Chapter III: Introduction (1)

The earth moves, and man, its little masterpiece, is growing apace. After spending ages in scanning stars and flowers, and mountains and trees--after vain effort to find truth in the objects about--man has discovered himself. He has come into his own, the kingdom of self-knowledge, self-control and self-development. In the early times he was a blind instrument in the hands of the Great Father. Blindly he worked and rested, and slept. Blindly he procreated. Blindly he ate what came to his hand, asking only physical gratification.

But now--the earth moves, and man has graduated from the dull life of the flesh, and has entered into his kingdom. He has great, shining dreams of what he would be and know and do. He would work harder, think deeper, aspire higher than his forefathers. He demands of himself tasks of which they did not dream. To fulfil these demands he must have greater strength, endurance, nervous vitality. He must increase his powers. To increase his powers he must know how to work, how to rest, how to feed his body--to feed his body so that it may be strong instead of weak, alive instead of dying.

Of all the problems of practical life the question of feeding is the most important. Not only the individual but the race suffers from errors of diet. Many solutions have been proffered. Some of these are better than the conventional diet; others worse. Of the plans of diet that have been expounded for the betterment of man there is one that seems to be ideal--that fulfils every requirement, physiologic, sensuous, domestic and esthetic. This plan of diet provides a food that maintains the body and mind in the highest health and vigor, that is gratifying and enticing to the palate, that needs practically no preparation and that, by its appearance and its associations, appeals most strongly to the imagination. Having said so much it is needless to add that the plan referred to is the “Uncooked Food,” sometimes called the “Elementary Food” plan.

The picturesque features of the new diet (that is to say the oldest of all diets readopted)--the beauty, the economy and the splendid feeding properties of the new diet have made for it, within the last few years, thousands of advocates among the most intelligent and advanced classes of people. Those people have at times felt keenly the need of some reliable advice as to the preparation and service of these beautiful foods. In my capacity as editor of HEALTH-CULTURE, a journal of wide circulation, I have received many such letters. To none of the writers have I been able to give the full and satisfactory information desired.

It has been said by some confiding soul that for every issue needing a man of certain powers the man is somehow provided. In one instance this has been doubly fulfilled. The issue was need of information on a very important subject--diet. And to meet this issue--to give information on this important subject--there came not only a man, but a man and a woman. Besides his many other qualifications, Eugene Christian is to-day recognized as an expert on the question of food and diet. Mrs. Mollie Griswold Christian has studied the subject from every standpoint; and her practical experience as a dietary expert has given to this brilliant young woman a knowledge of all phases of the diet question. The information provided by these two students of the art of living is plain, practical and authoritative. It opens the door to a new world. For with the great English pathologist, Alexander Haig, M.D., V.R.C.P., etc., of London. I firmly believe that “in diet lies the key to nine-tenths of those social and political problems that vex our age and time.”

The “present scribe” fully agrees with the eminent authority quoted. I believe that the greatest advance in solving these problems will be made through reform diet. And that, up to the present, the best solution of these problems, I believe, is found in the use of the uncooked foods.

W. R. C. LATSON, M. D.

THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS.

Every century since civilization began has left upon the pages of history some great thing, something worthy of a place in literature and memory. Empires and dynasties have arisen and fallen like bubbles on the water; bloody typhoons called wars have swept over the earth and exterminated races and changed the geography of the map of the world.

The mind of man was employed for thousands of years in trying to ascertain where he came from, for what purpose he was here, and where he was going. Stimulated and excited by invention and travel, only a few hundred years ago the faculties of gain and accumulation began their development. These have evolved on and on, until they have reached such ugly and vulgar eminence that it is no longer respectable to be extremely rich.

It is only of recent years that the intelligence of mankind has been directed towards finding out the really useful things in life. If we mistake not, this decade will stand out in history as one of the most important since the world began. Its greatest achievement will be that it has put into motion a tidal wave, a current of thought that will do more for the human race than all the mighty ages and musty centuries that have gone into the eternity of the past.

So long as men looked into the heavens and said, “The Lord will provide” they never took much interest in performing that very important task themselves. So long as they depended upon ignorant kings and rulers for guidance, the brain was a useless lump of clay; but in this decade the people are thinking.

The question mark is the sign of the times. The universal password is “Why?”

Why is disease so common, and perfect health so rare?

Why are the great majority of people afflicted?

Why has the word “ease” been changed to “disease”?

Why do we find so many specimens of perfect health and development in all other forms of life, and so few among mankind--_the king_?

All forms of animal life on this globe live about eight times their periods of maturity, except man. He matures at about 24. Measured therefore by all other forms of life, he should live nearly 200 years. But he drops into his grave at an average age of 40--while he is yet in his youth.

There is some good reason for this. We believe the answer must be found in a consideration of the material from which his body is constructed.

