The Rambams diet | Imamother

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Thu, Jan 18 2007, 12:43 pm

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CHAPTER FOUR HILCHOS DEI'OS

1. Since when the body is healthy and sound one treads in the ways of the Lord, it being impossible to understand or know anything of the knowledge of the Creator when one is sick, it is obligatory or man to avoid things which are detrimental to the body and acclimatize himself to things which heal and fortify it. These are as follows: A person should never eat except when he is hungry(57) nor drink unless he is thirsty. He should not postpone his eliminations for even a single moment;(58) rather, every time that micturition or defecation becomes necessary, he should respond thereto immediately.
2. A person should not eat until his stomach is replete (59) but should diminish his intake by approximately one-fourth of satiation. (60) One should not drink water during meals save a little and mixed with wine. (61) When the food commences to be digested, he should not imbibe water excessively. (62) One should not eat until one has examined oneself carefully lest it be necessary to excrete wastes. (63) A person should not eat until he has walked (64) prior to the meal so that his body begins to become warmed, or he should perform a physical task or tire himself by some other form of exertion. The rule in this matter is that one should exert one’s body and fatigue it every day in the morning until one’s body begins to warm. (65) Then one rests a little until one’s soul has settled, and then one may eat. If one washes with warm water after the exercise, so much the better. After this, one should wait a little and then eat.
3. When a person eats, he should always be sitting in his place (66) or reclining on the left side. (67) He should not walk or ride or exercise or agitate his body, nor should he promenade, until the food is digested in his intestines. Any one who promenades immediately after his meal or who fatigues himself brings upon himself serious and grave illnesses. (68)
4. The day and night consist of twenty-four hours. It is sufficient for a person to sleep one-third thereof, which is eight hours. (69) These should be at the end of the night, (70) so that from the beginning of his sleep until the rising of the sun will be eight hours. Thus, he will arise from his bed before the sun rises.
5. A person should not sleep on his face or on his back bur on his side;(71) at the beginning of the night, on the left side, and at the end of the night on the right side. Further, he should not go to sleep shortly after eating but should wait approximately three or four hours after a meal. One should not sleep during the day.(72)
6. Things which purge the intestines, such as grapes, figs, mulberries, peas, melons, various types of cucumbers, and types of gourds, should be eaten before the meal. (73) One should not mix them with the food but should wait until they have passed out of the upper abdomen and then one may eat one’s meal. Things which bind the intestines (I.e. constipate), such as pomegranates, quinces, apples, and small pears, should be consumed immediately after the meal, but one should not eat excessively thereof.
7. If a person wishes to eat fowl meat and cattle meat together, he should first consume the poultry meat. Likewise, if he desires eggs and poultry meat, he should eat the eggs first. If he desires the meat of small cattle (e. g. lambs) as well as large cattle (e.g., cows), he should first consume the meat of the small. A person should always begin with something light and then proceed to the heavier food.
8. In the warm (summer) months, one should eat cooling foods, not use seasoning to excess, and consume vinegar. (75) In the rainy (winter) months, one should eat warming foods, (76) abundantly spice the food, and eat a little mustard (77) and asafoetida. In this manner one should prepare food in cold climates and warm climates, in each and every place that which is best suited thereto.
There are some foods which are extremely detrimental, and it is proper for man never to eat them, such as large salted old fish, old salted cheese, truffles, mushrooms, old salted meat, (78) musty wine, (79) and a cooked dish which has been kept until it acquired a foul odor. Likewise, any food whose odor is bad or excessively bitter is like a fatal poison unto the body. There are other foods which are also detrimental but are not as injurious as the aforementioned ones. Therefore, of these one should eat only a little and only after intervals of many days. One should not accustom oneself to make a meal of them or to eat them regularly with his meals. Examples of this type of food are large fish, cheese, and milk that is kept for twenty-four hours after milking.(80) The meat of large oxen (81) and large he-goats, beans, lentils, peas, (82) garlic, mustard, and radishes – all these are detrimental foods. A person should not partake of these except a very small amount and only during the rainy (winter) season. However, during the warm (summer) months, one should not eat thereof at all. Beans and lentils alone should not be eaten either in the warm months or in the rainy season. Cucumbers (89) may be consumed during the warm (summer) season.
10. There are other foods which are also detrimental but not as much as the aforementioned ones. they are water fowl. small young pigeons, dates, bread toasted(87) in oil or bread that was kneaded with oil, fine meal that was completely sifted so that not a trace of bran remains, (88) gravy, and brine of salted fish.(89) One should not consume these foods excessively. A person who is wise and can control his inclinations and does not yield to his appetite, and does not eat any of the aforementioned (detrimental foods) unless he needs them as medicine, is indeed a strong man.
11. A person should always abstain from fruits of trees and not consume them excessively even when they are dried, and needless to say when they are fresh. Indeed, before they are completely ripe they are like swords to the body. Likewise, carob-pods (locust beans) are always injurious. All sour fruits are detrimental, and one should not eat therefrom save a little, and only in the warm season and in warm climates. Figs, (90) grapes, and almonds, however, are always good whether fresh or dried, and a person may eat therefrom as much as he requires. One should not eat them constantly even though they are better than all other fruits of trees.
