Chapter II: Part 2

It is easy to remember that an ordinary slice of bread--about three and one half inches square--contains approximately one hundred calories; an average egg, sixty-five; a glass of milk, one hundred fifty; an average potato, one hundred twenty-five; a tablespoonful of gravity cream, fifty; the usual serving of cooked cereal, seventy-five to one hundred; vegetables, except potatoes, an ordinary serving, twenty-five to fifty, depending on the amount of fat or milk added as seasoning; legumes, average serving, one hundred to one hundred fifty. Desserts are usually high in value, ranging from one hundred twenty-five calories in the usual serving of simple custard or junket to three hundred fifty or more in the usual one sixth of some pies, or the ordinary piece of cake.

Housewives who wish to go into the question of foods thoroughly, and combine the science with the art of cookery, may arrange a table of the staples and raw food that ordinarily enter into their various recipes, somewhat after the following, the items of which have been taken at random from such a list or table already prepared and in use:

A. _Food_
B. _Measure_
C. _Weight_
D. _Protein_
E. _Fat_
F. _Carbohydrate_
G. _Total_

A B C D E F G

Flour 1 cup 5 oz. 80 25 419 524
Eggs, average each 1½ oz. 23 40 0 63
Milk, whole 1 cup 8 oz. 30 88 46 164
Sugar, granulated 1 cup 7½ oz. 0 0 840 840
Butter 1 cup 8 oz. 0 1,744 0 1,744
Butter 1 tablespoon ½ oz. 0 109 0 109

If the housewife desires to know the food value of a cake, for instance, that she is about to bake, whose recipe calls for two cups flour, one and one half cups sugar, one half cup butter, four eggs, she can very easily find out by consulting her table; as:

A. _Protein_
B. _Fat_
C. _Carbohydrate_
D. _Total_

A B C D

2 cups flour = 160 50 838 1,048
1½ cups sugar = 0 0 1,260 1,260
½ cup butter = 0 872 0 872
4 eggs = 92 160 0 252
------------------------------
Totals 252 1,082 2,098 3,432

If the cake is cut into twelve servings, the value of each may be determined by dividing each of these sums by twelve. Thus each piece will represent in value, protein, twenty-one calories; fat, ninety calories; carbohydrate, one hundred seventy-five calories; total, two hundred eighty-six calories.

The number of calories needed by the individual varies with height, age, sex, climate, and state of muscular activity; but for the average person, two thousand calories daily may be taken as a working basis. If one is engaged in active muscular labor, the requirement may be three thousand or more. Many persons of sedentary habits do better on less than two thousand. Other things being equal, men need about ten per cent more than women. Children need about ten per cent more than adults. An obese individual, or one suffering from the results of imperfect oxidation, as manifested in rheumatism, neuralgia, and myalgia, may do well for a time on as low an allowance as one thousand one hundred to one thousand two hundred food units daily, experiencing marked relief from symptoms, and if obese, a reduction in weight of from one to four pounds a week.

It should be kept in mind that the amount of protein needed is quite constant, and does not vary with one's state of activity, as does the demand for the fats and the carbohydrates. From two hundred to two hundred fifty calories of this element are needed daily, even though the total ration be low. If one does well on the low ration suggested above, the protein should not be lowered proportionately, as would be the tendency. This is the repair substance, which the body, not being able to store up, must have supplied to it in regular daily amounts.

Excess in eating is often due to the use of certain concentrated foods. A teaspoonful of olive oil contains forty calories; the ordinary pat of butter (one fourth ounce), fifty calories; a heaping teaspoonful of sugar, forty calories; one English walnut, thirty-three calories; a fair sized olive, twenty calories. While these are good foods, they should be eaten with due regard for their high energy value, that the proper food balance be not disturbed. After eating a good square meal, the average individual calls for the dessert, which, with its accompaniments, actually constitutes a second meal; as, for example, a serving of pie, three hundred fifty calories; its cheese accompaniment, another one hundred calories; a few stuffed dates, another one hundred calories; a few nuts and raisins and a cup of chocolate bringing the total value of this second meal forced upon the body up to seven hundred or eight hundred calories.

Vegetables of themselves are low in caloric value, their importance being due to the cellulose, salts, and vitamines they contain. But they are usually prepared with so much butter or cream that as served they have a high caloric value in fat. Lean meat is practically pure protein, and the tendency of the meat eater is to get an excess of this element. The vegetarian often goes to the other extreme, his diet showing a deficiency in protein, with an excess of fats and carbohydrates. That the protein balance be kept normal is an important matter, for a person may at one and the same time be suffering from the results of a deficient diet and also from the effects of overeating. The protein needed daily is from ten to thirteen per cent of the total ration. If the total daily ration is but one thousand five hundred calories, the protein should still be two hundred calories, and therefore thirteen per cent of the total. Thus if a person is living on foods containing less than ten per cent, there is danger of not getting enough of this important element. Much of the food eaten is less than ten per cent protein, because of the addition to it of fat and sugar in large amounts.

So-called meat substitutes should be high in the percentage of protein, in order to make up for the butter, sugar, oils, olives, desserts, fruits, and other very low protein foods that enter so largely into one's dietary. The question has been asked, Why object to the addition of fat to a meat substance, since it does not actually reduce the quantity of protein, though it does relatively? In reply, it may be said that the relative reduction makes necessary an excess of the nonnitrogenous foods, to get enough protein; and even though one's capacity should receive it comfortably, still the objection to the excess aliment remains.

