The substances which man eats have been considered as food. They are food, however, only when they possess elements useful to the whole body, namely, such elements as build up, energize and vitalize, and are not in any way detrimental or destructive to health and well-being.
The diet of man to be thus constructive - and nothing else should be acceptable to him - besides being palatable, must contain all the active principles which maintain life: nuclein, the life principle; vitamin, the active principle; the organic mineral elements - the regulating and equalizing principles. Unless food contains one or more of these agents, it cannot be considered as real food, though it may and frequently does take the place of such.
There are many articles of diet, both single and in combination, classed as food, which, although not actually detrimental to health, are so deficient in the life-giving and sustaining principles that they should not be used; they give the digestive and eliminative organism extra work and use up a considerable amount of stored energy which they in no way replace.
A proper diet is selected not merely from the standpoint of nourishment, i.e. from foods which will build up the body, restore worn tissue, and furnish the heat and energy required by the physical being, as this is not in itself sufficient. There are other requirements of vital importance, namely, the vitalization of the entire man. Because of this all-important need. we have termed the elements required for this complete purpose, the vital or life principles. These are found abundantly in cereals, fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, roots, dairy products, sea food of every description, and to a degree, the flesh of animals, though in the last we find toxins and ureas which create and maintain death-dealing germs in the intestinal tract. We have been called "vegetarians" because we believe, with certain exceptions, that man is at his best if he eschews meats. This term as applied to us is a misnomer. We do not believe in the exclusive vegetarian diet for we know that, in many instances, it is harmful to health and shortens life.
The active, i.e., vital and life elements, are found in greater abundance in food of vegetable origin, in fruits and nuts, and if health, strength and vital power are sought, then the correct diet must be composed of at least one-half its total of vegetables, and fruits consumed between meals.
One may live for a time, and even be strong and grow fat, without fruits and vegetables. Although on such a diet one may appear healthy and normal in every respect, the field for an easy inception of disease is always present. As an example we may cite sailors who live almost exclusively on a non-fruit, non- vegetable diet. Although apparently well-nourished, with waste material removed from the system, and with necessary heat and energy furnished, there is nevertheless a vital necessity lacking which is manifested through the disease known as scurvy. This ailment actually became a fearful scourge to the sailors of the German navy in World war I and was due to elements lacking from the diet. To prove that this disease is altogether a result of an unbalanced diet, that is to say, one minus the elements contained in fruit and vegetables, we need only supply the scurvy patient with some fresh vegetables, especially lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard-- even potato peels are good; or with apples and oranges; or the fruit-vegetable, tomatoes, and the disease will soon be a thing forgotten. In some hospitals a practice is made of prescribing a diet only of oranges for children affected with scurvy; in others, tomatoes are used; while in some epidemics, potato peelings have been the accepted remedy for the trouble. This is a clear indication that something is required in the diet in addition to materials which build the body, restore worn tissue, and supply energy, if man is to remain healthy and normal.
If people are fed on a diet of fish and polished rice or denatured cereal products, they soon weaken physically and mentally though fish alone would furnish sufficient bodily nourishment and they become affected with beriberi, a very dangerous condition akin to tuberculosis. Change this diet but slightly, prescribing fish or other sea food as before; give rice also - the unpolished, natural rice; but add to the menu one or two vegetables, or fruits between meals, and health and normality will be restored. In the outer coating of rice, as we have already stated, and repeat because of its importance, just as in the bran of wheat, and in fruits and vegetables, there is an element, considered by uniformed producers as unnecessary and undesirable because of its color; this portion of the grain is actually as essential as the body builders and energy producers, if health, energy, and efficiency, i.e., vital power, are desired.
The white potato, as usually used, is composed principally of starch. Used thus it is a muscle builder and heat producer, but it is also a robber of the lime in the system and if extensively consumed without the addition of vegetables, will cause congestions, indigestion, acidosis, and open the way for the inception of wasting diseases. But if the potato is served as Nature intended, with the skin, it is an almost perfectly balanced product and less acid-producing than the cereals, for the reason that in the potato skin there is abundance of vital cell salts, vitamin, and nuclein.
