In the practice of a Natura system of dietetics, whether it be for the purpose of maintaining health or for regaining it, observation and reason should be the guides, rather than personal leanings based on the things we like, prejudice against those we dislike, or fanaticism.

Dietary rules are actually simple, after one has mastered the fundamentals. The governing Law should always be, whether applied in health or disease: A diet as varied as possible but with few articles of food at any one meal. Choose a foundation, or basic food, and combine with it a few other harmonious articles. Continually vary the combinations so there will be neither danger of the regimen becoming tiresome nor of failure to furnish all the substances required by the body.

THE FIRST REQUISITE: Whether one seeks to maintain health, or the reestablishment of the forces which bring about health and well-bing, the first requisite is a natural hunger.

To eat when one is not really hunger, is to force the stomach to accept and digest food when it is actually unprepared to do this properly or thoroughly. Unless food is fully digested, it is impossible for its nutritive value, building material, energy producing properties - its vitamin, organic mineral elements, and nuclein, to be assimilated. Under these conditions, food actually becomes a poisonous substance, and causes acidity, auto-intoxication, and all the ills resulting therefrom.

It is not difficult to recognize the difference between appetite and hunger. Appetite is a sensation felt in the stomach; it is manifested as faintness, a craving, gnawing, all-goness or empty feeling. When there is such a condition, people generally believe they are hungry and in need of sustenance.

Actually, at such a time food is neither required nor desirable, because these sensations are symptoms of dyspepsia, indigestion, and other ills, and indicate that there is food in the stomach which has not been disposed of and which is rapidly approaching a stage of fermentation or possibly putrefaction. To add further food to this mass is only to irritate the stomach further.

Hunger, like thirst, is felt in the throat and not in the area of the stomach. When one is actually in need of food and therefore hungry, there is a sensation in the throat just as there is when one is thirsty. When one is hungry and in good health, there is no sensation in the stomach; if the stomach makes itself felt through any sensation whatever, it is a warning that all is not right and that an investigation is in order.

In hunger, the saliva flows freely, the digestive juices are abundant, the food is tasty to us without the addition of condiments, and there is a desire to chew it thoroughly in order to obtain from it all the good taste native to it. Under such circumstances, the food is thoroughly masticated and mixed with the saliva, and is properly prepared when it reaches the stomach; normal digestion begins at once and the absorption of food value is assured.

To maintain health, the daily menu must consist of some part of the following class of food and a sufficient quantity of each class must be ingested to meet the demands of each individual. The amount and the combination depend upon the occupation of the person and on the state of health.

FATS: These are to be obtained principally from milk, cream and butter, nuts, olives, and vegetables, as well as from fish and legumes.

PROTEIN: Found in milk, eggs, sea food, cereals, legumes, and meat. Many other substances contain protein but in minor quantities.

PHOSPHATES: These are contained in many vegetables, cheese, some cereals, sea food, bananas and other fruits.

SUGAR: In all starchy foods such as potatoes, in cereals, fruits, beets, maple sugar and honey.

There are but two groups of foods, and if we have a thorough knowledge of these we can be successful in the practice of dietetics for the purpose of maintaining health or restoring it where lost.

GROUP ONE: The proteids: Nitrogenous or albuminous.
GROUP TWO: The carbonaceous: Starches, sugars, and fats. (Sugars and fats, except in rare instances, should be limited.)

The foods of the first group build up the muscular fibres of the body, form flesh, and replace waste.

Those of the second are converted into heat and force; sustain physical energy, and muscular, nervous, and mental power.

Another fact is to be noted: Though some foods are harmonious according to their food value, they are not agreeable to bodily chemistry, particularly the tomato eaten with starches, albumens, and casein. However, the exceptions are few. As for instance, where there is a state of sub-acidity.

Nitrogenous or protein matter is found in the flesh of animals, in sea food, milk and milk products, eggs, nuts, certain vegetables, and in peas, beans, and lentils. Apart from the proteids, the vegetables are richer in other nutritive constituents than beef. Beef, for some reason, possibly because it has been most easily procured, has always been the popular standard of comparison, nevertheless, its total nutriment is only about 28 per cent, while in lentils it is about 83 per cent and in whole wheat bread 88 per cent. Beef contains no carbonaceous matter, and is therefore less valuable as a food than sea foods and other proteins.