A study of food composition and values will enable the housewife so to plan her meals that the various elements may be served to her family in the proper proportions. A knowledge of calories, and an intelligent application of the principles involved in these questions of nutrition, will enable any housewife to reduce the cost of feeding her family from twenty-five to fifty per cent, which would be worth while from an economical standpoint, not to mention the advantage to be realized healthwise.

_Vitamines_

Says Lusk, "It has thus far been shown that nutrition means fuel for the machinery, new parts with which to repair the machine, and minute quantities of vitamines, which produce a harmonious interaction between the materials in the food and their host."

In the words of another investigator, "The study of dietetics from the standpoint of the vitamines has only just begun." Sufficient has been learned and demonstrated about them, however, to show that they play a most important part in nutrition and in vital tissue processes. Since they are so little understood, a complete definition is not yet possible. The pure vitamine, it seems, cannot be isolated, so their exact chemical nature is not known. The chemical process necessary to free it is no sooner begun than the vitamine is apparently decomposed, and all trace of it is lost. One is reminded of the efforts of some early investigators to submit living protoplasm to a chemical analysis, they hoping thereby to reveal the mysteries of physical life itself; but at the first intrusion, this subtle something flees, taking its secrets with it, and leaving us only the empty shell of dead protein matter. While the activities and manifestations of life are seen on every hand in animal and plant, we are but little the wiser as to what life really is.

Vitamines seem to stand closely related to the living process in the tissue cells. Some investigators have thought them to be the mother substances of the various bodily ferments and internal secretions, any disturbance of which produces serious constitutional troubles. Therefore the continuous use of a diet lacking in any of these mother substances would of necessity lead to a deficiency of these absolutely essential vital secretions and ferments.

_Vitamines and Disease_

Years were spent in investigation before it was found out that beriberi, a disease of the Orient, could be cured and prevented by the addition, to the diet, of certain nutritive elements in the covering of the rice, that are ordinarily removed in the polishing process, and thrown away. Just what these nutritive elements were, was not understood; but the fact remained that a diet of polished rice resulted in symptoms of beriberi, while a diet of the unpolished grain was sufficient to prevent any manifestations of the disease. In Java, where the people lived largely on whole rice, beriberi was unknown. For years, the fact had been recognized, that sailors living on canned and preserved foods sooner or later developed scurvy, which could be quickly cured by an addition of fresh vegetables or the juice of fruits, especially lemons and oranges, to the diet. In 1535, when all but three of Cartier's one hundred ten sailors had scurvy, he cured them all by giving them a decoction of fresh pine needles. Babies fed on Pasteurized milk often develop infantile scurvy.

_Convincing Experiments_

Vitamines are made only in nature's laboratory. The body cannot make them, therefore mother's milk is deficient in vitamine if her diet is. This is demonstrated in a decided way in the Philippine Islands, where the diet is deficient in the vitamine preventing beriberi. Among the Filipinos, one half the deaths take place before the end of the first year of age; and in these infants, one half the deaths are due to beriberi. Pellagra, a disease of obscure ætiology, or cause, manifests itself principally among a class of people who live on a monotonous diet of corn bread, bacon, soda biscuit, and sirup. Some authorities are quite convinced that it is a "deficiency" disease. Also rickets, eczema, pyorrhea, and a number of other diseases of obscure cause are beginning to be regarded as being, in part at least, deficiency diseases. A predisposition to tuberculosis and other infections may be of similar cause. There are probably a number, possibly many, of these vitamine substances. At least two have been quite fully demonstrated,--the one preventing scurvy, and the one preventing beriberi.

The experiments of Cosimir Funk, a Russian, are convincing. He was able to produce experimental beriberi in pigeons by feeding them for three weeks on polished rice, then readily to cure them of the disease by feeding the polishings from the same rice, showing that in the rice polishings are certain elements absolutely essential to life. He finally isolated what appeared to be this substance, one pound of the polishings yielding about three grains of the material. Injecting under the skin of pigeons dying of beriberi one third of a grain of this crystalline substance, he was able not only to make them perfectly well in a few hours, but to keep them in health for three weeks with but the one dose, even though they were continued on a diet of polished rice. Funk named this wonderful life-giving substance vitamine, because its effects were life-giving, and chemically it seemed to belong to the amines.

_Where Found_

Vitamines are found in plants, and especially in their seeds. Fresh meat and raw milk contain them, although animals seem incapable of making them. In summer, milk is richer in them than in winter, because of the difference in feed for the cattle. They are contained also in yolks of eggs, whole grains, potatoes, carrots, beans, peas, lentils--in fact, practically all green garden vegetables, and fruit. In the grains, they are found in the dark layer near the outer surface or branny layer, and in the germ. In potatoes and other vegetables, they lie immediately under the skin. Yeast bread contains more than baking powder breads.

Vitamines are lost by the processing of grains; that is, by the removal of the outer layers, which contain most of these substances. Hence the whole grain should be included in the flour. They are also destroyed by the subjection of foods to too high a temperature. It is therefore best to cook cereals at a low temperature, as in a fireless cooker. The vitamines are sacrificed in the drying of foods, and in the paring of vegetables. If potatoes are boiled, there is great advantage in boiling them in their "jackets," in which case the vitamines and the salts are not lost. If they are pared before they are boiled, the potato water should not be thrown away, as it is rich in vitamines, salts, and protein. Parboiling of other vegetables is objectionable for the same reason. Soda and baking powder and similar chemicals seem to destroy the vitamines. This is one reason why yeast breads are better than baking powder breads. Furthermore, in yeast fermentation, the vitamine preventing beriberi is actually formed, but not the vitamine preventing scurvy. The natural foods that require cooking to make them edible and wholesome contain vitamines which are not destroyed thereby if the cooking is done in the most wholesome and hygienic way.