In the digestion and assimilation of starches and sugars, calcium is required. All starchy foods, in their natural state, carry this in their outer coating; in the bran of wheat, oats, rye, and corn we find one of the important mineral elements to be lime. If this mineral is eliminated in the process of preparation, then in the digestion of the starches, the lime in the fluids of the body is drawn upon and a deficiency occurs. This is one of the reasons why nearly all people who live principally on starchy foods suffer so frequently and severely from gastritis, indigestion, mal-assimilation, toxo-absorption, auto infection and like ailments, and frequently a long period is required to establish normality in the digestive and assimilative departments even after a proper dietary regime is instituted. All starches and sugars which have been denatured are vampires and steal calcium from the body to help in their digestion and assimilation. In the combination of foods so as to form a natural, normal, health-creating diet, it is these apparently small items which we must carefully consider, otherwise we shall fail in obtaining the desired results.
The question is frequently asked: Do all foods - fruits, vegetables, rice, corn, wheat, legumes, etc. - which ordinarily possess the vital principles, actually contain them to the degree usually supposed?
This is a question which is seldom, if ever, answered, and we deem it of so great importance that we shall endeavor here to answer it as it deserves to be.
Science has partly awakened to an understanding of a cardinal doctrine known and taught by our school for years, namely, the one regarding the several vital principles naturally existing in cereals, legumes (pulse), vegetables, root foods, and fruits. But a question which science has as yet failed to answer is: Do spinach, lettuce, and other vegetables, apples, oranges, and other fruits, wheat, corn, and other cereals, peas, beans, and other pulse, and various nuts, always contain these vital principles, if not interfered with by any processes of manufacture or preparation? If not, why not?
If, when these foods are properly combined, they fail to restore health and strength as they were intended to do and as they most certainly should, did they actually contain these vital principles? If not, why not?
Let us answer these questions with an analogy. Can a mother who is sickly, lacking in strength, whose blood is filled with toxins, give birth to a child which is well, strong, filled with energy, and free from disease? If not, why not? The answer is practically self-evident: she cannot, because the child is flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood, and could not receive from the mother what the mother did not possess. True, the child at birth may possibly be in somewhat better physical condition than its mother because it may have absorbed almost the last particle of strength she had to give.
If we analyze a pound of healthy (normal) flesh and a pound of normal (healthy) soil, we shall discover in the flesh the same seventeen most important elements, and also, of course, the many other minerals which are not considered so essential. If one or more of these elements is missing from the flesh, then health, strength , and vitality must be below par. If, for instance, calcium is seriously lacking, there exists what is commonly termed sour stomach, and consequently some form of indigestion, possibly mal-assimilation, resulting in physical weakness, weak bony structure, poor teeth, rickets in children and many other expressions of lime starvation. Similarly, if one or more natural elements are missing from the soil, it is not healthy and cannot produce normal, health-giving vegetables, fruits, cereals, or root foods. If the lime content is below par, the soil is sour, and acid state exists, and it cannot produce as it should, nor can the product be what is should be. If we plant lettuce, celery, spinach, or other vegetables, attempt to raise wheat, corn or other cereals, or grow fruit trees in soil deficient in one or more of the natural mineral elements, it is of course impossible for the plants to obtain from the soil that which it does not contain. Though they may grow and appear more or less normal, they are not healthy and therefore cannot supply the system of man or animal that which they do not themselves contain, namely, the element required to maintain normality.
