Various

“ That same power is to-day, and always has been, feeding the men of earth. From a basket of seed, each recurring harvest puts thousands of loaves of bread into the hands of the world's hungry; the two small fishes continue to multiply; rich and poor alike are fed by the great Provider. And now as then, after human wants are met, the mandate goes forth, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." Economy is again being preached as it was once taught on the shores of Galilee. There has been started a great educational movement for increased food production. ”

“ Osler tells us that "we eat too much after forty years of age," and he advises every wise man to restrict his eating as he grows older, "and at last descend out of life as he ascended into it, even into a child's diet."
Overeating
Food economy is not a call to a starvation diet, but to a balanced ration of wholesome, well prepared food. Overeating of even the best food produces poisons that injure the tissues, overwork the organs of digestion, and in time may bring the body to actual starvation conditions.
A man's appetite is not always a safe guide. ”

“ The tasteless starch is bound up in the palatable potato; the insipid protein, in the pea, the lentil, and the bean; the rather nauseating fat, in the plump, appetizing olive. To the child not yet educated to the perverted demands of his father's palate, the thought, taste, and smell of these aromatic and savory substances produces a desire to eat. By the time he is twenty, he will not be satisfied with the natural flavor of his food. ”

“ By many, food conservation and food economy are deemed not only national problems, but a part of the divine message taught by Christ and His disciples.
The great world war which began in 1914 has compelled every nation to halt and consider its national habits.
Undoubtedly the United States is the most prodigal of nations. Approximately sixty per cent of its population is now urban. Simple rural life is practically gone; and those artificial and extravagant standards of the city which destroy body, mind, and soul have taken its place. ”

“ There is no economy in buying denatured grain, even though it is put up in cartons, at ten times the price of the natural grain.
"Put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite." Stop the immense waste of strength, energy, money, and time due to mere gratification of appetite.Pg 10 Stop preparing food that is intended simply to coax the appetite to the point where eating becomes gluttony. In the words of an eminent authority, "Most men would attain better health and greater efficiency if they would reduce their rations by twenty-five per cent or more." ”

“ While pretending to contribute energy, it actually robs the body of strength. The resort to stimulants to whip up the flagging energies of the body is an effort to trick nature in playing the game of life. It is like borrowing money. Some day the principal must be returned with interest to a relentless creditor.
Beef tea contains less than one per cent nourishment, but one can get the same kind of exhilaration from a cup of beef tea as from a cup of brandy. This is due to the drug effect of the beef tea, which is a solution of the waste products, the poisonous extractives, of the meat. ”

“ The calorie is the amount of heat necessary to raise the temperature of one pound of water four degrees F., or one kilogram one degree C. In this way, the heat values of pure protein, fat, starch, and sugar have been determined. In the laboratories of the United States government, the composition and caloric value of practically every food substance known has been worked out. Any person can have access to these tables of food values by applying to the government, or by purchasing from almost any bookstore any one of the several books on food values, that are on the market. ”

“ Professor Fisher very aptly appeals against the introduction of more poisons into a system already burdened with poisons of its own elaboration.
We are not at liberty to ignore nature and her laws. Our bodies are not our own. When the Creator has opened to us of heaven's abundance for the sustenance of life, and has given us a dietary that answers every need of palate and body, we are palpably in error before our Maker when we question His wisdom, and take into our systems those substances which we know to be destructive to mind, soul, and body. ”

“ Cancer of the stomach forms nearly one third of all cancers of the human body.... Is it not possible that there is something in the habits of civilized man, in the cooking or other preparation of his food, which acts to produce the precancerous condition?... Within the last one hundred years, four times as much meat is taken as before that time. If flesh foods are not fully broken up, decomposition results, and active poisons are thrown into an organ not intended for their reception, and which has not had time to adapt itself to the new function. ”