A Word of Advice to Women

Stay at home and work. Do not rush into some romantic and
picturesque bit of action to the detriment of your home duties.
Work in your homes, and do whatever you can outside; the humbler
and more inconspicuous your accomplishment is, the more it may
be needed. There are enough women who will snatch at what is
accompanied by the limelight. Make your contribution of personal
service without thought of self, and keep on to the end.--_Lord
Northcliffe._

FRUITS AND THEIR DIETETIC VALUE

_by
GEORGE A. THOMASON, M.D., L.R.C.S., L.R.C.P._

No other class of foods more delightfully or deliciously contribute to the needs of the body than fruit. Fresh from the lap of Nature, lavishly supplied, and delightful to the eye, fruit makes most satisfying appeal to the appetite of every one, from the quite indifferent to the most discriminating epicure. Most easy of digestion, in fact, practically predigested, fruit is most appropriate for all people both in sickness and in health, and at all periods of life, from babyhood to extreme age.

Fruit is made up of water, sugar, acids, some proteid, and organic salts. Water is by far the largest constituent of fruit, being seventy-five to eighty-five per cent. The water of fruit is of the greatest possible purity, being doubly distilled, first as rain, then as sap, drawn and filtered through the tree.

The sugar of fruit is one of the most easily digested forms, that of levulose. The starch of the unripe fruit is converted into sugar in the ripening process, or in the cooking of partially ripened fruit. Sugar is present in varying amounts in fruits, averaging from five to ten per cent. A well ripened banana contains twenty-one per cent of sugar, dates about fifty per cent, while grapes contain from fourteen to twenty per cent.

The outward appearance of the fruit is often a fairly reliable indication of the amount of sugar. Trielle has observed that fruits with yellow skins contain much sugar, and have a very penetrating odor. Fruits with red skins contain a medium amount of sugar, and have a pleasant, delicate perfume. Fruits with a reddish brown skin usually contain much sugar, and have very little perfume.

As showing its perfectly digested state, demonstrations have proved that fruit sugar may be injected directly into the blood, from which it will be utilized in nourishing the body. This is in marked contrast with ordinary cane sugar, which, if injected directly into the blood, is expelled through the kidneys, the body being unable to appropriate it as such from the blood.

Fruit sugar may be eaten in practically unlimited quantities. It supplies the body with heat and energy in the most available form. For this reason, fruit when eaten will quickly relieve the sense of exhaustion.

_Fruit Acids_

The acids of fruits give to them their delightful and appetizing flavors. Fruits in the unripe state contain tannic acid, a marked astringent. The gastric and peristaltic woes of the small boy the night following the green apple episode are due to the tannic acid the unripe fruit contains. The three chief acids of fruit are citric acid, found in oranges, lemons, and grapefruit; malic acid, as found in apples, pears, peaches, and similar fruits; and tartaric acid, as found in grapes. These are organic acids, recognized and readily digested by the body.

The acids of fruits are remarkable peptogens; that is, they stimulate the appetite and promote the flow of the digestive juices. Fruit acids are most efficient disinfectants. Some years ago, an eminent medical authority of this country, in a representative medical gathering, said, "We are as yet without a satisfactory medicinal intestinal disinfectant." In fruit acids, we possess such an agent in a most desirable form. No germ, disease-producing or otherwise, can live in the presence of fruit acid. Fruit acids can be taken practically _ad libitum_. Fruit acids taken freely by mouth or diluted and injected into the bowel, most efficiently asepticize the intestinal canal. Three or four pints of water to which the juice of one lemon has been added, injected into the bowel following a cleansing enema, will thoroughly destroy disease-producing bacteria in the colon. Flushing the bowel frequently with such a solution is one of the most efficient known means of successfully combating the fetid summer diarrheas of children.

The proteid or nitrogenous element of fruits, as well as their fatty element, may be passed over with little consideration. Fruit contains little proteid; and aside from the olive, there is almost no fat in fruit. The fat of the ripe olive, however, is one of the most delicious and digestible forms of fat. Ripe olives contain about fifty per cent fat. Olive oil can be mixed with water; therefore it readily mixes with the intestinal juices, and is most easily digested.

_Fruit Salts_

The salts of fruit are most desirable, being so essential in tissue building. Some of the most important of these salts are potash, lime, phosphoric acid, and iron. Deficiency of the lime salts in the bones of children produces conditions of bone softening, or rickets. This can be largely prevented by adding fruit to the diet of these afflicted children, using especially grapes, oranges, lemons, and grapefruit, which contain high percentages of lime salts.

The condition of anæmia is a lack of iron in the blood. This cannot be replaced by medicinal or metallic iron, as the body is unable to appropriate these inorganic substances; but the iron in fruit is perfectly adapted to the body needs. Plums, cherries, and especially strawberries and currants contain considerable iron, and are most helpful in the treatment of anæmic conditions.

