If you really want to be healthy, eat more rice. So notes Madeline Dennis, 93. She said she is alive today by changing the way she ate 30 some years ago.

“When I was 60, the doctor told me I had six months to live,” she said. “He wanted to put me into the hospital to clean out all of my arteries. They were completely clogged.”

Dennis wasn’t having any of that. After reading an article in Ladies Home Journal about the Rice Diet, she told her doctor she wasn’t going to have surgery and headed to Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., where Dr. Walter Kempner started the diet program.

“I lived down there 1 ½ months before returning home,” she said. “When I left, I was a size 16. When I returned, I was a size 10.”

Her neighbors could not get over the difference in her appearance when she returned.

“When she came home, it was like two different people,” said her then Lake Cable neighbor, Karen Volak, who started following the Rice Diet when she saw Dennis’ success. “I met her 38 years ago, when she was my age (now).”

While she was in Durham, Dennis said she would go to what was called “the rice house” every day where the doctor would greet her and the others every morning.

“He knew when someone cheated on the diet because we had to turn in a urine sample every day,” she said. At first, rice was the only food allowed.

“It was quite a deal,” said Volak, remembering the stories Dennis told her years ago.

Dennis ate nothing but rice for three months when she returned to Canton. After that, she said she started adding grapefruit and honey or maple syrup to her cream of rice in the morning, and vegetables and fruit for lunch and dinner. She eventually added organic meats and poultry to her diet, but no processed foods.

Back then, Dennis said, it was difficult to find the foods she wanted because health foods weren’t readily available three decades ago. Health food stores were just beginning to emerge in the marketplace, and mostly, either on the East or West coasts.

As a result, Dennis and Volak made several trips to Amish areas to buy the foods she wanted.

“It is the simplest diet anyone can be on,” Volak said. “She keeps her rice in the refrigerator and can add whatever she wants. Because of her, I have learned to cook rice in a variety of different ways.”

The women also use grape seed oil instead of olive oil because grape seed oil is one of the best sources of antioxidants they said. They noted that people should avoid high fructose corn syrup.

“High fructose corn syrup is absolutely the worst thing for people,” Dennis said. “It is put in almost everything, and corn is not regulated. It is the hidden sugar. It is a cheap sweetener, and that is why people are heavy.

“We are a sick nation,” she said. “We send our children to school to learn how to make a living. We need to teach them how to be healthy too.”

While studying the Rice Diet, Madeline Dennis has read numerous books about health foods and offers these dietary supplements of herbs that promote a healthy lifestyle:

-- Licorice root — Works as a mild laxative and will strengthen both heart and circulatory systems. It is a good source of B vitamins, quenches thirst, and provides energy.

-- Sarsaparilla — Good remedy for rheumatism and gout. It acts as a diuretic and is good in balancing both male and female hormones.

-- Sweet birch — Good for urinary problems. It also has been used for rheumatism.

-- Clove — used to improve the flavor of foods. Clove tea will relieve nausea.

-- Anise — Prevents fermentation and gas in the stomach and bowels, and relieves heartburn.

-- Wintergreen — Taken in small doses, it stimulates the stomach and heart, and is helpful in releasing an obstruction of the bowel.

Julie Finney, a nutrition care coordinator at Mercy Medical Center and a registered dietician, said the Rice Diet is interesting because after all of these years of carbohydrates being bad, the Rice Diet claims the opposite.

“It is low fat, low protein, and high carbohydrate, compared to the diets that have been promoted, including the sugar buster zone and Adkins,” she said. “These are all high in fat and protein and low in carbohydrates.”

There are two phases to the Rice Diet. The supervised phase is just eating grains and fruit, she said. As participants begin moving to the next phase, they add vegetables, starchy beans, and other carbohydrates. The program recommends people eat vegetarian until they reach their weight-loss goals, then they can add nonfat dairy products, including lean meat and fish.

“We know that any time people lose weight, it will have a positive influence on decreasing their blood pressure and their sirum cholesterol levels,” Finney said.

Anise: Prevents fermentation and gas in the stomach and bowels, and relieves heartburn.

Clove: Used to improve the flavor of foods. Clove tea will relieve nausea.

Licorice root: Works as a mild laxative and will strengthen both heart and circulatory systems. It is a good source of B vitamins, quenches thirst, and provides energy.

Sarsaparilla: Good remedy for rheumatism and gout. It acts as a diuretic and is good in balancing both male and female hormones.

Sweet birch: Good for urinary problems. It also has been used for rheumatism.

Wintergreen: Taken in small doses, it stimulates the stomach and heart, and is helpful in releasing an obstruction of the bowel.

RICE DIET’S ROOTS

Dr. Walter Kempner joined Duke in 1934. According to the Duke University Medical Center Archives and Memorabilia Web site, he was interested in the effect of diet on various diseases including hypertension and diabetes. Observing that those diseases were relatively rare where rice was a staple food, Kempner came up with a formula of rice, fruit, juices and vitamins. The Rice Diet is a low-sodium diet and is low in fat. Kempner tracked the effectiveness of the diet through eye tests. Scans of the vessels of the retina revealed overall health. Since the 1930s, Kempner and his associates have used the Rice Diet to treat more than 18,000 patients from all around the world. There have been other versions of the Rice Diet developed since his was developed.