Michael Werner is a fit family man in his 50s, with a doctorate in Chemistry, and is the managing director of a research institute in Switzerland. However, there is something quite unusual about him: In 2001 he stopped eating and has survived perfectly well without food ever since. In fact, he claims never to have felt better. Unlike the rare individuals who have achieved this feat in the past - usually monks, nuns or other people devoted to the spiritual life - he is an ordinary man who lives a full and active life. In this book, he tells his story, not as a way to encourage other people to stop eating, but as a way of inviting us to reconsider the way we think about eating and drinking, and how we absorb nourishment. Werner has issued an open challenge to all scientists: ‘Test me using all the scientific monitoring and data you wish!’ In fact, he describes one such test here in which he was kept without food in a strictly monitored environment for ten days. Werner also describes how and why he came to give up food, and what his life is like without it. The book also includes other reports from people who have attempted to follow this way of life, as well as a thoughtful consideration of possible scientific and spiritual explanations of how one could ‘live on light’.
232pp, 135mm x 215mm, softback, 2007
Health & healing 