It is perfectly apparent that fruits possess qualities and constituents that make them of the greatest value as an essential part of the daily ration to nourish and energize the body, and to promote vital activities in the maintenance of strength and healthful vigor. Fruit is also an exceedingly important and efficient factor in restoring to normal function tissues and organs that have become vitiated and are functionating abnormally.

In spite of the widespread opinion to the contrary, it can be positively asserted that fruit is of great service in the prevention as well as in the treatment of rheumatism and gout. The prejudice against the use of fruit in rheumatism originated with the idea that the acids of fruit tend to acidify the body. Quite the reverse is true. The acids of fruit, when taken into the body, are promptly converted into the alkali carbonates, thus increasing the alkalinity of the blood, tending greatly to benefit and cure the rheumatic condition, as well as to lessen the general tendency to the formation of various calculi, or stones, in the kidneys, the urinary bladder, and the gall bladder.

_Fruit and Obesity_

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

For an overworked liver, the so-called "bilious" state, fruit is the best of all means of relief. Auto-intoxication due to an excess of poisons circulating in the blood, is treated most naturally and efficiently by a fruit diet.

The natural diuretic properties of fruit are very well known. Nearly all fruits stimulate the kidneys to greater activity, but watermelon is of particular service in this respect.

Fruit and fruit juices greatly aid in successfully combating alcoholism. The acid of the fruit juices help materially in quenching the abnormal thirst.

There are but few individuals who would not be benefited by an occasional exclusive fruit meal; and in many cases, this can be maintained with greatest benefit for even several days. This is a very popular method of treatment in Europe, particularly in Switzerland, where the "grape cure" is utilized. Patients are placed upon a diet of grapes alone for several weeks, consuming from seven to ten pounds of grapes a day. Wonderful results are recorded at these resorts in the treatment of rheumatism, gout, obesity, constipation, intestinal catarrh, liver and kidney disorders, high blood pressure, arterial sclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, and many more physical disabilities.

Certain fruits, especially tart apples, are of great value in the treatment of diabetes, lessening the toxæmia of this condition, as well as mitigating the abnormal thirst that is so frequent and often distressing an accompaniment of this condition.

In the eating of fruit, some care must be exercised not to swallow large seeds or fruit pits. While the danger of appendicitis from fruit seeds' becoming lodged in the appendix has been greatly exaggerated, yet fruit seeds have occasionally been found in the appendix, and proved the exciting cause of the inflammation which followed. Cases are on record of children who have swallowed considerable quantities of grape seeds, suffering for months of colic, and being only relieved by discharging quantities of these seeds during energetic purgation.

It has been said that fruit is "gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night." But fruit is golden all the time. This wonderful gift, one of the greatest and best physical gifts of an all-wise Providence, cannot be prized to highly; for it is considered sufficiently valuable to endure for both time and eternity. Of the first man and woman, it was said that they might eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; and it is said of the inhabitants of the renewed earth, during eternity, that "they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them."

Too much good food makes one auto-toxic. Too muck fun makes one
asinine. But keep sunny. A cheerful disposition, a happy
temperament, is the master key that unlocks more secrets, more
riches, more success, than anything else. A sunny temper is an
"aroma whose fragrance fills the air with an odor of Paradise."
Bury everything that makes you unhappy and discordant, everything
that cramps your freedom and worries you. Bury it before it buries
you. Adopt the sundial's motto, "I record none but hours of
sunshine."--_Thomason._

TEN REASONS FOR A FLESHLESS DIET

_by
A. W. TRUMAN, A.B., M.D._

Superintendent of Loma Linda Sanitarium, Loma
Linda, California; Professor of Neurology, Loma
Linda College

_1. The Strength Delusion_

Every movement we make, every thought we think, and every heart throb, involves waste and the expenditure of energy. There is a constant breaking down of our tissues; and the food ingested is the source of the material for repair. By its oxidation, digestion, and assimilation, energy is liberated for life's varied activities.

The primary object of taking food is, in the words of the wise man, "for strength, and not for drunkenness." Any one who makes the pleasure of eating the chief requisite will some day find, by a disordered stomach and a clogged liver, that eating has ceased to be a pleasure.

The idea has long been current that superior qualities of body and mind come from eating flesh food; but the verdict of science, after long observation and careful investigation and various experiments, is rapidly reversing this opinion.

The experiments of Prof. Russell H. Chittenden, president of the American Physiological Society, and director of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, are convincing. His elaborate investigations, extending over long periods of time, prove that persons of widely varying habits of life, temperament, occupation, and constitution, can maintain and even heighten their mental and physical vigor while subsisting upon a diet containing but one half the usual amount of protein, and in which the flesh is reduced to a minimum or is entirely absent.

The subjects of the first experiment were three physicians, three professors, and a clerk,--men of sedentary and chiefly of mental occupation. For a period of six months, they were required to reduce the amount of meat and other protein food about one half. "Their weight remained stationary; but they improved in general health, and experienced a quite remarkable increase of mental clearness and energy."

_Chittenden's Researches_

For his next experiment, Professor Chittenden used a detachment of twenty soldiers from the hospital corps of the United States army, "representing a great variety of types of different ages, nationality, temperament, and degrees of intelligence." For a period of six months, these men lived upon a ration in which the proteid was reduced to one third the usual amount, and the flesh to five sixths of an ounce daily. There was a slight gain in weight, "the general health was well maintained, and with suggestions of improvement that are frequently so marked as to challenge attention." "Most conspicuous, however," remarks Professor Chittenden, "was the effect observed on the muscular strength of the various subjects.... Without exception, we note a phenomenal gain in strength which demands explanation." There was an average gain in strength for each subject of about fifty per cent.