12. Honey and wine are bad for children but salutary for the elderly, especially in the rainy season. A person should eat in the warm months two-thirds of what he eats in the rainy months.
13. Man should always strive to have his intestines relaxed (91) all the days of his life, and his bowel function should approximate diarrhea. This is a fundamental principle in medicine, namely, whenever the stool is withheld or is extruded with difficulty, grave illnesses result. How can a person heal his intestines if they are slightly constipated? If he is a young boy, he should eat salty foods, cooked and spiced with olive oil, fish brine and salt without bread, every morning; or he should drink liquid of boiled spinach or cabbage in olive oil and fish brine and salt. If he is an old man, he should drink honey mixed with warm water in the morning and wait approximately four hours, and then he should eat his meal. He should do this for one day or three or four days, if it is necessary, until his intestines soften (and move freely).
14. Another major principle of bodily health, physicians state, is that as long as a person labours and becomes greatly fatigued and does not satiate himself and keeps his bowels soft, no illness will befall him and his strength becomes fortified even if he eats detrimental foods.
15. Anyone who lives a sedentary life and does not exercise or he who postpones his excretions or he whose intestines are constipated, even if he eats good foods and takes care of himself according to proper medical principles – all his days will be painful ones and his strength will wane. Excessive eating is like a deadly poison to the body of any man, and it is a principal cause of all illnesses. Most diseases that man is afflicted with are due to bad foods or because he fills his abdomen and eats excessively, even of good (I.e. wholesome) foods. This is what Solomon in his wisdom stated: Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from trouble (Prov. 21:23); that is to say, he who guards his mouth from consuming detrimental food or satiation, and his tongue from speaking except where necessary (will remain healthy).
16. The correct manner of bathing is for a person to enter the bathhouse and bathe every seven days. One should not enter the bath immediately after eating nor when one is hungry but when the food begins to be digested. He should wash his entire body with hot water that does not scald the body, and the head alone may be washed with water hot enough to scald the body. Then he should wash his body with lukewarm water, and then with tepid water, and so on until he washes with cold water. (93) Over his head he should not pour either lukewarm or cold water. In the rainy season, one should not bathe in cold water. One should not bathe until one perspires and one’s entire body becomes supple, nor should one remain too long in the bath: rather, as soon as one perspires and the body becomes supple, one should rinse the body and leave the bath.
One should examine oneself prior to entering the bath and after leaving it, lest excretion of wastes be necessary. Similarly, a person should always examine himself before meals and after meals, before and after intimate relations, before and after he exercises and exerts himself, and before and after he goes to sleep. The total number of circumstances is thus ten.
17. When a person leaves the bath, he should put his clothes on and cover his head in the outer chamber so that he should not be caught in a cold draft. Even in the summer one must be careful in this regard. After he leaves, he should wait until he is composed, his body has rested, and the warmth (from the bath) dissipated, and then he may eat. If he should sleep a little after leaving the bath before eating, this is excellent. He should not drink cold water (94) upon leaving the bath and certainly not while in the bath. If he is thirsty upon leaving the bath and cannot restrain himself from drinking, he should mix water in wine or in honey (95) and then drink it. If, in the winter, he anoints himself with oil in the bath after the rinsing, this is beneficial.
18. A person should not accustom himself to constant bloodletting. (96) He should not phlebotomize himself except if there is extraordinary need. One should not let blood either in the sunny (summer) months or in the rainy (winter) season; rather, a little in the month of Nissan (approximately October, I.e., autumn). After fifty years of age, he should not phlebotomize himself at all. (97) A person should not be bled and take a bath the same day (98) nor be bled and then undertake a journey nor be bled on the day he returns from a journey. On the day of phlebotomy, he should eat and drink less than he is accustomed to, and he should rest on the day of phlebotomy (98) and not fatigue or exert himself or promenade. (99)
19. due to the sensitive nature of this halacha, readers are advised to look up this halacha on their own. (Sefer HaMada, Hilchois Daois, Perek Daled, Mishna 19)
20. I guarantee anyone who conducts himself according to the directions we have laid down that he will not be afflicted with illness all the days of his life until he ages greatly and expires. He will not require a physician, and his body will be complete and remain healthy all his life, unless his body was defective from the beginning of his creation, or unless he became accustomed to one of the bad habits from the onset of his youth, or unless the plague of pestilence or the plague of drought comes onto the world.
21. All these helpful rules which we have presented should be followed only by a healthy individual. However, an ill person or someone in whom one of his organs is ailing or someone who has accustomed himself to a bad habit for many years – for each of these there are different directions and rules to follow according to the nature of his illness, as is expounded in the book on medicines: “A change in one’s living habits is the beginning of illness.”(102)
22. In any place where there is no physician, both the healthy and the sick should not deviate from the rules that we have prescribed in this chapter, because each and every one of them (if observed correctly) will product a salutary result.
23. No disciple of a Sage (104) should reside in a city that does not possess the ten following things: a physician, a surgeon, (105) a bathhouse, a lavatory, water supply, such as a river or well, a synagogue, a schoolteacher, a scribe, a charity treasurer, and a court of law with authority to punish with lashes and imprisonment.