Of what is he made? With what kind of material does he keep himself fed and repaired? He must be what his food has made him.

Disease is merely the outward expression or penalty for violated laws.

Health is nature’s reward for conformity to her laws.

If man’s present condition is imperfect and unnatural, to what must it be attributed?

The question will soon be solved. It cannot long remain unanswered. It is too great, too important, too stupendous, too serious for the great throbbing heart of the world to go on and give it no thought. The best talent in America, that throne and home of genius whose light and literature have encircled the world, is beginning to turn toward this question. Men are really beginning to think something about the material out of which they construct themselves.

It is indeed amazing to think that all these years have come and gone, and that such a vast amount of human thought has been bestowed upon the arts and all the sciences except one, viz., what kind of material will bring mankind to the highest state of mental, moral and physical development.

THE FUNCTION OF FOODS.

The true function of food is to supply material for growth, and for new tissue, to replace that worn out by effort. Things which do not serve these two purposes cannot be consistently classed as foods. On the contrary, they are exactly the opposite; for when they are taken into the body, they must be excreted at the expense of energy. These facts should be observed in the preparation of all materials used as food.

What we call life is but the ever-changing expression of organic matter. Just how it is created, how from the protoplasm or the tiniest molecule there comes the well-organized being--what strange change takes place when two atoms called germs are blended, to create a living thing, what gives it form, color and intelligence--all these things are as deeply buried in the realm of the unknown as they were a million years ago.

All we know is that all life must comply with certain natural laws in order to be free--for a man in the throes of disease is not free. He is a vassal, a slave. He is in bondage. He has himself fastened fetters on his flesh by his own foolishness--by disobeying nature’s laws.

Obedience to these laws will keep life in the line of evolution to higher and higher degrees of perfection till it reaches that zenith to which nature is ever striving to bring all she creates.

But if these laws are violated the process of evolution is interfered with, and the penalty is expressed by disease and death.

In the support and maintenance of life the first and most important thing is the substance upon which it feeds. Animals in their native state seem to put the proper appreciation upon foods. They instinctively reject that which is harmful--that which would interfere with nature’s process of evolution--and accept as food that which is good for them. Man does not act with such wisdom. Civilization has created for him artificial environments in the chaos of which his instincts have been lost.

The most important thing that can possibly engage the thoughts of mankind is how to build the human body, how to bring to their highest development all its faculties. This must depend upon something, must be made of something. That something is food.

It looks incredible indeed that the wisest, wealthiest and most philanthropic men the world has ever produced would spend great fortunes and many of the best years of their lives in erecting and perfecting such things as astronomical observatories, in creating instruments and delicate scales upon which the worlds are weighed and distances measured to the remotest planets, knowing full well that when all this magnificent array of knowledge was gained that it would be of no possible benefit to mankind except the mere satisfaction of knowing that it was known. It seems incredible that they would do all this, yet give absolutely no thought or attention to the selection of the material out of which the body and brain are made, upon which, therefore, men must depend for their health, their contentment and happiness; yes, even their ability to think out these intricate problems.

Man seems to have appropriated for food everything he could lay his hands on. His chief study and delight seems to have been the mixing and stirring together of all sorts of things, the combinations of which go on to infinity. No chemist in the world would dare risk his reputation upon an attempt to analyze an ordinary Thanksgiving dinner.

The only true function of food is the growth and support of life. The needs of the human body are very limited. All the nutritive elements it requires can be found in their purest form in less than half a dozen different articles, which in a natural and healthy being should be selected by the demands of the system expressed by hunger. There is therefore no reason for feeding upon the innumerable variety and endless and senseless mix-ups that are served upon the average table.

By long persistence in incorrect and unnatural habits of eating and drinking the body will seemingly adjust itself to false conditions. The argument is nearly always brought forth that “my foods taste good,” “they seem to agree with me,” “I am never sick,” etc., etc.

This appears convincing, but it is not even entitled to serious consideration, unless the other (natural) method has been also tried. Unnatural livers have no standard to measure from except their own. They know not what the result would have been had they lived naturally and correctly.

Mr. Gilman Low, of New York, who is in many respects, perhaps, the most perfect specimen of manhood in the world, thought the same thing, and argued the same way for many years. But he tried the new method of living. He decided to subsist entirely upon foods in their elementary condition, and to limit his bill of fare to a very few articles. As a result he lifted, in the presence of a party of friends, a few weeks ago, one million pounds in thirty-four minutes, lifting 1,000 pounds at a time. He possesses a kind of strength and endurance that is the marvel of the athletic world to-day.

He has the new standard to measure from. It takes experience to constitute an authority. It takes experience to convert theory into knowledge. Of all those who will oppose these methods, not one probably will speak from experience. Not one will possess an opinion that would be taken in a court of justice on any case involving a dollar bill.