These are the starches and sugar-yielding foods. They include cereals, legumes, nuts, fruits, and beets. They are usually cheap foods, rich in carbohydrates or starchy matter and also plentifully supplied with nitrogenous or proteid matter. They contain in themselves all that is essential in building up the body, muscles, flesh, blood, and supply heat and energy. They are lacking in the eliminating agents and hence need considerable amounts of vegetables to balance them.

In many diseases, these foods, or some of them, must be limited, in order to free the system from an already super-abundance of one or more of the elements they supply.

Of the strictly basic foods, milk is the ideal of them all. Cheese is far richer in protein than beef, containing more than twice its amount of nutriment. Its casein is a nerve-and-brain-builder and it does its work without artificial stimulation or reaction when a sufficient quantity of fresh vegetables is added to the diet.

These dairy products must therefore form the basis of the diet, or food combinations where the restoration of nerve and brain power is the chief consideration. And they must be fortified or balanced by cereals and vegetables, as well as fruits, in order to supply the system with an extra amount of the organic mineral elements, vitamins, and nucleins required.

The most important substitutes for meat, because of their ease of digestion, assimilation, and their lack of acid reaction, are milk, cheese, eggs, and sea foods. Next in importance are the cereals and legumes, both classes are acid-reacting and the latter is possibly the most difficult of digestion.

Some people undoubtedly still regard milk merely as a drink and not as a substantial food. More education will be necessary before all will recognize milk as a foundation food around which to build a perfect menu.

Cheese is more widely used as a basic food, many families serving a complete meal composed of cheese, bread and butter, and some vegetables, but in most instances the denatured white bread is selected and this somewhat neutralizes the value of the cheese.

Sea food, like cheese, is becoming widely known and used as a basic food, and many housewives have learned to prepare a splendid dinner composed of fish, potatoes, and vegetables, but also make the mistake of serving bread with the combination, thereby having two heavy and inharmonious starches at the same meal.

Peas, beans, and lentils are next in order and are gradually coming into regular use. However, an error of which most people are guilty is serving these heavy foods as side dishes to the meat or fish, instead of making them the basic food of the meal. They do more harm than good because such a combination is entirely too heavy for the average person and causes gastric disturbances and indigestion.

Because all nuts are meat substitutes, they should be used only as a basic food for the meal and not merely as an adjunct.

Accepting one half pound of meat as a basis for a meal, the substitutes would be:

Pint to three fourths whole untreated milk
One half to not more than three quarters pound fresh fish (Much less of processed sea food)
Four eggs
Three ounces peanut butter in combination with other proteins
One fourth of a pound of cheese

Any of these would be the basis of a fairly heavy meal, to be combined with baked potato, brown rice (or a small amount of whole bread instead of the rice and potatoes), and a plentiful supply of vegetables. The choice of protein would depend on the digestible and absorptive condition of the consumer.

Great harm is done the body through the mistakes made in the combination of foods and this is a frequent cause of digestive trouble. Especially is this likely to occur when meat is eliminated from the dietary and there is a lack of experience in substituting other articles.

Fruits should never be served with any other class of food, not even with vegetables. They are at their best and have their greatest value when served early in the morning - one-half hour before breakfast, between meals and before retiring.

Milk should never be served with meat. The combination is inharmonious and difficult to digest, and the amount of protein too great.

Fruits combine well with nuts.

Vegetables and nuts harmonize.

Whole wheat bread may be served with fruit salads but this is not a wholly harmonious combination.

A well balanced meal can be made by combining fruit and nuts. Vegetables and fatty foods combine well. For this reason fish and vegetables make a balanced meal, as do vegetables and dairy products. Tomatoes, being highly acid and more of the nature of a fruit than a vegetable, may be served with fish and other sea food, provided all starchy food is eliminated. They should not be served with milk or dairy products and serve a constructive purpose.

Starchy foods combine well with all vegetables except tomatoes. Tomatoes combine well with meats, all vegetables, and with green pulse.

All combinations should be simple, the variety not too large, and served in an amount sufficient to satisfy.