FOOTNOTES

57 Berachoth 62b
58 Makkoth 16b: Witholding one’s bodily functions comes under the heading of You shall not make yourselves abominable (Lev. 11:43). Besides, it gives rise to bed diseases and the dangers of life (Hilchoth Maachaloth Assuroth 17:31). Also (Shabbath 33 a): More people die from intestinal disorders than from hunger.
59 Gittin 70a.
60 Ibid.
61 Berachoth 42b. Rashi comments they used to drink but little during a meal.
62 Anybody who takes in more drink than food undermines his health (Niddah 24b)
63 Shabbath 82a : He who requires easing himself and still goes on eating is like a furnace stoked on top of its ashes – which is the beginning of bad odor.
64 Berachoth 23b
65 there are three kinds of perspiration which are good for the body, among them that which comes from work (Avoth deRabi Nathan 41). Work is valuable, because the man gets warmed up by it (Gittin 16b)
66 Gittin 70a
67 Berachoth 46b, Pesachim 108a
68 Shabbath 129b, Taanith 10b
69 The Sephardi Maaset Roke’ah contains an unspecified quotation from the Sages to the effect that it is good for a man to sleep seven hours a day.
70 Berachoth 62b “Sleeping at dawn is like tempering the iron, I.e., improving it.
71 Berachoth 13b Niddah 14a
72 David is reported (Sukkah 26b) as having had the habit of taking a short nap during the day, some 60 respirations in all.
73 Kethuboth 10b
74 Occurs in the Mishneh, Kilayim 1:4.
75 It says in Ruth 2:14: Dip thy morsel in the vinegar, to which Shabbath 111b comments: It appears that vinegar is good on a hot day.
76 Eruvin 56a.
77 Regarding mustard Berachoth 40a says: Mustard taken once in 30 days frees the house from disease. It should not be taken every day because it weakens the heart.
78 Baba Bathra 74b
79 Which means at least 40 days after leaving the vat (Eduyoth 6a).
80 Pesachim 42a
81 Avodah Zara 29a
82 Occurs in Kilayim 1:1
83 Kiddushin 62a
84 Boiled cabbage has a curative effect (Avoda Zara 29a).
85 Kiddushin 62a
86 While soft, patients eat them with their bread; when dry they are extremely harmful (Nedarim 49a).
87 See Rashi on Lev. 23:14.
88 See Pesachim 2:7.
89 Nedarim 51b.
90 Midrash Koheleth 5:10: The fig is good for consumption, nice to look at, and beneficial to the intellect.
91 See Kethuboth 10b
92 He who stuffs himself with food is sure to contract many diseases (Berachoth 32a)
93 A man taking a hot bath and not dipping himself in cold water afterwards is like an iron which has been kept in the fire without being immersed in cold water afterwards, which – Rashi explains –makes a much stronger iron (when immersed) (Shabbath 41a).
94 A warm drink is advisable: A man taking a bath and refrains from having a warm drink is like a furnace which has been stoked from the outside, not from the inside, and is therefore of no use (I.e. a fire should be stoked by the source for best results) (Shabbath 41a)
95 Shabbath 140a.
96 Bloodletting is among the eight things our sages advised should be applied with moderation (Gittin 70a).
97 Shabbath 129b.
98 Gittin 70a
99 Shabbath 129a
100-102 are from Mishna 19, please see above number 19
103 Kethuboth 110b and Baba Bathra 152a.
104 Sanhedrin 17b.

translated by Fred Rosner