We believe that throughout the United States, and possibly in other countries as well, too large portions of the arable soil are no longer in normal condition; that it is lacking in one or many of the necessary elements; therefore, anything and everything grown in such soil must necessarily be deficient in the same elements which are not found in the soil. It is against nature and all natural laws to believe that vegetables, cereals, legumes, root-foods, or fruit can draw from the soil that which it does not contain. And it is for this reason that lettuce is not always lettuce, potatoes not actually potatoes, nor wheat always wheat, in a true sense, because to be such they must contain all the elements normal to them when grown under normal conditions.
Implicit in our answer to the questions above is the solution to a very serious problem which is that not only do the American people themselves deliberately denature their foods and ignorantly or foolishly miscombine them, but a steadily enlarging area of our fruit, vegetable, cereal, and legume-growing soil, is abnormal - deficient in one or many of the necessary elements required to maintain a healthy soil condition. As a result of this we are growing vast quantities of denatured food stuffs which we proceed further to denature, ourselves.
It is the one aim of this school to teach man a natural, normal, properly combined and correctly prepared diet. It is therefore necessary to carry this discussion still further, because upon the full and final conclusion we can only build our dietetic science. Unless we know precisely what is lacking in the diet, we shall not be able to seek for and find the cause, should an apparently properly selected and correctly combined regimen of feeding fail to bring the results we logically expect.
Milk, as has always been taught, is a food complete in itself. When this claim is made, we have in mind milk which is healthful and normal in every respect and made up of all the necessary elements which give to it full food value.
Heretofore, we had selected milk which had been examined and was certified to contain the necessary amount of fat; to be pure and free from an overabundance of germ content. For these reasons it was passed and considered to be proper food for man and child, and we gave this certified milk to our babies, expecting them to grow strong. Frequently, however we found they did not develop as we had a right to expect; they suffered from colic, sour stomach, and many other ills that prevented proper development, and we decided, since the milk must be "all right," that the trouble must arise from some peculiar condition existing in the system of the child. We did not know and had no reason to think that though the milk was free from filth, rich in butter fat and properly handled, there might be absent from it some element or elements necessary to balance it and make it a natural food.
Our school has made an exhaustive study of this question and has looked deeper and further afield than the mere germ-and-butter-fat content of the milk, important as these are, and we have found that if the food fed to the cows contains the necessary elements, the amount of fat and germ life is naturally taken care of, that is, taken care of by the operation of Nature. This is to say: if the milk contains the necessary vital elements to make it normal - which in turn signifies that the milk contains the proper amount of vitamin, then it will also contain a plentiful supply of butterfat to meet all requirements, and the germ life will be automatically regulated no more and no less than Nature intended.
Normal milk contains the exact proportion of lime and other vital elements for the constant maintenance and rebuilding of the body. When it is fed to the child in the correct proportion, the calcium will keep the stomach sweet, other elements will draw the digestive fluids and start digestion, and still others will cause the vital forces of the body to perform their proper functions, normality is maintained and a state of health exists.
Why should not all milk be normal and contain all the necessary elements, including vitamin, organic mineral elements, fat, albumen, casein, and the germ life in proper proportion?
The answer is identical with that in respect of fruits, vegetables, cereals, legumes, and root foods. If the soil which grows the grass and grain fed to the cow, does not contain the necessary elements such as lime, phosphorus, nitrogen, etc., then it is impossible for these elements to be in the milk; and just in proportion to the absence of this elements which, in the milk, as in the human blood, control germ life, will be their absence from the milk. One Law operates - but one: this should always be borne in mind.
The cure for this condition would be a better functioning Department of Agriculture which would make careful examination of all our farms, instruct the farmers and induce them to supply to the soil such elements as a scientific analysis of the soils reveals to be necessary. When this is done and the soil is again normal and healthy, in the same ration will the vegetables, fruits, legumes, cattle, and all its products, become normal and fit food for child and man.
There is no other way. The universal, all controlling, never-to-be-set-aside Law of Nature is: "As ABOVE, SO BELOW." As it is in the lesser, so is it in the greater. The earth is the source and basis of food for man and beast. Whatever is drawn from the earth must be replaced or else we commit robbery, and robbery is unfailingly "punished" by God, by Nature, or by re-action - call the sure result what you will.