Prof. Low is not a professional strong man. He is better known professionally as an Artist and Health Director and had sense enough and nerve enough to cease plodding on in the dusty pathway of others--but decided to try something new, because it appealed to his common sense.

Every faculty in our being conspires together to aid the body in conforming to the requirements of natural law. Foods in their natural or elementary state (that the taste will at first revolt against because it has never come in contact with them) will soon become extremely delicious and satisfying; so much so, that the appetite will demand no other.

When this condition is attained foods begin to perform their natural functions. They delegate to the body all their latent powers and energies. They bring it to the highest degree of development of which it is capable. Language fails to describe the difference between the emaciated dyspeptic, who is fed on the so-called “fat of the land,” and the rugged, robust, red-blooded individual who subsists entirely upon nature’s unchanged, elementary foods.

FOOD PRODUCTS.

That type of life to which man belongs, if traced chronologically from age to age, and geographically from land to land, will be found to have originated in the tropics, or the warmer belts of the earth’s surface. His primitive food was plants.

As the ages progressed and he ascended a little farther up in the scale of evolution, he added fruits, and further on nuts, to his dietary. So far as his physical needs were concerned, this combination, plants, fruits and nuts, composed the most perfect diet he has ever subsisted upon.

There are numerous forms of anthropoidal life in these southern climes that bear testimony to the wonderful strength, agility and endurance that can be builded from these simple foods. In some parts of Africa there is a type of gorilla which subsists entirely upon these foods in their natural state, and which can twist with his two hands the barrel of a Springfield rifle into a shapeless mass in an instant.

Every step that man has taken in the long and devious road of civilization, added to his love of travel and romance, and his instinctive curiosity, and unsatisfied desire for something--anything he did not possess.

Every step that he took beyond the limits of his own country involved the question of food. Especially as he migrated northward the storing of food products to tide him over from season to season became a question of very great importance, one that involved the question of life and death. All the faculties were employed almost wholly in his endeavor to solve this one dominant question. He began to think, to study, to experiment.

He had emigrated beyond the limits of his native land, where he could live from the bountiful prodigality of nature. He found himself confronted by all the hazardous vicissitudes of climate and vegetation. Roots, herbs and every vegetable thing was tested as food, and during periods of famine and hunger, in sheer desperation he slew and preyed upon even animal life.

It is certain that the custom of flesh eating among the ancients began with the direst necessity, with the choice between that or death by starvation.

The first cereal product known to history was a small seed or berry, the product of a wild grass called _sativa_ or _sativum_. From _triticum sativum_ was developed the wheat plant; from _orysa sativa_ came the rice. These two great staples came substantially from the same root. The one planted in the more northern latitudes produced the wheat, while the same plant in the tropical and semi-tropical regions developed the rice.

It was during the time that man was sorely put to it to find and produce foods which he could store for winter use, probably, that foods classed as legumes, that is to say, every product that grows in a pod, of the bean and pea variety, became so highly developed and universally used. There are about 7,000 species in the legume family contained in about 450 different genera.

The enormous variety of things that could be used as food because they would sustain life, which had been discovered by mankind in his more primitive years, were passed on from generation to generation and mixed, crossed and combined to appease the appetite of the wealthier classes. Besides this extensive bill of fare that had been discovered and compiled from necessity, the earth’s surface was again scoured to find things that would tickle the palate of the priests and rulers of the Oriental world.

The natural trend of civilization is to group people together in communities, settlements and cities. The natural tendency of this, under ancient, and even our present social system, was to concentrate wealth, the result of which is always the division of society into two classes, namely, producers and non-producers.

This condition left its mark upon the inhabitants of ancient cities. Idleness sought employment and entertainment in many forms of dissipation, the most prominent of which was feasting--eating and drinking. The ancient Romans at their feasts would eat as long as they could comfortably sit up, and then lie down, and in this position finish their feast. Then they would repair to a vomitorium, where they would disgorge themselves.

The result of this was mental and physical decay among the wealthier classes. It was at this time that Augustus Cæsar was changing the Rome of brick to the Rome of marble, and she was boasting that her art, language and literature were ornamenting and civilizing the world, when in reality among her wealthier classes was being sown the seeds of her ultimate decline.

Our present methods of sustaining life from food are but a mirror made from the fragments of man’s past and curious history, in which the student can see reflected through the ages that have gone the primitive man and the food and habits which brought him to such a high degree of physical perfection.

During the whole life of primitive man he would not eat more than a half dozen different varieties of food, while it is estimated that the average American can select from 1,000 articles.

It would be impossible, as well as useless, to try to enumerate all the articles used as food, and especially to attempt to give their analyses or nutritive values. All we wish to show are the reasons why man has become so omnivorous. We want to make him think. We merely want to give him material out of which he can weave his own conclusions.

We want no one to accept our theories of the food question without thorough investigation and study. If he does, he will eternally be wavering between two opinions, and like all those who bestride great questions, will never accomplish anything of value on either side.