For the third experiment, Professor Chittenden secured as subjects a group of eight leading athletes of Yale, all in training trim. For five months, they subsisted upon a diet comprising from one half to one third the quantity of protein food they had been in the habit of eating. "Gymnasium tests showed in every man a truly remarkable gain in strength and endurance."

_Fisher's Experiments_

Dr. Irving Fisher, professor of political economy of Yale University, concluded a series of experiments testing the endurance of forty-nine persons, about thirty of the number being flesh abstainers. The first endurance test was that of "holding the arms horizontally." The flesh eaters averaged ten minutes. The flesh abstainers averaged forty-nine minutes. The longest time for a flesh eater was twenty-two minutes. The maximum time for a flesh abstainer was two hundred minutes. The second endurance test was that of "deep knee bending." The flesh eaters averaged three hundred eighty-three times, the flesh abstainers eight hundred thirty-three times. Professor Fisher explains the results on the basis that "flesh foods contain in themselves fatigue poisons of various kinds, which naturally aggravate the action of the fatigue poisons produced in the body."

Dr. J. Ioteyko, head of the laboratory at the University of Brussels, compared the endurance of seventeen vegetarians with that of twenty-five carnivores, students of the University of Brussels. "Comparing the two sets of subjects on the basis of mechanical work, it is found that the vegetarians surpassed the carnivores on the average by fifty-three per cent."

Professor Fisher remarks, "These investigations, with those of Combe of Lausanne, Metchnikoff, and Tisier of Paris, as well as Herter and others in the United States, seem gradually to be demonstrating that the fancied strength from meat is like the fancied strength from alcohol, an illusion."

_Tests in Germany_

Professor Rubner, of Berlin, "one of the world's foremost students of hygiene," read a paper before the recent International Congress of Hygiene and Demography on the "Nutrition of the People," in which he said: "It is a fact that the diet of the well-to-do is not in itself physiologically justified; it is not even healthful; for on account of the false notions of the strengthening effect of meat, too much meat is used by young and old, and this is harmful."

In the long distance races in Germany, the flesh abstainers have invariably been easy victors. Upon this point, Professor Von Norden, in his monumental work on "Metabolism and Practical Medicine," says: "In Germany at least, in these competitive races, the vegetarian is ahead of the meat eater. The non-vegetarian cannot compete with the vegetarian in the matter of endurance in these long distance walks. The vegetarian is ahead in the matter of rapid pedestrian feats."

A few years ago, a well-known athlete, Dr. Deighton, walked from the southernmost point of England to the northernmost point of Scotland, a distance of almost a thousand miles, in twenty-four days and four hours. His chief subsistence en route was a much advertised meat juice. Mr. George Allen, who for a number of years had subsisted upon a strict non-flesh diet, undertook the same task, which he accomplished in a little less than seventeen days, that is, in seven days less time.

As in the heat engine, energy for light, heat, or power does not come from burning copper, lead, or iron filings, but from carbonaceous materials, as coal, coke, fuel oils, etc., so in the human body, energy for warmth and muscular effort comes not from oxidizing the metal repair foods, the proteins, but from those foods which are rich in carbon, the starches and the sugars, called the carbohydrates.

_2. Flesh Food a Stimulant_

Whence then come these "illusions," these "false notions of the strengthening effect of meat"? They come from the fact that foods of this class are stimulating. A stimulant is a counterfeit for strength. It is a physical deceiver. It makes a person believe he is strong because he "feels" strong, when it is not true at all. That which is interpreted as strength is only nervous excitement. A stimulant never builds up; it only stirs up. While pretending to contribute energy, it actually robs the body of strength. The resort to stimulants to whip up the flagging energies of the body is an effort to trick nature in playing the game of life. It is like borrowing money. Some day the principal must be returned with interest to a relentless creditor.

Beef tea contains less than one per cent nourishment, but one can get the same kind of exhilaration from a cup of beef tea as from a cup of brandy. This is due to the drug effect of the beef tea, which is a solution of the waste products, the poisonous extractives, of the meat. Every animal organism is constantly throwing off these extractives, such as urea, uric acid, creatinine, etc. The kidneys have no other function than the removal of poisons. If an animal is deprived of the use of its kidneys, it will die of self-poisoning in a few days. When an animal is slaughtered and the blood ceases to circulate, this stream of urinary products on its way to the kidneys for excretion stops in the tissues, and is devoured by the consumer with the flesh.

Friedenwald and Ruhrah, in their book "Diet in Health and Disease," say: "The extractives are probably of no value either as a source of energy or in the formation of tissues. They act as stimulants and appetizers, and it has been stated that the craving some individuals have for meat is in reality a desire for the extractives."

Armand Gautier, the eminent French dietitian, says on this point, "Like the opium smoker, the individual who accustoms himself to meat, feels that he misses it when he does not take the usual excess."

If the poisonous waste products be removed from meat, it is insipid, and is no more stimulating than the same amount of bread.