If the soil is kept healthful, i.e., supplied with the necessary elements, then all that is raised on it will also contain these elements in correct proportion, for Nature is a master chemist if given the material to work with. If our food vegetables, fruits, legumes, cereals, dairy products, all sea foods, and if you will, meats - contains the necessary ingredients or agents, then we shall consume these in the food, and if we use the same wisdom in selecting and combining our food that the farmer does in feeding his cattle for market, we shall be healthy, normal, natural, efficient.
Few of us have forgotten the Southern pellagra scare of
a number of years back when that affliction made such inroads
in our Southern states. The cause of the infection, for such it
was, was finally traced to corn and it was found that in the districts
where corn and its products were the principal foods, the disease
was most prevalent. Though the trouble was traced to the corn
and many eminent medical men gave it as their opinion that corn
was the direct cause,(1) after careful investigation and many
experiments, they could not find any disease in the corn itself.
But - if the corn had been analyzed for the purpose of finding
whether or not it contained all the necessary organic mineral
elements, the real cause of the trouble would have been found
and a different story written.
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(1) When corn is grown in soil deficient in the various essential
mineral elements, it is rich in an aluminum. This substance causes
indigestion, malassimilation, and these in turn create wasting
disease, possibly cancer, and may have been the root cause of
pellagra.
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Up to the present, with few exceptions, physicians, dietitians, students, and laymen have considered that all foods which were body building, waste-restoring and energy-producing, were quite right for human consumption. These substances could be found in starches, meats, sea food, and various animal products, But despite the heavy consumption of them, even with conformity to the accepted "caloric" theory, people were found to be inefficient, not up to normal in vital power, slaves to disease and weakness.
Man carefully eliminates from his grains all that is not white, reserving for food only that which is within the covering, even rejecting the heart. The rougher and darker portions he does not consider fit food for himself though he admits that these cast-off products are necessary for the cattle because experience has taught him that these are essential if the cattle are to be kept healthy, virile, and profit-creating. He fails to reason that if it is necessary to give these husks or outer covering of fruits, vegetables, and grains to his cattle, the elements they contain are just as essential to his own health - his animal or physical body. The result of his mistake is that his cattle thrive while he becomes weaker, less efficient, more prone to the inception of disease, less able to withstand adverse conditions. Yet all the while, this ignorant, mistaken human considers himself the "lord of creation."
When the final word of man's fall by such diseases as tuberculosis and cancer is written, the epitaph will be: "Cause by an insufficiency of the vital elements in the food consumed, primarily due to his own ignorance or to the desire of a few to profit at the expense of the many who were passively willing to be deceived."
The people, however, here and there, are beginning to reason; they are "sensing" that there must be something radically wrong when they can maintain the health, strength, and productivity of cattle by sane scientific feeding, even though these are frequently poorly housed, while they themselves, carefully housed and clothed and having free choice of their food, steadily grow weaker - less able to resist disease - and less efficient.
The vital principles are found most abundantly in fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes; to a degree in milk and other dairy products and eggs. One of the richest sources of the organic mineral elements is whey, now generally fed to pigs or entirely wasted. These elements, irrespective of the carrying medium, are found only in proportion as they are contained in the soil in which these foods grown or from which the animal derives its food. The subsistence of man must therefore be a wise selection in proper relative proportions, of the products of the grains, including rice, and of vegetables, fruits, legumes, and animal products, and sea foods. Meat of any kind is unnecessary for the maintenance of health or the restoration to health of those who have become weak or ill. Fish and other sea foods, milk and other dairy products, and eggs, can successfully be substituted for meat, and these do no contain the unhealthful contents and excessive toxins and acids found in such meats as beef and pork. However, in all fairness, we admit that even the heavier meats are more desirable and health giving than the average combination of sweets and starches usually consumed in their stead by those who have given up the meat diet.