“RAW” FOODS.

Foods that have ripened and been brought to a state of maturity by nature cannot consistently be called “raw.” The origin of this word was the effort to describe something that was unfinished, that was crude, that was rough, or in some way objectionable.

Think of applying this ugly word to a luscious bunch of purple grapes swinging to and fro in bowers of green. Or to a hickory nut that has ripened in the top of a mountain tree, whose life-giving properties have been filtered through a hundred feet of clean, white wood. Or to a delicious apple, or peach, reddened, ripened and finished,--nursed in the lap of nature, rocked in her ethereal cradle, and kissed from the odorous blossom of infancy on to maturity by the soft beams of the life-giving sun, the Parent of all light and life.

These things are finished, ready for use; they are perfect, they are not raw, they are done; and when they are cooked they are undone. They are as far removed from their finished and done condition as if they were green or but half grown.

In the true sense of the word, cooking that which nature has ripened in reality renders it raw--hopelessly raw. The Standard Dictionary says that raw means uncooked; but dictionaries are made by men. They record as true whatever becomes a custom, and if custom makes an error, then the dictionary makes an error. If custom were to make raw mean finished, the dictionary would accept it as true.

Language is a thing of growth and development. It is an oral effort to express our emotions, our hopes, fears, joys, sorrows and sympathies. Language is continually being born and continually being buried.

We cannot accept the sweeping statement that all things are raw that are not cooked, though a thousand dictionaries were to say so.

An uncooked beefsteak could, with much consistency, be called raw. It looks raw and tastes raw. In the sense that the skin worn from the shoulder of a horse by a rough collar makes a raw place, so is an uncooked beefsteak raw. But this word cannot be made to truthfully describe fruits, nuts and grains in a perfect state of maturity. They have been finished by nature, by some supreme intelligence, and sown with prodigal hand over the face of the earth, and man has become the beneficiary thereof. And none of his work and puny efforts can possibly improve them.

ECONOMY--SIMPLICITY.

If there were nothing else to recommend the use of uncooked foods except simplicity and economy, it would be quite enough. There is nothing more complicated--more laborious and more nerve-destroying, than the preparation of the alleged good dinner. There is nothing simpler, easier and more entertaining than the preparation of an uncooked dinner. The largest eating place in New York could be operated from an ice box and a pantry, were they to abolish the cooking habit. This in all probability will be done a thousand or more years from now, when people learn the true relations between food, energy and health.

In order to gain some conception of the number of articles used in the preparation of a Thanksgiving dinner, the authors took a very careful inventory during its preparation, from the kitchen of a New York hotel to which they had entrée. The total was 192, while dozens of articles counted as one, such as catsups, sauces, mayonnaise dressings, chow-chows. Such things were composed of from two to half a dozen different ingredients, which, if they could have been ascertained, would have run the grand total up, in all probability, to 250 different articles.

Is this not a hint from which any one at all gifted with the power of analysis might draw a few deductions that would explain why it is that nearly all diseases common to civilized man have their origin in the stomach and intestinal organs?

All these food items must be carried in stock by somebody. They are first collected from the place of their growth, and brought to storehouses, factories, packing houses, mills, and cookeries, and put into casks, hogsheads, barrels, kegs, jugs, bottles, tin cans, bags, intestines of animals, and every conceivable thing that will hold liquid, powder, grain and piece matter, and are carted to some place of storage, sold by commission men, resold to jobbers, again carried in stock for a time, sold to dealers, where they are again held up and finally sold to the consumer, who has no conception of their age or where they are from, and but little knowledge of their value as food.

All this is extremely complicated and expensive. It costs money every time this vast number of things are stopped and stored, and more every time they are moved. Every day added to their age renders them more valueless as food and more expensive as commodities. Not content with this aged, unnatural pickled and preserved condition, the housewife lays hold of them and proceeds to give them their finishing touch by fire.

On the checkered highway of man’s curious doings, there is indeed nothing stranger than this. We have in this country hundreds of different articles of food which can be most advantageously used without cooking; yet the cook intrudes his art, bakes, boils, stews, broils and heats these things, until their original elements are wholly changed, until many of them are rendered almost totally valueless.

Thus robbed of their elementary and delicious flavors, the cook endeavors to make them appeal to the sense of taste by mixing, jumbling together, spicing, and using decoctions called extracts, the properties of which he knows absolutely nothing, until the original substance is so disguised that it cannot be recognized in taste, color or flavor. Those who enjoy their eating most and who have reached the highest standard of health and physical development, have succeeded in reducing their diet to less than a dozen articles.

It seems that everything in connection with the affairs of people unites to recommend this simple method of living. We all know that taste, in the selection of his food, is the supreme power that dominates man, and if he will not pervert it, but will give it a chance, it will lead him into perfect obedience of nature’s great dietetic laws.