In the matter of vegetable combinations, such as vegetable soup, all vegetables, grains, and legumes may be made part of it with good results. A meal composed of vegetable soup, a small amount of whole grain bread, and possibly a glass of milk, is ideal.

The cause of much illness is directly traceable to too large an amount of starchy food, such as all denatured white flour combinations: cakes, potatoes, white flour puddings, corn starch, macaroni, deserts, especially those combined with milk and sugar or other sweets.

To meals of this type are frequently added cheese and nuts, and even fruit. Such a combination must and does cause dyspepsia, indigestion, mal-assimilation and toxo-absorption, that can cause many of the worst diseases.

Possibly a majority of people start the day with a breakfast composed either of oatmeal or some other cereal, to which is added milk or cream and sugar. This is now of the combinations which is certain to cause trouble unless one is blessed with a perfectly functioning liver, as otherwise, the milk and sugar will result in either sour stomach or acidity. If one feels the need of breakfast, then the first thing to take in the morning is a glass of equal parts of orange and grapefruit juice, a third of which is water, without sugar. Half an hour thereafter, one of the less starchy foods such as corn or whole wheat muffins, or whole wheat bread toasted, and possibly a cup of hot cereal coffee to which may be added cream, but preferably no sugar.

Too much of the cheaper commercial cheese should not form part of the menu as it appears to give an acid reaction which is not desirable. Cottage cheese is the most valuable of all cheese and is delicious and easily digested if mixed with a little cream and served with either honey or maple syrup. Besides cottage cheese, the softer and more expensive varieties are usually very rich in food value, but should be combined with plenty of vegetables to give best results.

Care is always to be exercised to avoid over-eating, and having rich foods form too great a part of the diet. It may safely be urged that no more than one-sixth of an entire meal be composed of the richer food. Nuts, fish, fatty meats, eggs, cream cheese, are classed as rich foods. Under-feeding, i.e., the use of too great a quantity of white bread, starches, and sugars, all lacking in vital elements, is just as certain to cause disturbances in the form of such serious ailments as nerve starvation, neurasthenia, and anemia, not to mention minor physical disturbances.

Protein are found abundantly in mild, eggs, fish, and other sea foods, legumes, cereals, certain vegetables, and meats. For our purpose and to simplify the problem of dietetics, we prefer to call these the basic foods, only one of which should be served at a meal. In order of their importance they are: milk and dairy products, eggs, fish and other sea food, legumes, poultry, game, and meats. Of the meats, mutton is the more desirable and less acid creating. All pork products should be prohibited.

These protein foods, with the exception of milk and cottage cheese, are acid forming. Especially is this true of the meats, and these acids are uric, carbonic, sulphuric, phosphoric, oxalic, and several minor ones. There is no cause to worry if the meals are properly arranged and a sufficient amount of vegetables combined with them.

The protein which is native to lean beef, mutton, pork, fowl, game, and fish is in the form of Myosin, contained in the cartilage and ligaments, and from which the commercial gelatin is manufactured.(1) This product is the most nutritious and easiest of assimilation for those who are ill, but we must be certain it is obtained from healthy animals properly fed. In the form of Fibrin, it is found in blood and therefore fresh blood is prescribed by many for the anemic and tubercular; it is preferable to liver but it is best taken while still warm. As a vitality builder this was known in India thousands of years ago.(2)

Eggs contain the protein in the yolk, in the form of Vitalin, and in the white in the form of Albumen. The egg is probably the only combined food which contains protein in two distinct forms and for this reason it is preferable, when boiled or otherwise prepared, to separate the yolks from the whites and eat only one at a meal.(3)
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(1) Gelatin is at present extensively used as dessert. Many Naturists oppose its use for two reasons: 1. Because it is an animal product and subject to infection due to hoof disease. 2. Because of the process of manufacture. The finest form of gelatin free from all possibility of impurities, and rich in iodine, is that obtained from Irish moss, and we suggest the use of this in place of animal extractions.
(2) In general, a combination of whole milk, raw fertile egg, and gelatin is preferable in all such cases because it is easily metabolized, and may be taken as many as four times a day, sipped slowly.
(3) Extensive experiments have shown that the yolk of eggs is digested much more rapidly than the white, and for this reason, if no other, the white and yolk should be separated. In Nature, the chick is developed, or hatched from the white, this containing the vital or life germ. The yolk is reserved and used for food by the chick and is sufficient to maintain it for the first three days or more of its existence. Investigation along this line is both interesting and profitable and an observant poultryman may teach the dietitian valued lessons.
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Milk and cheese are exceptionally rich in protein, called casein, the nerve-and-brain-builder.