“ A fruit diet is of great value in obesity. An exclusive fruit diet may be taken to the greatest possible advantage by the too corpulent who wish to reduce in weight. For this purpose, fruit has the advantage of satisfying the appetite while at the same time contributing very little nutrition to the body. The free use of fruit is the method par excellence for overcoming constipation. The eating of a half dozen raw prunes before breakfast, or the taking of the juice of one or two oranges, will in the majority of cases be all that is necessary to maintain regular bowel activity. ”

“ The menu provided for man in the beginning did not include animal food. Not until one thousand six hundred fifty-six years of human history had passed was man permitted to eat flesh, and then only after every green thing had been destroyed by the Deluge. What we eat exercises a profound influence upon what we are, how we think, and how we feel. Let us divide the animal kingdom on the basis of diet and disposition. ”

“ No strong arguments are necessary to convince people that flesh foods are expensive when it is known that ten pounds of grain suitable for human food are required to produce in the animal one pound of flesh food.
Meat Substitutes
The high cost of flesh foods is turning attention to meat substitutes. Proteins and fats of the vegetable world are not only cheaper, but they are more wholesome than flesh. For example: The soy bean, recently introduced to the American table, contains, pound for pound, and at one fifth the cost, almost twice as much available protein and fat as the best beefsteak. ”

“ Consequently, the greater the amount of potassium in our food, the greater will be the loss of sodium chloride from the blood and the tissues, where it is an essential element, with the resultant need of an increased supply in our diet. Where there is an insufficient use of salt, there is a manifest disinclination to partake of the large variety of earth's products rich in potassium. But we are accustomed to the use of far more salt with our food than is necessary; and in excess, it is positively harmful, and the results of its use are serious. ”

“ An excess of this food element is of particular injury to the body. The extensive experiments of Professors Chittenden, Fisher, and other scientific workers, have shown that for efficient nutrition, we require that only one tenth of the daily intake of food should be of the structure-building, tissue-repairing protein. In the laboratory of nature, the food elements have been so combined by the plants, that the protein element is very low; and thus a diet selected from the natural products of the earth is not only free from uric acid and other waste products, but is already balanced. ”

“ Late hours, business worry, nerve-wrecking noises, the hurry, the wear and tear of living in a crowd, the dust and filth of the city air, the struggle of competition,—these would be replaced by purer, saner surroundings if parents settled in some country place where children are born with a heritage of fresh air, grassy playgrounds, wholesome daily tasks in the house and out of doors, and are fed in a simple manner befitting their surroundings. ”

“ The importance of the vitamines in nutrition has been very clearly demonstrated in experiments upon animals, and these experiments have been repeated a sufficient number of times to be conclusive. Animals have been fed upon pure protein, fat, carbohydrate, and salts, but with vitamine removed or destroyed; and although receiving calories enough, they fail to keep up their nutrition. With a simple change of dietary to include a small amount of food containing the vitamine, without any change in the total calories eaten, their nutrition improves quickly, and they come back to a normal state. ”

“ There are seven classes of the essential elemental food substances,—proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamines, salts, cellulose, and water. The ideal diet is one in which these seven elements are regularly supplied to the body in the amounts required to meet its daily needs. A person living close to nature, receiving his food first-handed, direct from nature's health food factory, and eating it with only the cooking and seasoning necessary, and with a reasonable variety, would probably find his diet sufficient, and the elements in about the proper proportions ”

“ But fruit is golden all the time. This wonderful gift, one of the greatest and best physical gifts of an all-wise Providence, cannot be prized to highly; for it is considered sufficiently valuable to endure for both time and eternity. Of the first man and woman, it was said that they might eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; and it is said of the inhabitants of the renewed earth, during eternity, that "they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them."
Too much good food makes one auto-toxic. Too muck fun makes one asinine. ”

“ Protein not only supplies tissue-building material, but it can also supply heat and energy in a manner similar to the other classes of food elements, carbohydrate and fat, one ounce of the protein yielding one hundred sixteen calories of energy. The excess taken in may be used in this way, as there is no storage of this material in the body. However, to use this kind of fuel takes more work on the part of the body as a whole, as the nitrogenous wastes must be eliminated by the kidneys. ”