AS A REMEDY.

Under the auspices of the Technology Club there was a meeting of about 100 of New York’s most eminent doctors held a few evenings ago at the offices of Dr. ---- to listen to a lecture on the subject of radium, and to consider and demonstrate as far as possible the application of this strange metal to the curing of disease. The opening remarks of the noted physician who was entertaining the assembly were as follows:

“There is nothing dawning upon the profession with more certainty than that medicine as a curative agent is passing. The most learned men are depending less and less each year upon drugs as a means of combating disease. The best men in the profession are changing both their views and their practice. For many hundred years consumption has been treated with drugs, and nobody has ever been cured by them. To-day we send patients into the open air, where they are kept winter and summer, sleeping in tents, and they get well.”

We are perfectly willing to accept this statement as true. We are willing also to believe that all disease is a mere result of violating natural law, and that the only true remedy is found in obedience. We believe that foods occupy the same place in building a man that bricks, iron, stone and timber do in building a house. We believe that the kind of material (foods) used will determine to a very large extent the kind of man you will have when you get him done.

We believe further that the kind of material with which you keep him repaired and fed will determine wholly whether he will be sick or well. If “more than 90 per cent. of all human ills have their origin in the stomach and intestinal organs, and are caused by incorrect habits of eating and drinking,” then those human ills certainly can be cured by removing the cause and selecting such foods as will counteract these abnormal conditions.

In combating this tremendous per cent. of disease, we must depend upon foods in their natural or elemental state, because their food and chemical properties have not been changed. We know--or should know what they are. We cannot rely upon foods whose chemical properties and nutritive values have been changed and dissipated by heat.

The change that has taken place in them is measured entirely by the amount of heat to which they have been subjected. Certain protoplasmic or plant life is destroyed at 145 degrees F. This destruction continues on up to 212, the boiling point. If the article is removed then, and put into an oven or a dry heat, it can be carried on up to 300 or 400 degrees, where it becomes a mere bit of ashes or charcoal,--totally destroyed.

At every step on the way from 145 degrees to 400 degrees the article becomes of less and less value as food, and less and less reliable as a remedy or an element of construction of tissue and builder of life.

We know that indigestion, our national ill, can be cured by the proper selection of uncooked foods. We know that constipation, its consequence, can also be cured by their use. We _know_ that irritation of the mucous membrane or lining of the stomach, that hyperpeptia, or fermentation, and the desire for over-eating can all be cured by the use of uncooked foods. We know that where there is no indigestion, fermentation and constipation in the motive machinery of the body, the blood is pure and rich, and that pure blood builds every organ and inch of the body to its highest capacity.

We know that, as compared with cooked foods, it only takes about half the quantity of uncooked food to sustain life.

We believe that with these evils eliminated from the human system the ninety per cent. of ills referred to would nearly all disappear.

In treating abnormal conditions which we are pleased to call disease, by proper feeding, it requires the knowledge of a food expert--one who is acquainted with the chemical properties and the process of the conversion of food into energy in the human body.

For instance, a great majority of stomach troubles are caused by the eating of too many starchy foods. This causes hyperpeptia, or fermentation. The consumption of too much starch also causes calcareous or limy deposits to collect in the 2,000 miles of tubing in the body called veins, capillaries and arteries. These deposits create stiffness and rigidity in the joints and muscles.

This condition is specially manifest in the morning, after the body has lain in a horizontal position for six or eight hours. This condition marks the real difference between youth and age. It can be remedied by the elimination of cereal starch from the dietary and the substitution of such foods as will be remedial and counter-active.

In foods can be found nearly every chemical and medicinal element that is contained in medicines, and in this form they can be taken as nature intended them, instead of being extracted, concentrated, and rendered artificial and unnatural, as nearly all medicines are.

In none of the varied forms of matter on this globe is the warfare of construction and destruction more seriously waged than in the human body. What we call health is but a condition where the powers of construction are made to excel the powers of destruction. By correct eating and the pursuit of natural habits, this condition can be maintained for a great number of years; but when we aid the forces of destruction by taking into the body such things as tea, coffee, tobacco, distilled and ardent spirits, and the host of table condiments that are in daily use, all of which possess only the elements of destruction, we must not be disappointed when we find ourselves devoid of energy and vitality and landed well over into the great throng of the diseased.

EMANCIPATION OF WOMAN.

If the study of the natural or elementary food question had for its object no other purpose than giving to the human family their birth-right of health and years, and aiding their mental faculties in reaching a higher development, it would be of sufficient importance to justify the most profound attention of every woman in a civilized state. But when it is considered that its final solution may not only accomplish this, but emancipate her from the slavery of the kitchen and the cook stove, it becomes one of the most important questions that can possibly engage the minds of intelligent people.

