by Prince Charles back in the 80s, and celebrities have been aromatherapied, ear-candled and detoxed there ever since. As you pass through its Grecian columns you cannot but ponder the fact that here Princess Diana’s colon was regularly irrigated. I arrive for something simpler: a consultation on my diet. I am a normal 50-something foodie whose diet philosophy has long been “Don’t eat crap” (with occasional cheesy Wotsits permitted). My complaints are pretty normal for my age cohort, too: a little joint pain, a desire to snooze after lunch, a failure to tolerate the quantities of alcohol I once enjoyed. Oh, and those close to me might mention a mild tendency towards flatulence. Like the bulk of the British public, I have a somewhat troubled relationship with my gut.

Today I have an appointment with the much-recommended Linda Crawford, a Hale Clinic veteran who is also principal of the College of BioEnergetic Medicine and director of the London Shyness Centre. She is cheerful and charming as well as multitalented: a psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, neurofeedback practitioner, kinesiologist, treater of chronic fatigue syndrome, dietary problems and – according to a recent promotional email – able to treat the potentially fatal Lyme’s disease by homeopathy.

In an upper room that reeks of burning herbs, Linda straps a velcro band round my head. A lead runs from it to the back of her PC. She tells me to relax while she measures my body’s “stress response to certain hertz wave frequencies”. This is painless and a lot less hassle than a stool sample (I offered; it wasn’t needed). After 10 minutes or so my magnetic resonances have been fully read. Linda, with an I-told-you-so smile, prints out a sheet and hands it to me.

When large numbers of wealthy people declare the world’s most important food crop a poison, there is money to be made

It is amazing. I have won the hypochondriac lottery. I’m the owner of 29 different allergies, sensitive to substances from MSG to strawberries and including such regulars in my life as milk, chicken, wheat dust, red and green peppers, cheese, peanuts, honey, lentils, brewer’s yeast, lactose, various grasses, cat hair, tobacco and “summer and fall pollens”. The fact that I believe I have no hay fever or allergy is not of importance.

I am aghast. I don’t know where to start. Cheese? I love cheese. “But your body doesn’t,” says Linda, wagging a finger.

Peering at her computer screen, a seer into a crystal ball, she finds other problems. “I see a lot of stress… I’m seeing insomnia, depression, constipation… Very stressed in the cranial nerve, the large and small intestine. Do you get constipated?” “No,” I say. “Hmmm… Is your memory poor?” “I’m a middle-aged man,” I say. “We tend to worry about our memories.” “That’s what I thought! I’m seeing stressed kidneys, which would affect your memory.”

This sparks my scepticism, not a common reaction at the Hale. But the diagnosis all seems a bit “You’ve met a tall dark stranger”. Ask any adult in later life if they are ever stressed or have sleeping problems, memory issues or depression and you are likely to get at least one positive. And whether it’s constipation or flatulence or irritable bowel syndrome, an astonishing 80% of adults are not happy with the workings of their bowels.

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