Nutrition

“ These processes, however, in health are held rigidly in check, and count for little in fitting the food for absorption. Digestion, on the other hand, extending as we have seen from the mouth cavity to the ileocæcal valve, is the handmaiden of nutrition, preparing all three classes of organic foodstuffs for their passage into the circulating blood and lymph, and thus paving the way for their utilization by the hungry tissue cells. ”

“ Vitamins a New Factor in Nutrition.—But recent investigation has proved that something more is essential for the maintenance of growth and well-being than protein, carbohydrates, fats, and salts; that food contains a minute portion of accessory bodies, and that when they are deficient or absent from the diet the immature body does not grow, the mature body does not maintain its condition, and there are manifestations of more or less serious disease. ”

“ Most interesting is the study of the food as it passes through the processes of digestion, absorption, assimilation, and oxidation—all definite and important parts of the great cycle through which everything we eat passes on its way from the table to the tissues. Elimination is the last step in nutrition, and is the process by which the body rids itself of the broken down cells and other poisonous and useless wastes. These various phases of bodily nutrition may be expressed in a single term—metabolism. ”

“ There is no single, one, all-encompassing, correct diet. But, there is a single, basic, underlying Principle of Nutrition that is universally true. In its most simplified form, the basic equation of human health goes: Health = Nutrition / Calories. The equation falls far short of explaining the origin of each individuals diseases or how to cure diseases but Health = Nutrition / Calories does show the general path toward healthful eating and proper medicine. ”

“ The faculty of nutrition is highly developed in the organ or it could not so continuously, and on the whole healthily, discharge its functions, even when other parts of the body, or the system as a whole, are suffering from disease. ”

“ According to Knight nutrition reigns supreme in the whole realm of variability, the kind of food and the method of nourishment coming into consideration only in a secondary way. The amount of useful nutrition is the all-important factor. ”

“ Thus, it is now generally agreed that to satisfy the animal needs for growth and the maintenance of nutrition something more than a due admixture of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and inorganic salts is essential. ”

“ 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 ”

“ A reasonable intelligence combined with a disposition to exercise the same degree of judgment and care in the nutrition of the body as is expended on other matters, of no greater importance, pertaining to the individual, to the household, or to business interests, are all that is needed to bring about harmony between every-day dietary habits and the nutritive requirements of the body. ”

“ To fulfill the second indication, to restore healthy nutrition, requires not only a proper diet, both as regards quantity and quality, but demands that the integrity of the organs concerned in the process of digestion and assimilation, shall be maintained at the highest standard of perfection possible. ”

“ The subject of nutrition was given a prominent place. The more elementary chemical substances constituting the principal natural food products were shown in glass bottles and, further, shown by charts to which the percentage number of each elementary substance was attached, with the daily amounts of each required by man. Against a wall, there were arranged the quantities of water, salts, proteids, fats and carbo-hydrates which man consumed in a year and in the form of natural foodstuffs. ”

“ Again, when it is known that right or wrong nutrition of the body is the most important agent in forming character, in establishing predisposition to temperance or intemperance of living, including the desire for intoxicating stimulants, it is revealed to one that right nutrition of the community as a whole is an important factor in his own environment, as is self-care in the case of his own nourishment. ”

“ The necessity for occasionally changing or varying the diet, is seen in the fact that no single article comprises all the necessary principles of food, and that the continuous use of any one diet, whether salt or fresh, is followed by defective nutrition and disease. ”

“ Doctors, again, are more and more recognising that nutrition depends not only upon the chemical composition of food but upon our appetite, and that we can become aware of our appetite and to some extent control and direct it by our will. ”

“ As is well known, the nutrition of man is supplied by the organic substances, protein, carbohydrates, and fat; these are found in various combinations in animal and vegetarian foods, and as a rule contain also much of the inorganic or mineral substances necessary for the system; all of 111these with water, and its salts, and oxygen, supplied by the lungs, unite, through anabolism and catabolism, to build and maintain the human body in health. ”

“ Relation.—The value of a food depends largely upon the relation of one group of nutrients to another. Proper nutrition can only be obtained when a sufficient amount of flesh-forming as well as of heat-producing nutrients are present, when the “nutritive ratio” is properly balanced for the particular purpose in view, be it the growth of the child, the maintenance of the body, the restoration of matter consumed by labor of body or brain, or the supply of heat to make up for cold surroundings. ”

“ Among the wealthier classes, imperfect nutrition most generally arises from excess in quantity, or a too stimulating quality, of food; but among the lower classes from deficiency in quantity or quality, added to scantiness of clothing, want of cleanliness, and imperfect ventilation. ”

“ Nutrition.—As nutrition consists in the renewal of the molecules which constitute an animal body, and as that is accomplished by means of the food, we have only to consider the principal processes which the latter undergoes, in order to obtain an indication of the different heads under which this department of the subject may most naturally be treated. The first of the most important changes to which the food is subjected internally, is its conversion into chyle, previous to which it is incapable of affording any nutriment ”