We believe that nature has provided a diet that can be selected and eaten without changing its form or chemical properties by the application of either _heat_ or _cold_, and which will be perfect. We have proven that if correctly used it will in all cases bring natural results, which are always healthful results. We have been led to these conclusions by information gained from the school of observation and experience at our own table, as well as by seeing the most obstinate and chronic diseases gradually disappear from members of our own family and others under the magic effect of proper feeding, until perfect health was the result.

Aside from the effect of a natural food diet upon the health and happiness of people, its most important feature is that it promises to solve for woman another most perplexing question, namely, the struggle with the servant.

When the house is provided, and the woman who has dreamed of a true home is settled therein, it gradually dawns upon her that instead of being a queen, she is an imprisoned vassal. She finds that she must stand over a miniature furnace for an hour in the morning and breathe the poisonous odor of broiling flesh, and spend another hour among the grease and slime of pots and dishes, instead of occupying that time walking in the life-giving sunlight and drinking in nature’s purifying air.

She soon realizes that the fires of the morning are hardly out until those for the noon are kindled and the labors from luncheon often lap over into the evening, and those of evening far into the night. The throne over which she dreamed of wielding the queenly sceptre has been transformed into a fiery furnace, gilded with greasy pots and plates, blood and bones, over which she has unfurled the dish-rag, and by the common custom of her country, it waves over her helpless head as an ensign of her rank and profession, under which she is really a slave.

The home of which she dreamed has laid upon her a confinement and labor but little lighter than that which society puts upon the criminal who has violated its laws, and whom it has deprived of his liberty.

The picture of a husband and wife growing old together, walking hand in hand up to the noon of life, and turning over the hill and marching down toward the evening of old age together is only painted by poets and dreamers, most likely old bachelors and old maids,--it is not true.

The average husband and wife do not grow old together. The wife spends six or seven hours of each day endeavoring to prepare food and create dishes that will appeal to and satisfy the perverted taste and appetite of her husband, and probably the short-notice “friend to dinner.” The anxiety and mental tension that she undergoes from day to day and year to year wear upon her form and face, and like the long dripping of water upon the stone, leave their mark. This mark is nervous exhaustion and premature old age.

It is from this deplorable condition of womankind that the use of uncooked or natural foods will surely bring relief and freedom. In hundreds of cases that have come to our knowledge where this experiment has been honestly tried, it has resulted in a revolution in the household culinary department, and in giving the wife enough mental and physical freedom to allow her to preserve her youthful charms, which is her solemn duty, and to cultivate those higher faculties upon which every woman must depend for attraction and happiness with advancing old age.

It may not free woman wholly from the labors of the kitchen, but it will prove an important factor in lifting her mentally, morally and physically into an entirely different sphere.

It is utterly impossible for a woman to spend six hours out of twelve in the dense and smoky atmosphere of a kitchen over a roasting fire, breathing air laden with the fumes of burning flesh and steaming foods, and give to her progeny those beautiful faculties which are their birth-right, and which have been the dream of her dreams.

It is also impossible for a woman to construct her body, her brain and her heart with all their varied sympathies, desires and emotions out of such material as the flesh of dead animals, fermented fruit (wine), fermented bread and the innumerable narcotics and cooked or devitalized foods with which the average table is laden, and think beautiful thoughts and keep her sympathies and senses of justice and mercy in that beautiful and highly civilized realm where the cultivated and advanced woman, especially the mother, should dwell.

We are thoroughly convinced,--convinced from experience, that great school from which all true knowledge comes,--that the first and most important step in nature toward making a perfect woman lies in the selection of the food material out of which the human body and all the restless flood of emotions that ceaselessly ebb and flow in its strange mechanism, are made.

THE SELECTION OF FOODS.

In the adoption of uncooked foods more care in selection is required than when they are to be cooked, for in the process of cooking, mixing and dressing, the real quality, taste and flavor of the articles, becomes changed, lost and dissipated. The most inferior articles of food can be cooked and artificially flavored, as they usually are, and still appeal to and satisfy the taste.

In all public eating places the special duty of the _chef_ and steward is to use left-over foods. They are hashed, minced, flavored, spiced and peppered until the smell from the fermented or decayed portions is so concealed that they cannot signal the olfactory nerves; therefore the most inferior and unhealthy articles can be used which could not be done were these foods not cooked.

When using uncooked foods the senses of sight, smell and taste demand the best, and it is only fair that these senses should be satisfied. It is as criminal to deceive our taste and sight in matters of food, as it is to obtain money under false pretense from our friends; and the penalty for this wrongdoing is more certain to be paid. We often escape justice in deceiving our friends, but never in deceiving ourselves. We cannot jump our bail with nature. We are always caught and punished for two crimes instead of one.

One may be thoroughly convinced that the theory is correct, but if such articles are selected as do not conform or appeal to the taste, the effort will prove a failure. Food should be selected that has ripened on the parent stalk or tree, in the sunshine, as far as possible. Those who are acquainted with the curative and life-giving properties of air and sunshine will readily perceive why the selection of thoroughly ripe and full-grown foods are so necessary.

