Nutrition notes began as my notebook, studying nutrition more than 30 years ago. As a student, I was fascinated by biochemistry and drew large charts on my walls showing the interrelationships of intermediary metabolism. Nutrients are the input to metabolism and you might assume that foods in reasonable combinations will provide the necessary input. When you are a student, you are busy learning what is known and lack the experience to ask good questions about what is not known. I, for example, did not have any questions about problems involved in digesting foods into nutrients and problems absorbing nutrients. I never imagined that such good things as food proteins could cause disease. I never considered that the immune system would interact with the food supply and produce disease. These questions arose many years later, after I became ill and discovered that some foods made me so. The notes continued as explanation to my patients of food-related illness and the complex task of choosing the right foods to avoid food-related illness, while obtaining optimal nutrition.

I often hear the comment that physicians are handicapped because they have no training in nutrition. My response is usually to ask who would teach them and what kind of nutrition would they learn? The kind of nutrition learned at colleges and university tends to be practical and dogmatic. It is based on food group meal planning and intends to train people who work in institutional food services.

I hope that Nutrition Notes will fill the physicians need for therapy –based nutritional knowledge. I hope that dietitians will read this book so that they can apply their knowledge to help people solve health problems. I also hope that all intelligent people who have to learn about nutrition to solve their own health problems will benefit from reading this book and keeping it as a reference.  

Stephen Gislason, May 2004.