“ In other words, food is intended to be eaten that nourishment may be gained from it, and when you only gain a part of the nourishment, you prostitute your stomach and take tremendous risks of germ diseases in your body.
These facts are set forward thus simply in the hope that they may impress the reader as they have impressed the writer. Economic nutrition is not a joke, is not a fad ”

“ The diet must be nutritious, cabonaceous, and of sufficient quantity. Beef, milk, rich cream, plenty of good butter, eggs, fish, wheat bread from unbolted flour, supply the appropriate alimentary substances for perfect nutrition and the maintenance of animal heat. ”

“ We hear on all sides widely divergent views regarding the needs of the body, as to the extent and character of the food requirements, contradictory statements as to the relative merits of animal and vegetable foods; indeed, there is great lack of agreement regarding many of the fundamental questions that constantly arise in any consideration of the nutrition of the human body. ”

“ Nutrition is the grand factor in the prevention or cure of disease. It may be said, truly enough, that the blood-aerating capacity remains throughout equal, often superior, to the blood-making capacity; and consumption may be appropriately described as dyspeptic starvation. (See “Saline Starvation.”) ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fruits, on the contrary, although equally rich in heat producing qualities, yet on account of the previous natural transmutation of starch into glucose, are in a condition for immediate appropriation by the system, and consequently absorption of nutrition and elimination of waste are equally prompt. ”

“ We could analyze an adult man and a new-born infant, and know that the infant, in order to reach maturity, would need to add to its body so many pounds of oxygen, carbon, sulfur, iron, etc. The problem of nutrition, however, is more complex. Not only must we consider the formation of new tissue, but we must also allow for the rebuilding of the old, and for all those processes of vital activity that involve the consumption of food material and the destruction of body-tissue. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The further we remove foods from their natural state, the more difficult becomes their analysis, their reliability, and a knowledge of their chemistry, therefore the menus that appear in this work include only the foods that will give to the body the best elements of nutrition. ”

“ Because the stomachs of locomotive beings appear to have been provided for the purpose of conveying about with the moving animal nutritive substances, analogous in effect to the soil in which are fixed the roots of plants and, therefore, nothing ought to be introduced into the stomach for digestion and for absorption by the lacteals, or roots of the animal system, but the natural bases of simple nutrition—as the saccharine, the oleaginous, and the farinaceous matter of the vegetable kingdom. ”

“ Many examples can be given of men and women of mature life who, either on account of some digestive disorder or some mental bias, have confined themselves absolutely to a diet of about two quarts of milk a day and have lived thereon for months and years without suffering from lack of nutrition. ”

“ What are the true nutritive requirements of the body? How much food and what kinds of food does the ordinary individual doing an average amount of work need each day in order to preserve body equilibrium, and to maintain health, strength, and vigor under the varying conditions of life? What amount of nitrogen or proteid, and what the total calorific value154 required to supply the physiological needs of the body? ”

“ With data such as these before us we see the possible importance of a fuller and more exact knowledge of true dietary standards. We find here questions suggested, the answers to which are of primary importance in our understanding of the nutritive processes of the body; greater ease in the maintenance of health, increased power of resistance to disease germs, duration of life increased beyond the present average, greater physiological economy and greater efficiency, increased mental and physical vigor with less expenditure of energy on the part of the body. ”

“ There is little doubt but that the health of most people would be vastly improved if food were only eaten when genuine hunger was felt, and the dietary chosen were well balanced, i.e., the proportions of protein, fat, carbohydrates and salts being about 3, 2, 9, 2-3. ”

“ The value, therefore, of some general knowledge of the chemical constituents of food is obvious. The diet [Pg 74] must be properly balanced, that is, the food eaten must provide the nutrients the body requires, and not contain an excess of one element or a deficiency of another. It is impossible to substitute protein for fat, or vice versa, and get the same physiological result, although the human organism is wonderfully tolerant of abuse, and remarkably ingenious in its ability to adapt itself to abnormal conditions. ”

“ Where the child stores up too much fat, care in the amount of exercise, and of oxygen consumed, as well as the regulation of diet, are of vital importance. If one is thin and undernourished, chemical analysis of the contents of stomach, intestines and kidneys should be made, the nerves be rested and proper food, exercise and breathing should accompany medical treatment, if medicine is needed. ”

“ In passing, it is interesting to observe the following: the fact that in a mixed fruitarian diet the proportion of the nutrient compounds is such as to satisfy natural requirements is another proof of the suitability of the vegetable regimen to the human organism. It is a provision of Nature that those foods man's digestive organs are constructed to assimilate with facility, and man's organs of taste, smell, and perception best prefer, are those foods containing chemical compounds in proportions best suited to nourish his body. ”

“ In conclusion, the facts here presented bearing on food requirements,227 especially those that relate to the need for proteid food, are seemingly harmonious in indicating that the physiological necessities of the body are fully met by a much more temperate use of food than is commonly practised. Dietary standards based on the habits and usages of prosperous communities are not in accord with the data furnished by exact physiological experimentation. ”