_3. Ptomaine Poisoning_

The seeds of death and decay are in every animal organism; and just as soon as the heart ceases to throb, and the arteries cease to pulsate, and the spark of life leaves the animal, decomposition begins. These putrefactive changes often result in the formation of violent poisons, called ptomaines. The word "ptomaine" comes from a Greek word meaning _carcass_, or _cadaver_; and the poisons are variously called putrefactive alkaloid, animal alkaloid, etc. The presence of fatal amounts of these poisons in flesh may not be betrayed by any change in appearance, odor, or taste. The common practice of keeping meat until it becomes tender, or "ripens," is simply waiting for decomposition to advance until the meat fiber is softened by the process of decay. Canned meats are especially liable to contain the poisonous ptomaine.

_4. Unbalances the Diet_

It is of primary importance that one should guard against consuming excessive quantities of any kind of food material, but there is a difference. Should we take an excess of starches or sugars, provision has been made for storing a certain amount in the form of fat, or as glycogen in the liver and the muscles; but no provision is found for storing an excess of protein. An excess of this food element is of particular injury to the body. The extensive experiments of Professors Chittenden, Fisher, and other scientific workers, have shown that for efficient nutrition, we require that only one tenth of the daily intake of food should be of the structure-building, tissue-repairing protein. In the laboratory of nature, the food elements have been so combined by the plants, that the protein element is very low; and thus a diet selected from the natural products of the earth is not only free from uric acid and other waste products, but is already balanced. The addition of flesh food--which does not contain any starch--to the menu, at once raises the protein constituent too high.

_5. Bright's Disease and High Blood Pressure_

The waste products in the blood arising from excess of protein are a leading cause of Bright's disease, auto-intoxication, arteriosclerosis, and high blood pressure. These maladies are often associated in the same individual, and frequently have a common origin. Sir William Osler, in his "Principle and Practice of Medicine," writes: "I am more and more impressed with the part played by overeating in inducing arteriosclerosis." "There are many cases in which there is no other factor." Dr. Alexander Haig, of London, states that uric acid makes the blood "collaemic" or viscous, and then the heart has difficulty to pump it through the capillaries. Hence the blood pressure increases. Isaac Ott, in his textbook on physiology, says on this point, "Burton-Opitz has shown that hunger reduces viscosity, and meat diet raises it to a great height, whilst carbohydrates and fat diet give average values to it."

In the colon, flesh foods rapidly undergo decomposition, giving rise to numerous poisons, which are absorbed into the blood, and are toxic to the nervous system, and cast an additional burden upon the liver and the kidneys. These are a sort of dietetic clinkers, which throw nature's delicate machinery out of adjustment, and produce various symptoms of auto-intoxication. Bouchard found that the fecal and urinary excrement of carnivorous animals is twice as poisonous when injected into rabbits as that from a herbivorous animal. The former also emits a strong odor, and the fecal discharges are offensively repulsive. Dr. Haig, before quoted, also asserts that "Bright's disease is the result of our meat-eating and tea-drinking habits; and as these habits are common, so also is the disease."

_6. Tuberculosis, Ulcer, Cancer, and Appendicitis_

While it is true that tuberculosis is more frequently contracted through the use of tuberculous milk than from tuberculous meat, the latter source of infection cannot be ignored. Numerous cases of tuberculosis have been reported where the infection could be directly traced to the flesh of tuberculous animals.

Dr. E. C. Shroeder, of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture, says: "That ten per cent of the dairy cattle in the United States are affected with tuberculosis impresses me as a very conservative estimate. In New York State, about thirty-three per cent of all cattle tested were found to be tuberculous." Dr. Julius Rosenberg, of New York City, writes: "Cattle tuberculosis is rapidly increasing. There is scarcely a dairy herd without a number of infected animals. It is an ever growing menace. The health department of Boston estimates the percentage of tuberculous animals producing the city's milk supply to be from twenty to twenty-five per cent. Conservative estimate places the number of cows dying yearly from tuberculosis at one million, were they permitted to die a natural death; but they are killed before drawing the last gasp, and served as prime beef." In one year in the United States, the entire carcasses of thirty-five thousand one hundred three cattle were condemned because of generalized tuberculosis. In the same year, a portion of the carcass of ninety-nine thousand seven hundred thirty-nine more were rejected because of local tuberculosis.

Professor Ravenal, of the University of Wisconsin, says that of the thirty-five million hogs killed for food annually in the United States, seven million are found to be infected with tuberculosis. Some one has said that meat would sell for a dollar a pound if all the diseased meat were eliminated.

Ulcer of the stomach is one of our most common diseases. Leading surgeons have shown that it is ten times as frequent as was formerly supposed. It is clearly of dietetic origin, and is usually associated with too high consumption of protein, and especially of meat. Starches, sugars, and fats are not digested in the stomach, and require no acid. Proteins, on the other hand, are digested within the stomach, and require for their digestion a high percentage of hydrochloric acid. The excessive production of acid within the stomach, stimulated by too much protein, is probably the chief cause of the formation of ulcers. In 1908, Dr. Fenton B. Turck, of Chicago, said before the American Medical Association: "Ulcer of the stomach is not found in those countries where the inhabitants eat rice. It is evidently a meat eater's disease. The zone of ulcer is in the meat eater's zone."