In selecting an apple of a red variety, get a deep, rich red, not a pale pink one. The deep red color indicates that the fruit has ripened on an outer twig of the tree, exposed to the sunlight; while the paler colors show that it has ripened under cover of the foliage. This rule should be observed in the selection of all fruits and berries, and melons of every kind as far as possible, the rule being that whatever color is selected, get it as pronounced as possible. In other words, get the best.

BANANAS.

Bananas, the second-best article of food known, should never be eaten so long as a spot of green is visible on the skin. The majority of people seem to select this most delicious and nutritious fruit merely to please the eye; and just when it is at its best, that is, when the skin is covered with tiny black spots, or assumes a pied appearance, it is discarded and considered unfit for use. Where the consumption of bananas is large enough, they should be purchased by the bunch, and where it is not, they should always be purchased by the hand, not detaching them until they are needed for use. They should also be kept in the sunshine as much as possible.

SWEET FRUITS.

Dates, figs and seeded raisins constitute a group of the best foods known to the dietary. They contain about seventy-five per cent. of carbohydrates, which is sometimes called the powder of the human system. The black French date, known as the “Fard Diamond R.,” is one of the best varieties imported to this country.

The Turkish pulled fig, that is, the unpressed fig of the largest variety obtainable, is much preferable to and more cleanly than those that have been pressed.

Raisins should never be eaten without discarding the seeds; therefore, the seeded raisin is always preferable.

EVAPORATED FRUITS.

The process of evaporating the water from fruits, so they can be kept from season to season, is of great importance. It has added one of the greatest luxuries known to the uncooked bill of fare. In the selection of peaches care should be taken to secure the largest, best ripened and unpeeled variety. Never select peaches from which the peeling has been removed, because the fruit must be taken in an unripe condition, so that it is firm enough to peel and handle easily without crushing. The same rule should apply to the selection of apricots.

Prunes are one of the best evaporated fruits in the American market. The largest varieties, running from 20 to 30 to the pound, should be selected for the uncooked table.

OLIVES AND OLIVE OIL.

Olives have become as standard on the American table as pickles, but we do not recommend their liberal use. The ripe olive has something to recommend it; mainly because it was allowed to get ripe. Pure olive oil occupies a conspicuous and necessary place on the uncooked bill of fare. For those who cannot thoroughly masticate nuts--because of defective teeth--olive oil, or even good peanut oil, affords one of the most necessary articles of diet. An ordinary body requires each twenty-four hours from two to two and a half ounces of pure fat (fuel). The required quantity of nuts may be eaten, but unless mastication is perfect, they do not contribute to the body all the fats they contain, while olive oil overcomes completely this difficulty.

MILK AND HONEY.

Milk and honey seem to be the only two things in existence that were made primarily for no purpose except food. All other articles upon which people subsist were created for some other purpose. All cereals, legumes, fruits, nuts and vegetables in the great scheme of nature, grow wholly to reproduce themselves; but the primary purpose of milk and honey, when they are created, is for food. They seem to have no other purpose to fulfill.

In order to be sure of securing pure honey it is best to purchase it in the comb.

Pure milk as it comes from the cow should contain twelve to fourteen per cent. solids and from three and a half to four and five eighths per cent. cream. Pure milk is one of the best proportioned foods known to science. Great care should be exercised, therefore, in its selection. The best results are obtainable when it is taken unskimmed, as nature has proportioned its nutritive elements in accordance with the requirements of the body.

The custom of salting butter is altogether wrong, and inexcusable from a hygienic standpoint. It had its origin, no doubt, in the fact that it became commercially necessary in order to preserve it for the purpose of shipping, transporting and marketing. During the last few years fresh or sweet butter has come into general use in all the large cities and well-appointed hotels and cafés. In Paris, where the culinary art is studied and kept at a higher standard than at any other city in the world, it is considered an offense to serve salted butter. It is taken for granted that the article is aged and would have spoiled had it not been preserved with salt.

FOOD COMBINATIONS.

Nearly every article of food known, as bad as some of them are, will agree with the stomach if eaten alone or with a few other articles, in normal quantities, whose chemical properties harmonize. When we say that certain things do not agree with us, the fact is that these things do not agree with themselves. The truth is, we have eaten a combination of things that do not agree one with the other; and the stomach, being the receptacle of this chemical disturbance, is made the sufferer. The question of combinations is extremely important in cooked foods, because the tendency of modern cookery is to mix, to jumble together an innumerable number of things and pour over them condiments, sauces and dressings that are composed of dozens of other ingredients, until it becomes utterly impossible to ascertain by any method of calculation how many different articles compose one whole. While it is always well to observe correct combinations, it is in reality of secondary importance, for in subsisting on uncooked foods the natural tendency is towards simplicity. This is one of the greatest virtues following their adoption. In the beginning many are likely to desire each meal to be composed of a large number of articles. They like to see it spread around; they want to see the table covered; they want to see it groaning beneath a load, simply because they were raised that way. They have no standard to measure from, except a cooked standard; but this optical appetite soon wears off, and the taste and delicious flavors that are developed by combining two or three things, lead the elementary student to ignore numerical display and make a meal upon three or four things.

