The Face of Truth: The Story of a Diet That Killed Its Creator…!

Ibrahim Shaghlawi

Over the past weeks, the name of Egyptian physician Diaa El-Din El-Awadhi, a consultant in anesthesia and intensive care, dominated social media platforms and Arab media as the doctor behind a dietary system that sparked widespread controversy under the name “Al-Tayyibat.” It is a system based on the philosophy of classifying foods into what he considered “wholesome foods” that help the body recover and sustain health, and others he described as exhausting or harmful foods that bring illness and worsen it, and therefore should be avoided.

Between supporters who saw it as a different experiment, and opponents who considered it a departure from established scientific principles, the controversy quickly expanded, before reaching its peak with a professional syndicate’s decision to suspend the doctor from practicing medicine, followed by his sudden death at the age of no more than forty-seven due to a heart attack, according to what was announced, in an incident that opened wide doors to speculation and unleashed a wave of questions, until the scene began to appear as though the system that made its creator famous had killed him, then returned to place him among the list of controversial figures.

To begin with, we are not here to evaluate the “Al-Tayyibat” dietary system, nor to issue scientific judgments regarding its safety or effectiveness. That is a matter for specialists—doctors, researchers, and scientists—who are better qualified to subject such systems to the standards of science and experimentation. Nor are we in a position to align with or against it, because the issue worthy of reflection here is not the details of the system itself, but rather what its story has raised, and what this controversy has revealed in terms of major questions that go beyond nutrition to society, the state, and the meaning of consumer protection.

When a doctor turns into a mass phenomenon, and a dietary system turns into a matter of public opinion, then the death of its creator at the height of his prominence opens wide doors of questions, the issue goes beyond the boundaries of medicine and nutrition, touching a deeper question related to society’s relationship with information, trust in institutions, and the vacuum that forms when scientific and regulatory authorities retreat from performing their natural role in food security linked to people’s health and lives.

The real value of this controversy lies in the fact that it came like an alarm bell, redirecting attention to the important question: Who protects the citizen’s food? And who guarantees that what reaches people’s tables is not merely spoiled merchandise controlled by quick-profit calculations, individual judgments, or markets that have lost ethics and conscience?

In developmental political analysis, the state does not begin from the palace, nor is it measured only by the size of roads, bridges, and projects. It is also measured by its ability to protect human beings in the small details that shape their daily lives: the water they drink, the medicine they take, the food that enters their homes, and the information upon which they build their health decisions. When this link weakens, trust begins to decline, and the citizen begins searching for individual salvation outside institutions—whether in a circulating prescription, an anonymous piece of advice, or a dietary system promising salvation.

But if these questions seem urgent in any society, they become even more urgent in Sudan. In a country living through an existential war that has exhausted the state, disrupted supply chains, and imposed on the government priorities of survival before construction, we must ask: Do we still have a regulatory system capable of protecting people’s food?

In this context, an important question imposes itself: Where is the Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organization, and what about the Consumer Protection Association? Do they still exist with the same effectiveness? Who manages this file today? What are the limits of its authority? And does the Sudanese citizen even know which authority to turn to if they suspect a food product?

More importantly: Do we monitor the product from the very first seed in the ground, through soil, water, fertilizers, and pesticides, then harvesting, storage, transportation, manufacturing, packaging, until it reaches the markets? Or does oversight begin too late, after the product has already traveled half the road to the market—and to the consumer’s body?

These are important questions that must be asked every morning in the markets of Khartoum, Omdurman, Port Sudan, and all of Sudan. What about the tomatoes that people repeatedly talk about being sprayed with unknown substances to accelerate ripening? What about bananas whose ripening is accelerated by methods unknown to the consumer? What about oranges that acquire a more attractive color before their natural season?

And what about feed, cooling methods, antibiotics, and hormones used in some stages of red and white meat production? And what about eggs, vegetables, oils, and dairy products?

Do all these products reach us as we believe—pure, safe, and subject to monitoring, inspection, and testing? Or could it be that we are paying our money to buy illness?

We are not here to spread fear, nor to issue judgments, but we also do not have the luxury of silence. Because food is not merely an economic commodity; it is one of the government’s most important files, linked to national security just as it is linked to public health. Oversight of food is a direct expression of the state’s presence in the lives of its citizens, and of its political and moral

commitment—before its legal one—to protecting people from fraud, food manipulation, recklessness, and greedy markets when profit becomes more valuable than life itself.

Perhaps the greatest value in the story of this dietary system that killed its creator, according to

#The_Face_of_Truth, is that it did not merely awaken recurring controversy, but rather awakened a postponed question: Does what enters our bodies truly create health… or does it silently establish diseases that burden our future? And if food is a matter of life, who safeguards this life?

Wishing you continued wellness and good health.

Thursday, May 7, 2026

Shglawi55@gmail.