Cancer is a disease of modern civilization. It is the one major unsolved problem in the field of medical science to-day. From the _Journal of the American Medical Association_ of June 14, 1913, we quote: "That cancer has increased in recent years is perhaps a commonplace, but the extent of the increase is not generally realized. Under existing conditions, one in seven women and one in eleven men die of cancer." In the _Medical Record_, issue of May 15, 1915, Dr. W. G. Mayo is quoted as saying: "Cancer of the stomach forms nearly one third of all cancers of the human body.... Is it not possible that there is something in the habits of civilized man, in the cooking or other preparation of his food, which acts to produce the precancerous condition?... Within the last one hundred years, four times as much meat is taken as before that time. If flesh foods are not fully broken up, decomposition results, and active poisons are thrown into an organ not intended for their reception, and which has not had time to adapt itself to the new function."

Dr. L. Duncan Bulkley, senior physician to the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital, says on this point, "Analyzing the various data obtained, we find that cancer has increased in proportion to the consumption of four articles, meat, coffee, tea, and alcohol."

One is hardly up to date who does not present an abdominal scar caused by an offending appendix. At the fifteenth International Congress of Hygiene and Demography held in Washington, D. C., Dr. Henning contributed a paper dealing with "statistics upon the increase of appendicitis and its causes." He said: "A meat diet is of great influence in the development of appendicitis. This diet leads to constipation. In most instances, too long retention of intestinal contents in the cæcum causes slight inflammation in that region, the results of which are to weaken the appendix, and to render it nonresistant against later infection." When Dr. Lorenz, the celebrated Vienna surgeon, was in the United States, he called attention to the relatively greater prevalence of appendicitis in this country as compared with Europe, and attributed it to the greater consumption of cold storage meats here, which he said rendered Americans unduly septic, and especially prone to infection of the appendix. Nicholas Senn was told by the hospital surgeons in Africa that they had never seen a case of appendicitis in a vegetable-eating African.

_7. Trichinæ and Tapeworms_

"A story is told of two of the most noted of Germans,--Bismarck, the statesman, and Virchow, the scientist. The latter had severely criticized the former in his capacity as chancellor, and was challenged to fight a duel. The man of science was found by Bismarck's seconds in his laboratory, hard at work at experiments which had for their object the discovery of a means of destroying trichinæ, then making ravages among animals in Germany. 'Ah,' said the doctor, 'a challenge from Prince Bismarck, eh? Well, well, as I am the challenged party, I suppose I have the choice of weapons. Here they are.' He held up two large sausages, which appeared to be exactly alike. 'One of these sausages,' he said, 'is filled with trichinæ. It is deadly. The other is perfectly wholesome. Externally, they can't be told apart. Let his excellency do me the honor to choose whichever of these he wishes and eat it, and I will eat the other.' No duel was fought, and no one accused Virchow of cowardice."

The trichina is a small, wormlike parasite found in the flesh of "measly pork," which, when eaten, burrows in the muscles of the human, producing an extremely painful and often fatal affection. About two per cent of hogs, it is estimated, harbor this parasite.

Practically speaking, the human being becomes the host of a tapeworm only by eating underdone flesh containing the larvæ of the parasite. (Thoroughly boiled or fried tapeworm is a harmless diet.) The ox, the hog, and the fish frequently harbor the larvæ of tapeworms.

_8. Poor Economy_

In these days of increased destruction and decreased production of human foods, it is of great importance to know how to secure a maximum amount of nutrition from a minimum expenditure of money. The world is facing a food shortage that in some places has assumed the proportion of the gaunt specter of famine. In view of this fact, it is well to remember that flesh is the most costly source of food. Sixty-two per cent of the best beefsteak is water. Flesh foods contain but twenty-five per cent nourishment, and seventy-five per cent waste matter. The grains contain seventy-five per cent nourishment, and but twenty-five per cent waste. Now it does not require a knowledge of higher mathematics to determine that since ten pounds of grain, when fed to an animal, make but one pound of flesh, the latter becomes a very costly source of our food supply.

_9. The Testimony of Anatomy and Physiology_

Even a kindergarten study of the structure of the human body reveals the fact that man was not intended to be a carnivorous, a herbivorous, or an omnivorous animal, but rather a frugivorous creature. He does not possess the rough, raspy tongue of the cat family, the long, pointed canine teeth of the lion, the sharp claws of the tiger, or the talons and hooked beak of the eagle. In the carnivora, the alimentary canal is very short, being only three times the length of the body. In herbivora, as the sheep, it is thirty times the length of the body. In frugivora, such as apes, monkeys, and man, it is twelve times the body length. Baron Cuvier, a famous anatomist, writes, "The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears to consist principally of the fruits, roots, and other succulent parts of vegetables."

_10. Flesh and Morals_

The menu provided for man in the beginning did not include animal food. Not until one thousand six hundred fifty-six years of human history had passed was man permitted to eat flesh, and then only after every green thing had been destroyed by the Deluge. What we eat exercises a profound influence upon what we are, how we think, and how we feel. Let us divide the animal kingdom on the basis of diet and disposition. On the one hand, we have the lion, the tiger, the wolf, the bear, the leopard, the panther, etc.; all these are vicious, snarly, crabbed, ferocious beasts. What comprises their diet? We call them "beasts of prey." They feast upon the bloody, quivering flesh of their victims. On the other hand, we might mention the horse, the ox, the deer, the sheep, the elephant. Think of their dispositions, calm, quiet, pacific, easily domesticated. May it not be that their diet of cereals and herbs contributes to their peaceful temperament?