There is a Jewish law, one to be highly recommended to all, that when meat is served at a meal, milk is prohibited at that meal. The same law should be applied to fish. When fish or other sea food is served, then neither milk nor meat should be included in the meal. But milk alone forms a perfect substitute for meat; it does much more: it contains food value in the form of vitamin and organic mineral elements not found in meat, and it does not contain the bodily acids and toxins found in meat but instead a lactic acid base which is conducive to health.
When milk is served as the basic food of the meal it should be neither boiled nor pasteurized, but just as it is received from the dairy, with all its butterfat, without the addition of water and, if possible, sufficiently fresh so that the milk and butterfat remain unseparated.
Wheat, rice, barley, and corn are to be considered as basic foods and each is, with the addition of some milk or cheese, an excellent meat-substitute. IF - mark this - they are the whole grain products and not in any sense denatured. While wheat is, in a sense, a basic food, man cannot subsist on it alone, for the reason that the human stomach though centuries of misuse is no longer capable of fully digesting and completely absorbing the entire food-value of the grain.
Nuts are a basic food and, like wheat, may readily take the place of meat, but for the same reason given above, the stomach is unable to fully digest and absorb all the food value found in them and many people are not able to take them at all. For the reasons stated, even when one is able to digest these foods, it is best to balance carefully the cereals and nuts with dairy products vegetables, and fruits served at different meals, of course - thus giving the stomach the foods in combination which experience has shown can be digested and their nutritive value assimilated.
Vegetables, despite their great value in some respects, are not basic foods and are incapable of taking the place of such foods. They are accessories to meat or meat-substitutes, balance the diet and furnish the roughage or cellulose. Even in this role they may fail if not properly prepared, i.e., if the water in which they have been boiled is discarded, because it is in this water we find much of the organic mineral elements, just as the chemist obtains the medicinal constituents in the tincture extracted from the herbs, and not in the macerated steeped or soaked herbs from which the tincture has been drained.
As previously stated, practically all fruits should be consumed with their skins, because in the skins of the apple, pear, plum, peach, and other thin- skinned fruits there is an abundance of the organic mineral elements, while the vitamin is in the fruit itself. In fruits like the orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, etc, the vital elements and other valuable constituents are also found in the outer covering but we are as yet not educated to the consumption of these.
Potatoes, Irish or sweet, should never be eaten except with
the skin or jacket, because it is in these outer coverings that
the organic mineral elements and nuclein are found. Some may argue
that when eating potatoes, other foods such as lettuce, spinach,
Swiss chard, dandelion, or other greens containing as abundance
of these agents, might be combined with them and thus make up
the deficiency caused by paring the potatoes. This is false and
illogical reasoning. Nature created no food with an over-abundance
of any of these elements and a loss created cannot be supplied
completely in an artificial manner. The amount of these elements
in the outer covering or peel of the potato when properly grown
is just sufficient to balance the starch in the potato and neutralize
it; but these same elements in the lettuce or spinach, are in
proportion to the other contents of these vegetables wherewith
to balance them as food. If any of the necessary elements are
discarded, there is no possibility of making up the deficiency
without over-balancing the diet, unless one is able to supply
a concentrated extract(2) of these missing elements and this should
not be attempted except in illness, because these elements combined
with their natural source are by far preferable to any substitute
that can be supplied in an artificial manner.
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(2)Many vegetables, roots, barks, and herbs, are now dehydrated
and concentrated, properly combined for a special purpose, and
given to people suffering from various ailments. However, it is
not claimed that these preparations can or will take the place
of fresh vegetables, fruits, berries, and herbals, but that they
reinforce a normal diet and supply a surplus which the weakened
system is in need of in order to recuperate and reconstruct. -----------------------------------------------------
Consequently, when anyone claims that wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, rice, and other food substances, may be robbed of their vital principles and that this omission can be rectified by eating with them other foods rich in these deprived elements, their reasoning is illogical and false, and the results destructive to health and strength.