In the outer part of wheat, rye, corn, barley, oats, buckwheat, and rice, the protein is known as Gluten.(4) Frequently these cereals are milled in such a way as to obtain only the gluten, and bread made of this is prescribed under certain conditions. Generally, this food fails of its purpose because it is then separated from the native elements such as the organic salts, vitamins and nuclein, which alone can balance the Gluten as a food readily digested and assimilated. Gluten foods, being actually unbalanced, form acids and gases more readily than would food prepared from the whole grain meals.
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(4) It is now known that at least three of the vitamins are found in the outer coating of the grains and this gives us an additional key as to why denatured flours have proven so destructive to health and well-being. This subject will have consideration in another chapter.
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Legumes, peas, beans, lentils and nuts contain their protein in the form of Legumin. These are valuable but generally acid-and-gas-forming unless well balanced with vegetables.

Protein is essential for growth and bodily repair and because of this function is of most importance to the young and those weakened by illness. Approximately one-sixth of the entire diet should be composed of easily digested and well-balanced protein.

All protein foods are constipating because generally they are concentrated foods, and lack in fat and cellulose; therefore, plenty of fresh vegetables should be combined with them and one-sixth of the diet should consist of fat- bearing substances.

Protein food is any digestible combination of carbon and hydrogen containing nitrogen. Life cannot exist without sufficient protein. Plants obtain their nitrogen from the ammonia and its salts and the nitrates in the soil in which they are grown. Animals get nitrogen from plant food, cereals and legumes, and man, from the cereals, legumes, animal food, and from some of the growing vegetables.

Protein is never a single element, but includes all substances which contain nitrogen in such proportion or combination as can be assimilated by the animal body. It can be obtained only from what are known as organic foods: there is no substitute for the element nitrogen in organic combination.

Carbohydrates are foods which contain an abundance of sugar and starches, and are found mainly in the vegetable and fruit kingdoms. They should from a large part of the daily diet, though an over-abundance may cause acidation instead of neutralization. This results in diabetes, neuritis, toxo-absorption, and ailments having their beginning in acidosis, congestion, and in infections.

In the cereals, carbohydrates ate found in the white part of wheat, rye, corn, rice, oats, buckwheat, and in all other edible grains. By employing the term "white" or "denatured" we would convey that the foodstuff is lacking in the organic mineral elements, these important constituents having been sacrificed to marketable appearance. They may be carbohydrates, chemically speaking, but from the standpoint of food-and-life-value, they are different substances. The dietitian condemns this form of starch. He maintains that the starches should not be separated from their affinities or native elements, the proteids, organic mineral elements, vitamins, and nuclein.

The vegetables rich in easily digested starches are the Irish and sweet potato, yams (sometimes called East Indian potato), parsnips, beets, rutabagas, carrots, and turnips.

Legumes, peas, beans, lentils and nuts, are equally rich in desirable carbohydrates after they are dried or cured. While green they are to be considered as most vegetables, rich in vegetable protein.

Practically all nuts contain a large proportion of starch but, as nuts are consumed in their entirety, they form a balanced food and are rich in protein and fats. They are a complete food and with the addition of vegetables form a meal rich in all the required elements.

Sweets are required by the system and this is indicated by the universal desire for them, but one cannot imagine an all-wise Creator forming, or creating these sugar-carrying foods with the idea in mind that they should pass through the modern denaturing and refining processes.

In their order of importance the sugar-carrying foods may be named thus: Honey, the purest and most vital of all the sweets. How long honey has been used as a food to sweeten and flavor other foods, no one knows. The centuries are many, as indicated in the twenty-third chapter of Deuteronomy.

Next to honey, both in importance to health and in their purity, are the genuine fruit sugars, then maple sugar and syrup; following these is the unrefined brown sugar, and lastly, the refined white sugar - the vampires of lime in the system.