Dr. Curtis, the eminent physician to Mr. Garfield, said, "What parent is there who has not viewed with alarm how old Adam enters into the baby along with the first spoonful of chopped beef!" Gautier said, on this point: "The vegetarian régime, modified by the addition of milk, of fat of butter, of eggs, has great advantage. It adds to the alkalinity of the blood, accelerates oxidation, diminishes organic wastes and toxins. It exposes one much less likely than the ordinary régime to skin maladies, to arthritis, to congestions of internal organs. This régime tends to make us pacific beings, and not aggressive and violent."

To these we may add the testimony of Holy Writ, "Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh."

Physical Benefits of Joy

The emotion of joy finds physiologic manifestations exactly opposite
to those of sorrow and grief. There is increase of function in the
muscles, and expansion of the blood vessels. As a result of
increased muscular activity, the joyful person feels light and
springy. Children, when joyful, dance and skip and clap their hands.
The expansion of the blood vessels brings the "flush of joy." This
increase in the circulation causes increased secretion of the
digestive juices, with increased appetite, and increased power of
digestion and absorption. This means increased nourishment. "Laugh
and grow fat" has a physiologic basis. Fat people are not
good-natured because they are fat, but they are fat because they
are good-natured.

Laughter has a wonderfully beneficial influence on bodily
functions--a fact recognized centuries ago when the wise man
said, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." Laughter is a
potent stimulant to all the helpful bodily functions. It hastens
digestion, stimulates circulatory reaction, promotes tissue changes,
enhances glandular activity, facilitates elimination, and altogether
radiates a most beneficent influence throughout the body. Laugh, and
the whole body laughs, and counts its work a pleasure.--_Dr. George
A. Thomason._

STIMULANTS _and_ CONDIMENTS

_by
ARTHUR N. DONALDSON, A.B., M.D._
of the Faculty of the College of Medical
Evangelists, Loma Linda, California

The Creator intended that the process of eating should be enjoyed. He has gathered the tasteless, insipid food elements together, and mixing in mineral and organic accessories, has produced for the tickling of our palates all the numberless flavors that the combined action of those highly specialized organs of taste and smell have enabled us to enjoy. The tasteless starch is bound up in the palatable potato; the insipid protein, in the pea, the lentil, and the bean; the rather nauseating fat, in the plump, appetizing olive. To the child not yet educated to the perverted demands of his father's palate, the thought, taste, and smell of these aromatic and savory substances produces a desire to eat. By the time he is twenty, he will not be satisfied with the natural flavor of his food. The cook must pepper or ginger it up, and he must further mustard or Worcestershire it to get it down. His soups are hot, and his salads are hotter. The palatable pleasure in a meal of his childhood is a lost asset. What has brought about this change in the appetite of man?

We all know, from experience, that we handle our food better if we relish it. This is due largely to the fact that the taste organs telegraph ahead to the stomach to prepare for work. The stomach responds by pouring out some digestive juices, and is consequently all ready to begin business the instant the tourist arrives. But when the food is bolted, there is a failure on the part of the taste nerves to telegraph ahead, unless they are stimulated more intensely by the addition of some readily diffusible sapid substance. Are we thus fooling nature?--We are not. Primarily, this unnatural stimulation leads to the most prevalent American dietetic sin; namely, overeating. We do not know when we have had enough. Dr. Wiggers, of Cornell University, has shown that overeating results in the surcharging of the blood stream with elements of digestion; and this, through the operation of physical laws, ultimately leads to arteriosclerosis and its chain of disasters. Secondly, with this unnatural stimulation of the taste nerves, the telegraphic messages to the stomach and the intestine are unreliable. Normally the tract is informed as to the nature of the food about to come, and is thus enabled to pour out a specific juice for a specific kind of food. Obviously this specificity which characterizes all normal processes is broken down, and the digestive function is placed under a handicap, when we cover up the natural taste with condiments.

The idea that condiments and stimulants act favorably in directly stimulating the production of gastric juice and in increasing gastric motor activity, and thus facilitating the digestive process, is a delusion. Professor Carlson, of Chicago University, has shown that these so-called stomachics and appetizers will have done their bit ere they enter the misunderstood stomach. And, our savory sauces and peppers being irritants in the mouth, they are no less irritants to the lining membrane of the stomach. They are always taboo in mild dyspeptic disorders, yet we think them just the appetizers for the run down nervous individual who never enjoys the pangs of hunger. Rather, he should be advised to oxygenate his impoverished blood by a brisk walk, to stir up his eliminative organs by vigorous exercise and the ingestion of water; for these bring no gastric catarrh, no sluggish liver.

It is recognized by every writer on dietetics, that condiments are irritating to the organs of elimination. The kidneys suffer, the ureters suffer, the bladder suffers, and the urethra suffers. We are very quick to stop the use of these substances when the kidneys give evidence of disease, and we will with alacrity drop the hot stuff from our dietary when the bladder and the urethra are inflamed. We do not like the smarting, burning pain produced by their presence. If they are detrimental during disease processes, they are just as detrimental in health. The long continued use of minute quantities of an irritant will incontrovertibly give ultimate evidence of its harmful nature, and we may expect such pathology as congestion of the liver, catarrh of the alimentary tract, hemorrhoids, nephritis, and general nutritive disturbances to be the possible heritage of our stimulating diet.

It is an interesting scientific fact that the highly soluble substances which are used as foods or food accessories are always irritating to the living membranes, particularly to the mucous membranes of the digestive organs with which they come in contact in the process of digestion, whether these membranes are healthy or diseased. Among such substances, we may mention sugar and salt.