Health (toast)

“ Before discussing the question of suitable foods for individual needs or the ill-health which is so likely to follow an unrestrained or unwise diet, it will be well to trace briefly the passage of food through the human body, with the various changes which take place in its mass from the time it enters the mouth until it is absorbed by the stomach. ”

“ Next the searcher for health should teach himself to eat foods that are natural, cooked simply, and with a minimum amount of seasoning and dressing. The various spices and sauces irritate the digestive organs and create a craving for an excessive amount of food. The food should be changed as little as possible because such denatured foods as white flour, polished rice, pasteurized milk, and many of the canned fruits and vegetables are so lacking in the natural salts that they do not satisfy one's desire for organic salts. ”

“ When the Substance that was stopt passes into the Stomach, the Patient must immediately be put into a very mild and smooth Regimen. He should avoid all sharp, irritating, inflaming Food; Wine, spirituous Liquors, all strong Drink, and Coffee; taking but little Nourishment at once, and no Solids, without their having been thoroughly well chewed. The best Diet would be that of farinaceous mealy Soups, made of various leguminous Grains, and of Milk and Water, which is much better than the usual Custom of swallowing different Oils. ”

“ How much more natural to suppose that the more perfect the health of the stomach, the better it will bear, for a time, with slight or even serious departures from truth and nature! How much more natural to suppose that perfect health is the very best defence against all the causes which tend to invite or to provoke disease! And what it would be natural to infer, is proved by experience to be strictly true. The thorough-going vegetable-eater can make a meal for once, or perhaps feed for a day or so, on substances which would almost kill many others ”

“ First, that the complete chewing of all food, both liquid and solid, whereby a process of involuntary swallowing is established, foods being selected in accordance with individual tastes, is by far the most important and most necessary part of human nutrition. ”

“ The Diet of Country People being of the simplest Kind, and almost solely consisting of Vegetables and of Milk-meats, is the most proper Diet towards preparing for this Disease. For this Reason, such Persons have little more to attend to in this Respect, but that such Aliments be sound and good in their Kind; that their Bread be well baked; their Pulse dressed without Bacon, or rancid strong Fat of any sort; that their Fruits should be well ripened; that their Children should have no Cakes or Tarts, [But see Note 11, P. 40, 41.] ”

“ And again—how often is it that fat, plethoric, meat-eating children, their faces looking as though the blood was just ready to ooze out, are with the greatest complacency exhibited by their parents as patterns of health! But let it ever be remembered, that the condition of the system popularly called rude or full health, and which is the result of high feeding, is too often closely bordering on a state of disease. ”

“ A diet of milk, cereals, vegetables, nuts, and fruits, raw or simply cooked, with a small amount of animal foods, will perhaps give [Pg 278] the best results in this climate. Food fried in fats, rich pastries and gravies are the hardest to digest, and better health will usually follow discontinuing them. ”

“ If the digestive organs of man were designed to receive nothing but digestible and nutrient substances, they would have been constructed and arranged very differently from what they are. As we have already seen, everything which nature provides for our sustenance, consists of certain proportions of nutritious and innutritious matter; and a due proportion of innutritious matter in our food is as essential to the health and functional integrity of our alimentary organs, as a due proportion of nutritious matter is to the sustenance of the body. ”

“ When we consider the organization of the human system, the form and arrangement of the teeth, the structure of the stomach and intestines, we are led to conclude, that both animal and vegetable food is requisite, and that a mixed diet is most conducive to strength, health, and long life. ”

“ The statistics comparing meat-eating and non-meat-eating races with regard to tuberculosis, cancer, appendicitis, etc., are of the greatest interest to those who care not only for the health but for the mere cleanness of their bodies. ”

“ Very unhappily People have taken the directly contrary Method. From the Moment these previous, these forerunning Complaints are perceived, they allow themselves to eat nothing but gross Meat, Eggs, or strong Meat-Soups. They leave off Garden-Stuff and Fruits, which would be so proper for them; and they drink heartily (under a Notion of strengthening the Stomach and expelling Wind) of Wine and other Liquors, which strengthen nothing but the Fever, and expel what Degree of Health might still remain. Hence all the Evacuations are restrained ”

“ The flours and foods of the Health Food Company are nourishing in health and remedial in sickness. Their good work is in the improvement of the blood-making processes, in better digestion, in increased nutrition. It is their function to ably supplement all such remedial measures as skill and science may suggest. Many physicians have testified to the increased readiness of diseases to yield to their treatment when the patients have been sustained by the bland, soluble, non-irritating, nourishing nutriments prepared by the Health Food Company. ”

“ As the blood is made from our food, we should be careful as to the quality and quantity, eating only what is conducive to health, which surely will promote happiness. Strong spices, hot bread, rich pies and cakes, salt pork and beef, are injurious eating at all hours of the day, especially at bed time, and is contrary to the laws of nature. ”

“ Nothing is more certain than that animal food is inimical to health. This is evident from its stimulating qualities producing, as it were, a temporary fever after every meal; and not only so, but from its corruptible qualities it gives rise to many fatal diseases; and those who indulge in its use seldom arrive at an advanced age. ”

“ All sweets and starchy foods, which are converted into sugar by digestion, should be shunned, while whole wheat bread, lean beef, mutton and fish, together with salads made from herbs, should be eaten. Acid fruits, such as oranges and lemons, are beneficial. Soft boiled eggs and milk (in moderation) may be taken. All food should be eaten slowly and a little at a time. The only drink should be pure water, and that never at meal times, but a cup of hot water half an hour before meals will be found of service. Tea, coffee, cream, and especially alcoholic drinks, must be absolutely avoided. ”