Sugars obtained from grapes, raisins, dates, figs, currants, plums, apples, pears, oranges, and other fruits are known as Dextrose, and are more readily and easily absorbed than any of the others, with the exception of honey.

Lactose, the sugar of milk, especially valuable in the feeding of children, is quickly absorbed. It is also extremely valuable, with the addition of whey, in youth culture.

Malt sugars, known as Maltose, are usually prescribed for invalids and convalescents. It is still a question whether these contain any real value due to the fact that Maltose may be classed as a chemical product(5) rather than one manufactured by Nature by the use of organic elements.
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(5) Maltose of malt-sugar is almost identical in composition with milk-sugar. There is this difference: Milk-sugar is the result of a vital process taking place in an animal, i.e., a vital organism, and is therefore natural to all animal bodies. Malt-sugar is derived from starch or glycogen being acted on by the saliva and the pancreatic juice, and is therefore a natural product. In its commercial production it is made by chemical agents, which though considered as organic, are not vital agents and therefore not metabolizable by the human system. Continued experimentation may show this last statement in error.
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After carbohydrates are digested and assimilated, the portal vein takes them up and carries them to the liver where they are stored as Glycogen. Here they are converted into Dextrose as needed by the blood. Those cursed with an inactive or sluggish liver can seldom consume even the required amount of sugar without serious reaction to it; and it is these people who most frequently suffer from neuritis, neurasthenia and similar ailments it is not always an easy matter to correct this digestive fault.

Those who require the greatest amount of the starches are people who are engaged in long, laborious work, active exercise, and employment of any nature which requires great physical exertion.

Honey is a natural food of great purity, easily digested and of great nutritive value. It is composed of Dextrose and Levulose. These possess the advantage of being quickly absorbed and taken into the blood stream without in any way interfering with the calcium content of the digestive organism or blood. In this they possess a great advantage over other and refined sugars. Honey is not only a food but may be classed as a food-medicine. It was the universally used medicine of the early English-speaking peoples.

Honey should take the place of sugar whenever possible and, in many cases where other forms of sugar are detrimental, honey may be safely substituted. Like all good things, the use of homey can be abused and in some systems toleration for it must first be established. A safe amount per adult per day is about two tablespoons, if no other sugar is used. Children can burn up a somewhat larger amount.

The principal reason why the sugars from cane, corn, beets, and even melons, are detrimental to health, is because of the method of refining. They cannot be considered as vital foods in that they lack the elements known as cell salts, i.e., organic mineral elements, vitamins and nuclein. Honey, on the contrary, contains the vital mineral elements, the richest of vitamins, and, besides this, a vital animal element which we have as yet not been able to isolate or classify and which is introduced into it by the bees.

The fruit sugars are next in value, though they do not, as far as we know, contain the vitamin found in honey or the vital animal element. These sugars do contain some slight amount of the vital mineral elements, and being of the nature of Dextrose and similar to honey, they do not require the lengthy digestion the refined sugars must pass through, but are quickly absorbed. This is also true of sugar of milk.

The human system requires starches. This class of food is as necessary as any other, and a great amount is needed, but these should be vital starches. By this we mean that they should be obtained from wheat, rice, barley, oats, legumes, potatoes, and in combination with their natural elements, because only then are they balanced and supplied to the system in the manner required for easy digestion and rapid assimilation for the rebuilding of the various parts of the body.

The Natura School has always believed and taught that there is a vast difference in starches; and classes those starches as vital which are secured from the grains, legumes, nuts, fruits, and vegetables while still in combination with their native elements. The starches of potatoes, beets, parsnips, carrots, and the like, belong to this same classification.

It is necessary to give special consideration to the potato because it is so universally used and so frequently considered as a basic food.

When served baked and with its skin or jacket, it is a vital starch. The skin is rich in the organic mineral elements and in its seed or "eye" is the life element, nuclein. Because of its composition and when served as a whole, the body is supplied with the starch, which is now considered as non-acid forming, the mineral elements and life principle. The starch is readily digested and quickly assimilated. When part of a meal, no other starchy food or food prepared with refined sugar, should be served with it.