Attempts have been made, for instance, to extract the active principles from oats and prescribe these in concentrated form. Thought the results have been fairly successful, they have been far from what could be desired because these active principles cannot as readily be handled by the stomach in the concentrated forms as they can when combined with their native elements. There are cases where the condition of the sick and suffering is in need of such emergency concentrates but even then they should not be used in replacement of the whole foods but rather to reinforce the diet.
With milk, the principle is identical. If we drink milk while it is fresh and before chemical action has separated the cream from the milk, the fat is readily digested and assimilated by the organism. But if the chemical action of separating the cream from the milk has taken place before we drink it, and we again mix them, then even though the milk still remains sweet, the process of digestion is much interfered with and assimilation more difficult. Chemically, it does not matter whether the cream is still a constituent part of the milk, or separated from its natural element - it is merely butterfat in either case. The stomach, it is true, is a sort of chemical laboratory, but it is not an inert, complaisant one. It has its own individuality, laws, moods, lack, abnormalities and habits; it demands foods naturally combined and not synthetic preparations; and it frequently rebels for no apparent reason whatever and refuses to function or accept a certain food, when apparently there should be no trouble whatsoever, and this is for the reason that our mental states directly and profoundly influence digestion and assimilation.
In attempting to establish a correct dietary system, all these facts must be given careful consideration. Especially must we recognize the idiosyncracies of the patient and every individual is more or less afflicted because there are abnormalities due to the unbalance caused by the disease. In many cases we must begin treatment with foods that we know contain the greatest value and which the individual stomach will readily accept. In other cases, it will be necessary to prescribe foods whose value is not great, but which will be acceptable to the stomach and be of help in normalizing it and preparing it for the more desirable foods.
We know the number of calories each article of food contains, For instance: whole wheat contains 75 calories to the ounce. However, it is not sufficient that we know the number of calories in whole wheat bread; what is important is to discover whether the digestive organism will accept it, digest it, and assimilate its food value. If the stomach is in such a condition that it will refuse completely to digest whole wheat bread, then a food with possibly only a third of the caloric value, will be of far greater benefit for the time than all the whole wheat bread that could possibly be consumed, valuable as it is.
An egg contains 100 calories and is an exceptionally good
basic food, especially if yolks and whites are separated and fed
at different meals. However, if the patient is suffering from
some gastric disturbance, or with acidity of the stomach, he will
be unable to digest and absorb its vital elements; there may be
extreme distress, a greater degree of digestive trouble, and nothing
gained but much lost.(3) Our first duty is to find out what foods
the weak and abnormal system will accept, then choose the more
desirable among these and gradually build up the normal state
of the digestive organism so that finally it will receive and
digest the required food. Butterfat contains 124 calories to the
ounce but in cases, especially where the liver is at fault, it
is not acceptable to the digestive organism, and instead of acting
as a lubricant and energy producer, it induces biliousness and
the inability to digest other food, and jaundice may result. It
is the same with butter, olive oil, and other good fats.
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(3) In our six decades of experience, we have found many people
who could eat neither eggs nor fish without inducing indigestion.
We have learned that in practically every such case, if black
coffee, without sugar, was added to the meal, digestion proceeded
normally. This would indicate that some principle in the coffee
reinforces a missing element in the digestive juices. The question
then is: Should fish and eggs be eschewed? Or should a small portion
of black coffee be added to such meals and thus enable the system
to obtain the benefit of these foods: To be sure, there are other
remedies that may be prescribed, but are they more harmless than
the coffee?
EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this was written, many new enzyme products
have been perfected which should aid digestion better than black
coffee, which we know can cause several conditions, not the least
of which is fibro-cystic disease of the female breast.
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Though these are all good foods, absolutely essential to health,
unless we first normalize the digestive organism so they will
be acceptable, they are not only wasted but create a worse condition
than existed before we attempted to remedy the trouble already
existing.