“ From the days of ancient Egypt, when Joseph, who stood at the head of the great food conservation movement of the time, called the attention of the world to the need of food economy, down through history to the present time, the human race has passed through numerous crises when the questions of food production and food economy have been vital. ”

“ Help people to understand that the unnatural appetites and the desires for artificial food are penalties paid very largely by those who seek to maintain themselves by their wits. One mighty step has been taken toward the prevention of waste and in economy's favor when men learn to earn their bread in the sweat of their face while tilling the soil. ”

“ The palatable pleasure in a meal of his childhood is a lost asset. What has brought about this change in the appetite of man?
We all know, from experience, that we handle our food better if we relish it. This is due largely to the fact that the taste organs telegraph ahead to the stomach to prepare for work. The stomach responds by pouring out some digestive juices, and is consequently all ready to begin business the instant the tourist arrives. ”

“ Flesh Food a Stimulant
Whence then come these "illusions," these "false notions of the strengthening effect of meat"? They come from the fact that foods of this class are stimulating. A stimulant is a counterfeit for strength. It is a physical deceiver. It makes a person believe he is strong because he "feels" strong, when it is not true at all. That which is interpreted as strength is only nervous excitement. A stimulant never builds up; it only stirs up. ”

“ In no direction can they [the women of America] so greatly assist as by enlisting in the service of the food administration and cheerfully accepting its direction and advice. By so doing, they will increase the surplus of food available for our own army and for exports to the allies. To provide adequate supplies for the coming year is of absolutely vital importance to the conduct of the war; and without a very conscientious elimination of waste and very strict economy in our food consumption, we cannot hope to fulfill this primary duty. ”

“ There is a constant breaking down of our tissues; and the food ingested is the source of the material for repair. By its oxidation, digestion, and assimilation, energy is liberated for life's varied activities.
The primary object of taking food is, in the words of the wise man, "for strength, and not for drunkenness." Any one who makes the pleasure of eating the chief requisite will some day find, by a disordered stomach and a clogged liver, that eating has ceased to be a pleasure. ”

“ An excess of milk and sugar taken together clogs the system, and should be avoided. Fats are more digestible cold than hot, because hot fat tends to coat and intimately penetrate the food with which it is cooked. This is especially true of fried foods, part of the food being surrounded with a layer of fat, keeping the digestive juices from acting on the other food elements. When subjected to a high temperature, fats decompose, and the resulting acids are very irritating to the mucous membranes of the stomach and the intestines. ”

“ As showing its perfectly digested state, demonstrations have proved that fruit sugar may be injected directly into the blood, from which it will be utilized in nourishing the body. This is in marked contrast with ordinary cane sugar, which, if injected directly into the blood, is expelled through the kidneys, the body being unable to appropriate it as such from the blood.
Fruit sugar may be eaten in practically unlimited quantities. It supplies the body with heat and energy in the most available form. For this reason, fruit when eaten will quickly relieve the sense of exhaustion. ”

“ Rich pastries, harmful condiments, tea and coffee,—narcotics recognized as extravagant, harmful, and useless beverages,—are being discarded for the sake of both health and economy. Remove the cream and the sugar from tea and coffee, and they have no food value.
Use the coffee mill to grind wheat, rye, and corn, that you may enjoy the vitamines, the mineral salts, and other elements often removed by the manufacturer.
Many people prominent in social circles are eliminating all lunches served between regular meals and eaten for merely social purposes. ”

“ The practice of eating but two meals a day is generally found a benefit to health; yet under some circumstances, persons may require a third meal. This should, however, if taken at all, be very light, and of foods very easily digested, so that when we lie down to rest, the stomach may have its work all done, and it, as well as the other organs of the body, may enjoy rest. ”

“ A good appetite is the best seasoning for plain food.
Permanent Reforms
The world has been roughly awakened, and forcibly compelled to study food economy. This upheaval should result in permanent good to every individual. We have not fully appreciated the fact that our sinful indulgence and our careless waste of time, money, and food is a violation of the great commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." By our extravagant ways, multitudes have been robbed of the necessities of life. ”