With fish or meat, and with the addition of several vegetables, a perfect combination is assured. Potatoes may be boiled with green legumes or with green vegetables, but should not be served with dried peas, beans, or lentils as the amount of starch would then be too great. Potatoes may also be combined with fresh corn.

Fried potatoes served with white bread and coffee for breakfast, are destructive of health and cannot be too severely condemned. In fact, a more unbalanced and congesting combination could hardly be conceived. Fried potatoes do not digest very readily because the starch globules are enveloped in fat which must be dissolved by the digestive juices before digestion of the starch can proceed. Served in combination with another devitalized starch in the form of unenriched white bread, and another and different fat in the form of butter, together with a disorganized starch such as refined sugar, and we have a food combination such as will keep physicians busy as long as "nutrition" in this form prevails.

Potatoes served as in many of the Teutonic countries, with sour milk or clabber, or with sauerkraut, all rich in natural lactic acid, and with possibly a little black bread, make a wholesome and satisfying meal though no doubt the taste for these combinations must be first cultivated by many. With milk foods, dishes of which eggs or other nitrogenous foods are the basis, potatoes are a desirable and harmonious part.

The Hydrocarbons consist of he animal fats, cream, and vegetable oils. They supply heat and warmth to the body, have a mechanical laxative effect, and are lubricators of the organism and the intestinal tract, because at the body temperature they are liquified. When taken in excess, or when they fail to be normally digested, they quickly congest the system, causing constipation instead of relieving it, create serious disorders of the liver, and bring about malnutrition, toxo-absorption, and much harm generally.

The most valuable of the fats required by the body, are to be obtained from cream, dairy butter, cheese, and yolk of eggs. These are the vital fats, rich in organized elements that are easily absorbed, as will as containing the orgainc mineral elements and vitamins. As far as possible these fats should be properly chosen to complete the diet.

Next in importance are the fats obtained from fish(6), both shell and others, fowl, and game - in short, from the animal kingdom.
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(6) Certain fats, especially butterfat, is thought to be the cause of both boils and carbuncles when taken in excess quantities, even though these fats be ingested in combination with their native elements. However good a good substance may be, its intemperate use may be a cause of harm.
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From olives, from seeds of some fruits, and from nuts, may be obtained fats of value in the diet, though many of these are not as easily digested or as quickly assimilated, and contain practically none of the organic mineral elements.

Another class of fat is obtained from the cereals. These are extremely valuable in their natural form, that is, before they are separated from their natural environments or native elements. Thus, the fat in corm is easily digested and quickly assimilated when it is a part of the whole corn meal, but, separated from its associated elements, it is more difficult of digestion, less easily absorbed, and may even act as a foreign substance, becoming putrefied or rancid in the stomach, resist metabolization, and manifest itself in the form of boils or carbuncles.(7) The same is true of the fats of all cereals.
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(7) All fats from fish are difficult to digest. Fish should never be fried; it should be parboiled or steamed. Oils from some fish are extremely rich in vitamin A, but this cannot be obtained from the fish after it is cooked. -------------------------------------------------------

To be of the greatest benefit, fats like starches, should be ingested as Nature combined them, and not separated by any process whatever.(8) The most perfect combination is found in sweet milk before it has had time or opportunity to undergo the process of separating the cream from the milk. It is then a completely organized food and all its nutritive value is quickly absorbed.
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(8) This will naturally call attention to the fats obtained by pressure or otherwise from golden corn, soy beans, and other vegetables while their fresh state and made into butter-like spreads. This was unknown during the earlier editions of the present volume, their value in comparison with what we know as "natural," i.e., that is complete fats is still a question. (Editor's Note: Most fats are extracted by the use of powerful chemicals. No one has yet shown that these can be fully eliminated from the final product. Natural fats and sesame and olive oils seem to be the safest fats.) -----------------------------------------------------

Next in importance to the fresh whole milk, are the cream and finally the butter. These are of the highest importance in the dietary of child and man and there are no substitutes to compare with them.

The animal fats are valuable, though in our system of dietetics we do not consider animal food as absolutely necessary unless, of course, the better and more natural foods are unprocurable in sufficient quantity. The value of the vegetable fats, while in their native elements, are taken for granted, as we class them as vegetables.

