Library of Blogress: Healthy Living Information

From a theoretical standpoint it is easy to reason to the conclusion that a raw diet—grains, vegetables, fruits and nuts—should be the natural food of man. One can easily imagine how the first man to discover fire found comfort in basking in its warmth, and how natural it would be under these circumstances for him to also first warm any food that he might wish to eat.

Thus it is not at all difficult to find the origin of cooking, for, from warming to cooking a food is but a step. Although from a theoretical standpoint raw food seems to have been intended by nature as the best for all animal kind, human and otherwise, the fact that we have for many generations subsisted almost entirely on cooked food must be considered. Although many experiments are recorded where a raw-food diet has been followed with advantage, there is not a large amount of satisfactory information to be obtained on the subject. Read the rest of this entry »

Vegetarianism is unquestionably the natural diet of man. He will attain a more mature age when subsisting on this character of food than when on flesh diet. When the fact is considered that nearly all of our own medium class farmers are practically vegetarians, not from choice, but because of their inability to get fresh meat there remains but little to support the flesh-diet theory.

Attention is often called to the British as the meat-eating nation, and even there the poorer classes of England, Ireland and Scotland, which, really furnish the vigor upon which is founded the brains of the country, are nourished almost entirely on vegetarian diet. Like our own middle-class farmers they can not afford meat more than once or twice each week, and sometimes not even so frequently. No serious objection can be made to eggs and milk if they seem to be properly digested, though in the strictest sense they are not really a part of vegetarian diet. Read the rest of this entry »

Though I am inclined to favor a vegetable diet I am not one of the rabid kind. I usually eat whatever my appetite calls for, and sometimes do not touch meat of any kind for months. I firmly believe that if one can secure a sufficient variety of fruits, grains, vegetables and nuts that there is not only no actual need for meat, and that one would be far better off without it. Meat unquestionably tends to fill the blood with elements that cannot be readily eliminated by the depurating organs. If meat was included in my diet when attacked by illness, as a first step towards a cure, it was always immediately avoided, and often this has been all that was necessary in order to bring about the desired results. But the most startling evidence in favor of vegetarianism is the fact proven in my own athletic experience, and in the experience of many others, that the vegetarian diet gives one far greater endurance than the meat diet. It makes a better quality of muscle. The theory is maintained that the food in meat has already been used by the animal from which it was secured, and, in eating his flesh you really secure nourishment second hand. The life principle in the vegetable matter, that the animal converted into flesh, has been partly consumed by him, and in eating his flesh you are simply able to extract what remains. Read the rest of this entry »

A diet of meat alone, which has been advocated by some enthusiasts, has never in the slightest degree appealed to me. Though I have been willing to experiment on all sorts of theories in reference to diet, this exclusive meat theory always appeared to be entirely devoid of the slightest excuse for existence. The individuals who have held these theories have, no doubt, effected temporary cures in numerous cases, as the average individual, if confined to any one particular food, would usually recover under its influence for the simple reason that in nearly every case the principal cause of illness is overeating, and whenever one article of diet is used and all others avoided, the natural result is the quantity eaten is greatly lessened, and the entire system secures an opportunity to thoroughly cleanse itself. It might be well to note that these same persons who were able to recover under the influence of a meat diet would have recovered far quicker under the influence of no diet at all; in other words, by fasting. I have never met but one victim of the exclusive meat-diet theory, and his appearance would not by any means have influenced me favorably towards it. This man was at one time an athlete of great reputation, and his exclusive meat diet, together with other theories along dietetic lines, had simply reduced him a physical wreck. He was finally confined in an insane asylum as irresponsible, and afterwards died of consumption. I do not for a moment believe that the cause of all his troubles and untimely end was the meat diet solely, but I firmly believe that it had strong influence in bringing about these unsatisfactory results.

The question as to which diet is superior, the mixed or vegetarian diet, may be worthy of consideration, and each individual should settle it for himself and abide by his own conclusions, but the exclusive meat diet has not a single rational excuse which will uphold it.