“ Variety of foods is necessary, for monotony of even the best kinds leads to satiety, loss of appetite, loathing of food, and subsequent ill-health. Vegetables and fruits are absolutely essential, but raw fruits are not so easily digested as cooked. ”

“ In every instance the disease developed in families provided with an abundance of food of all kinds. An analysis of the actual consumption, however, showed that "not one of the patients ate a well rounded, balanced diet of meat, milk, eggs or wholesome vegetables." ”

“ In fact, our instinctive use of them to help down bread and butter, or rice, or puddings of various sorts, is a natural and proper one. Like the vegetables, they contain various salts which are useful in neutralizing certain acid substances formed in the body. Soldiers in war, or sailors upon long voyages, who are fed upon a diet consisting chiefly of salted or preserved meat, with bread or hard biscuit and sugar, but without either fruits or fresh vegetables, are likely to develop a disease called scurvy. ”

“ Twenty-six months of entire abstinence from all animal substances, excepting butter and milk. Salt is used regularly.
7. Through life inclined to a vegetable diet, with few stimulants.
8. Drinks have been milk, milk and water, or cold water.
9. A well-selected vegetable diet appears to produce a very regular action of the stomach and bowels.
10. I think the health of laborers and students would be promoted by a great reduction of the usual quantity of animal food, and perhaps by discontinuing its use entirely. I feel no want. ”

“ Whatever thus makes living substance is nourishment; whatever fails to do so is not. If food be taken, and even digested, without being thus assimilated, it becomes an injury to a patient instead of a help. In cases of fever, inflammatory disease, or wasting sores, much rich food feeds the fire. ”

“ Be therefore temperate in eating, and eat only of such foods as are the plainest; and let a proper quantity of vegetable food be mixed with animal. If you value the preservation of health, never satiate yourselves with eating; but let it be a rule from which you ought never to depart, always to rise from table with some remains of appetite: for, when the stomach is loaded with more food than it can easily digest, a crude and unassimilated chyle is taken into the blood, pregnant with diseases. ”

“ When recovering from agues and intermittent fevers, animal jellies, and plain animal food, with as little vegetable as possible, is the proper diet. Meat and meat broth, generally speaking, are not so well adapted for the re-establishment of health and strength, as more simple diets. Flesh being the food most used by old and young at all other times, is consequently that from which their distempers chiefly proceed, or at least it nourishes those disorders which other causes may have contributed to introduce. ”

“ Foods should favor the completest digestion, so that metabolism be on the highest plane. The dietary should be abundant, plain, and varied, and cooked with all the refinements possible in the modern cooking-school, which should be one of its departments, with limited use of rich foods or desserts and stimulating drinks, but with wholesome proximity to dairy and farm. Nutrition is the first law of health and happiness, the prime condition and creator of euphoria ”

“ In the same way, simple food to take the place of the rich, heavy foods eaten in large quantities, will prevent many of the diseases of the stomach, liver, and kidneys, and improve the general health and strength. A diet of less meat and more eggs has been tried by football teams in training and found to give an equal amount of strength with greater endurance. ”

“ How do fruits and vegetables help to keep us well? In the first place, by their wholesome effect upon the bowels. As a rule we associate regular daily movements with health, but do not always recognize the part which diet plays in securing them. If we eat little besides meat and potatoes, bread, butter, and cake or pie, we are very likely to have constipation. This is particularly true for those who work indoors or sit much of the time. Now, fruits and vegetables have several properties which help to make them laxative. ”

“ The reduction in meat eating and the production to some extent of a taste for the white rather than the dark foods generally, for butter and eggs and creamed vegetables rather than the meat soups and meat sauces and the dark, heavy meats, so rich in the irritative extractives, is undoubtedly of distinct hygienic advantage. ”

“ And to the extent to which we eat merely with a view to pleasing the palate must our health necessarily suffer. After this preliminary discussion, we can proceed to consider what kind of food is best for us.
Before, however, we decide the question of the ideal food for us, we have to consider what kinds of food are injurious to health, and to be avoided. Under the term “food”, we include all the things that are taken into the body through the mouth,—including wine, bhang and opium, tobacco, tea, coffee and cocoa, spices and condiments. ”

“ This rule applies with especial force to food of a starchy nature,—bread, potatoes, oatmeal, rice, etc. In order to digest food of this character it must be very thoroughly cooked and when finally placed upon the table it should be of such consistence that it requires chewing before it can be swallowed. Not only is this necessary from the standpoint of breaking up the larger particles into smaller ones, thus permitting the food to pass freely through the stomach and intestine, but it is of the greatest importance for it to be thoroughly soaked with the saliva during the process. ”

“ From all these examples and customs, it may probably be concluded that the common ingredients of health and long life are, great temperance, open air, easy labor, little care, simplicity of diet—rather fruits and plants than flesh, which easier corrupts—and water, which preserves the radical moisture without too much increasing the radical heat. Whereas sickness, decay, and death proceed commonly from the one preying too fast upon the other, and at length wholly extinguishing it. ”

“ There is abundant testimony to be had, going to show that a vegetable diet is a security against disease, especially against epidemics, whether in the form of a mere influenza or malignant fever. Nay, there is reason to believe that a person living according to all the Creator's laws, physical and moral, could hardly receive or communicate disease of any kind. How could a person in perfect health, and obeying to an iota all the laws of health—how could he contract disease? ”