Those foods which are low in protein, carbohydrates and hydrocarbons are generally richest in the organic mineral elements. These carbons are generally richest in the organic mineral elements. These foodstuffs consist chiefly of cellulose, called undigestible matter, with produces action of the bowels. Among these are lettuce, celery, string beans, green peas, lima beans, dandelion, watercress, yellow dock, Swiss chard, all beet tops, cabbage, kale, asparagus, and many other vegetables, as well as the edible roots such as radishes, carrots, onions, parsnips, horseradish, rutabagas, and others.

These vital mineral elements are also found in abundance in practically all of the fruits, and notably so in grapes, oranges, grapefruit, and the vegetable-fruit, tomato.

The blood and the tissues of the body are replete with organic mineral elements, and these must be continually replenished through the food we eat if health and a normal condition of the body are to be maintained.

The human stomach cannot accept non-vital substances, such as the metallic salts, and change them into vital organic elements so as to be made assimilable and then metabolized by the cells; nor can it transmute synthetic amino or other acids and vitalize them so as to maintain health and vital power in the body. If every department of the body is to function properly and a normal - balanced - state exist, then all the elements required must be supplied in the form in which they were produced by Nature and co-existent with man and all animal bodies. Were it otherwise then it would not be necessary for the vegetable to make use of and transmute the non-vital metallic into the vital metallic, and for animal bodies to subsist upon these vitalized elements or lacking that, upon each other.

The correct diet for the average normal human being should consist of a combination of food in the proportion given below, selected from the classes of food already enumerated.

A total of one-half, or three of six parts of the meal must be selected from those food substances rich in the vital mineral elements and cellulose.

These organic mineral elements are essential in the building and rebuilding of tissue, stimulating the secretions of the body, aiding in the digestion of all food, preserving tissues, feeding nerves, brain, bone and hair, preventing putrefaction and toxo-absorption,, creating vital energy, preventing infection and the invasion of disease and, above all, holding the system in balance, i.e., a state of equilibrium.

The cellulose is required by the bowels to create a stimulus for natural movements and in that manner help prevent congestions. However, it must be noted that when the organic mineral elements are lacking, congestion will manifest itself in various parts of the body despite an apparently normal intestinal elimination.

One-sixth to one-third of the meal depending upon occupation must be selected from the protein foods. These furnish the material required in repairing wear and tear, and encourage normal growth. They build tissue, create energy and heat. When the diet is lacking in fats, the proteins are substituted by the system for the supply of heat and energy, but this becomes dangerous to health and vitality if long continued. Those performing hard physical labor require a somewhat larger amount of protein food.

The average American diet is for too rich in protein and deficient in the foods which furnish the organic mineral elements and cellulose, and this is frequently the primary cause of such ailments as rheumatism, gout, hardening of the arteries, and diseases due to congestions and imperfect elimination. Bright's disease, dropsy, and all so-called "wasting" diseases come under this classification.

One-sixth to one-third of all food consumed should be selected from the carbohydrates. These furnish the substance for the building of muscles, help create the energy required in physical exertion and maintain normal bodily temperature.

As with the proteins, too great a proportion of sugar and starches are given part in the diet of the average American, and this is one of the prime causes for such diseases as diabetes, neuritis, torpidity of the liver, mental deficiency, nerve weakness, congestions, and "wasting" diseases.

The greatest danger lies in the fact that denatured sugars and starches are so widely used. If the carbohydrates were selected from the natural and vital foods and while still in combination with their native elements, a much larger proportion could be consumed with less danger to health and well-being.

One-sixth of the diet and seldom more except possibly in very cold climates, should be selected from the various fatty substances. These help create heat and energy, lubricate the entire system, are important in functional activity, create physical energy, stimulate muscular activity and, due to their energizing potency, help to maintain sexual competence.

In all conditions where there is a miasma (scrofulous and syphilitic condition) in the blood, an excess of fat will quickly aggravate it. Mental dullness, stupidity, and obesity are also frequently caused by an excess of fat in the diet, and biliousness and sluggishness of the liver, with all the ills due to this condition, may often be traced to continued excess.
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