AS THIS IS a special diet issue, one obvious candidate for this week's interview was Tom Turk. Turk has two fitness clubs, one in Citibank Plaza and the other in Tsim Sha Tsui, but if you mention him many people will reply by naming two foods. The first is eggs, because Turk is famous for advocating eggs as the stepping stones to health, contrary to current dietary advice. The second is nuts. As in: 'He's completely nuts.' Turk didn't look crazy - he looked remarkably well, given that he's in his 60th year and was clad in shorts and knee-high socks - but it's always best to get these things cleared up promptly. So does he mind that people seem to think he's barmy? 'What other people think is not my business,' replied Turk. I felt I had to point out that it was his business, literally, and he conceded this with a nod and said, 'Well, let them decide. The members come here and we guide them, it's only guidance. I have tens of thousands of guinea pigs who are very willing to listen to what I tell them. The newspapers all say, 'eat less', but nobody can eat less. Of course some members are smarter and follow their own diets. Then, when they're hungry, weak, tired and irritable, we advise them to switch.' The Turk technique (see page 15 for details) can be boiled down to the following full-fat essentials: no fruit or starch after 5pm, no sugar, no beer. And plenty of eggs, cheese and butter. What did he have for breakfast? 'First of all, nutrients. Phenylalininic, to release adrenalin for the brain - that's why I'm in a good mood every day. And ginkgo, and milkthistle extract - that's a liver detoxifier - then anti-parasite mix because everyone has parasites.' He departed momentarily, returning with a book entitled The Cure For All Cancers which he opened, at a disgusting illustration, with the announcement: 'This is the cancer-causing parasite. And the cure is these three substances: cloves, black walnut and wormwood.' Now, there's a giant, possibly tasteless, leap between claiming to help people lose weight and claiming to cure cancer. Isn't he guilty of selling false hope? 'I'm just selling a book. And of course it works. It's one of the best-kept secrets there is. Though you need other substances present to cause cancer: heavy metals, aflotoxins - that's moulds present on peanuts and grains - and copper.' He took off his watch, which had a Band-aid stuck to the back, to make his point. 'Nickel,' he explained.
'Shouldn't be in contact with the skin.' Back to his breakfast. 'Twenty minutes after the nutrients, I had chopped fruit with cream. Then a couple of eggs fried in butter, then bread fried in the same butter, then a nice, fatty slice of roast beef, then a cup of coffee with cream and milk. I hope you had breakfast.' I said, faintly, but determined to keep my fat end up, so to speak, that I'd had toast with peanut butter and butter, plus coffee with milk. 'Eggs?' queried Turk hopefully. 'You're not vegetarian, are you? Glad to hear it. That's why your face is intact.' He has a thing about collapsed faces. He can spot anyone foolish enough to attempt a low-fat diet by the horrible, lined hollows which, he's convinced, inevitably ensue. He told a story about his lovely, smooth-skinned aunt of 90 who gave up eggs because her son said they were bad for her. She rapidly grew to resemble 'the Nile delta' but has since listened to nephew Tom's advice and is now a dewy-cheeked 94. I said that the story at least proved the excellence of his genes and he said, dismissively, 'Oh, only longevity.' But what about his cholesterol level? 'Don't bother to check it. It has no bearing on health.' The entire cholesterol scare, according to a handout Turk gave me when I arrived, was started in order to promote the corn-oil industry in the 1970s. Five years ago I'd have certainly scoffed at this as a bit of paranoid fluff, but mad-cow disease, pesticide poisoning, E.coli bacteria, red tide and bird flu and government silences thereon have made suspicious consumers of all of us. 'The whole planet is dirty,' agreed Turk sadly.
Naturally, all this fat consumption only works as a diet if you exercise it off. That's the whole point; Turk does one and a half hours a day, and has done for most of his life since he was a skinny child growing up in Kenya. He lived there, working as a pilot and running a gym as a hobby, until he was 35; he still has an African accent and the wary, narrow-eyed look of a tense hunter. Nonetheless, he'd obviously decided to be scrupulously helpful in his responses. I found it hard to believe, for instance, that his name really is Tom Turk and he said that, yes, it was. But he paused, uneasily, and added, 'Well, Tom is made up. It's really Thomas.' He came to Hong Kong in 1973 and has been in the gym business since. I asked if he was happy and he said he was, ever since a reiki course five years ago: 'It's a very ancient form of healing brought to this planet by our ancestors.' Then we had a little chat about UFOs - which he'd spotted in his flying days - and about the mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls ('What are they hiding?') and briefly pondered whom the angel Gabriel might be, before I thought I'd enquire about Turk's 11-year-old son, who eats three or four eggs a day and is described in another handout as 'real smart'. What did that mean, exactly? 'He plays the violin, flute and piano and he won first prize in the flute after only four months. He has a tutor for physics, science and maths. He's allowed to play computer games, but not violent ones, to improve his motor skills. I stimulated him before his birth by reading to him in utero.' What sort of stories did he read to the young Turk? 'A physiology textbook. Neurons connect like crazy at a very, very early age so it's important to stimulate them.' Turk says he's done most of the things he's wanted to do in this life. Does his much-exercised, cholesterol-free, egg-filled body fear death? 'There is no death. You pass across to a spirit from whence you came. This is the morphic life - and, of course, that's fun.' When I asked him what the most fun part of his morphic existence had been, he thought for a long time. 'Tough question ... I think the fun part was the adventure, flying in Africa, over the Serengeti game park in a DC3. That was a gorgeous life then.'