If it were merely a question of numbered and proportioned calories, than the solution of dietetic problems would be an easy matter. Chemistry alone could quickly indicate what food to eat and the amount required for any special condition, but chemistry is wholly impotent to indicate what food a certain stomach will favorably accept, digest and assimilate; only experience and common sense can help us here.
The individualized law as to the acceptance of various foods is manifested even among people who are apparently or really healthy. It is essential that we recognize these same individual variations in our treatment, i.e., elimination of disease by a scientific dietetical regimen though in general the law of values may be applied and such foods as radically disagree should be eliminated for the time being at least, from the diet prescribed.
The Natura School teaches as a law, that if an apparently normal person, cannot, for example, eat oranges without disagreeable results, he should continue to eat them despite the temporary ill effects until tolerance becomes established. Frequently, where there is more or less inactivity of the liver, oranges cause distress, in which case, an equal portion of grape fruit should be added to the orange juice and this will quickly overcome the trouble by inducing activity of the liver.
The dietitian must always bear in mind that but one basic food is to be prescribed for a meal. By this we mean a food that is clearly fundamental, containing practically all the elements necessary for a healthy existence.
The principal basic foods are: Milk and other dairy products;
eggs and eggs in combination with milk(4); fish and all sea foods;
pulse - peas and lentils; cereals - wheat, corn, and oats; beef
pork and other meats. One of these should be selected and with
it combined two or three vegetables, any of which are good (with
the exception of tomatoes in some cases), one starch and sufficient
fat.
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(4) Continuous experiments indicate that it is best to serve the
white of eggs with milk as a basic food at a meal, while the yolk
is best served with grape fruit and orange juice, either between
meals or as a meal in itself, depending of course on the desire
or need for food.
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We believe in the mono-diet, mono meaning one. A mono-diet would be interpreted to mean that a person should partake of but one article of food at a meal, as for instance, whole wheat in some form, and eat nothing but that. Strictly speaking, this is true, but our application of the law is to prescribe only one class of food at a meal, whenever this is feasible.
When we recommend a meal consisting of fish, vegetables
and potato, we have a combination of food entirely harmonious
in its elements and, as far as the system is concerned, this would
be practically though not literally, a mono- diet. Such a meal
might be partaken of at noon, while in the evening one might be
served with whole wheat bread and milk with the addition of a
vegetable or two, and this would be a meal also harmonious in
its nature. Where we to add fruit to either of these combinations
the harmony would be destroyed, because the acid of the fruit
would be inharmonious to the potatoes(5) in the second - in each
instance a cause for serious digestive disturbance if long continued.
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(5) It has been argued, that while it is true that fruits combined
either with milk or other albuminous substances coagulate them,
the digestive fluids act upon them in the same way. We admit this,
but the digestive fluids are native to the stomach, and this form
of coagulation is part of normal digestion. If it were true that
fruit juices require no digestion, then the first claim could
be admitted, but the fact is the fruit juices must be digested
before assimilation can take place; to digest them, they must
be unscrambled or separated from the substance they have coagulated.
The digestive juices digest foods but are not themselves digested.
Herein lies the difference. Fruits juices coagulate albumens as
do the digestive juices but, as already pointed out, they must
be themselves digested in order that they may become alkaline
carbonates and be absorbed into the system as such.
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It is true that ultimate harmony might be reestablished in the digestive organism after the process of counter-action between the milk and fruit, and the potato and fruit, had taken place, but a difficult and unnecessary burden would have been placed on the digestive organism. This is wholly unnecessary and undesirable and is to be avoided whenever possible.
It is frequently desirable to prescribe meals composed either
of fruits or vegetables, but in such instances the entire meal
should be of one or the other and nothing else. Fruit meals are
especially desirable for breakfast in all cases where the liver
is sluggish, and vegetable meals when there is a great acidity
in stomach and bowels.
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