A very delicious taste will be developed by eating fruits and nuts together, care being taken to masticate the nuts thoroughly before the fruits are put into the mouth. If this rule is observed in eating vegetables and nuts, the same delightful taste will be experienced.

The following combinations have been found by experience to be chemically harmonious, healthful and very nutritious:

Flaked wheat, with nuts, dates and cream.

Flaked wheat, nuts, honey, milk and cream.

Combination cereal with grated nuts and cream.

Egg-nog, protoid nuts, dates, lettuce salad with olive oil and cream.

Cold slaw with olive oil, protoid nuts, unfired bread, sweet apple with thick cream.

The following articles compose three ideal meals for a perfectly normal person:

_Breakfast._

One red apple with combination nut butter. One ounce _protoid_ nuts. Five or six black dates. One glass Milk.

_Luncheon._

Sauce dish Combination Cereal. One ounce Pecan Meats. Two Turkish pulled Figs. One ounce protoid nuts Cold Slaw with Olive Oil. Two cakes of Unfired Bread Four prunes with thick cream. Sweet Butter. Glass of Egg-nog.

_Dinner._

Two ounces Nut Meats. Vegetable Salad with Hygeia Dressing. Two or three cakes Unfired Bread. Combination nut butter. Very ripe Banana with thick cream. Pint of Whole Milk.

There is a popular opinion among the majority of people that appetite, that is, a desire for food, is an evidence of good health. This is one of the serious mistakes into which people have gradually evolved. Irritation of the mucous membranes of the stomach is one of the most serious and unhealthy conditions with which this much-abused organ is afflicted; and while in this condition, it calls with ferocity for food, the satisfying of which has killed suddenly hundreds of thousands of people whose death is attributed nearly always by the learned doctors to heart failure. And we agree with them completely. We have never known any other method of demise, except for the heart to fail. It is unquestionably the customary way to die, and it matters but little whether the “heart failed” on account of being shot, beheaded by a Cuban _machete_, or on account of an over-loaded stomach,--the doctor’s “heart-failure” theory is safely correct.

There are five different classes of food; there are five different digestive organs and five different kinds of digestive fluids.

The five classes of foods are, water, proteids, carbohydrates, fat and mineral salts. The five organs of digestion are, the mouth, stomach, liver, pancreas and intestinal glands.

The five different digestive fluids are, saliva, gastric juice, pancreatic juice, bile and intestinal juices.

All the different kinds of food contain more or less water. All of the different digestive fluids are composed largely of water.

Foods classed under the head of proteids are composed largely of nitrogen, and embrace albumen in animal foods, the gluten and gelatine in cereals, cellulose in vegetables, and the casein in milk and cheese.

The foods classed under the head of carbohydrates contain mostly starch and sugar. All the cereals, vegetables, fruits and nuts are composed, more or less, of carbohydrates. Many of these also contain nitrogen to a sufficient degree to class them under the head of protein.

Mineral salts are found in all vegetables and fruits in sufficient quantities to supply the needs of the body if it is fed upon these articles. The salts of sodium, potassium, chlorides, calcium, magnesium, phosphates and iron are the principal mineral or organic salts and are the most important elements in forming the bony structure of the human body.

These salts are found in abundance in all fruits, nuts and vegetables, and when taken into the body in their natural or organic state they contribute to the body all of their value as building material, but in cooked foods these elements are rendered inorganic and become so changed and dissipated as to be in many cases totally worthless. For instance, iron is one of the principal properties of cabbage. Eaten naturally it is an excellent food, easy of digestion and assimilation; but cooked, the iron is set free and is as indigestible as saw filings.

In digesting starch and sugar, and all carbohydrates, an alkaline solution or digestive fluid is required, a large amount of which is furnished by the saliva. Hence, all cereals, fruits and vegetables should be thoroughly masticated, insalivated and pulverized before entering the stomach. And as the saliva is an alkaline substance, the digestion of these foods, therefore, begins in the mouth.

All foods composed largely of starch, such as cereals, potatoes, and nearly all legumes, should not be eaten at the same meal with sweets, especially cane sugar.

All foods, whether fluids or solids, that contain starch or sugar, such as rice, potatoes, corn, oats, in fact, all the cereal class, may be eaten with safety at the same meal. Milk can also be taken with all the carbohydrate family of foods.

All foods containing gluten, albumen or gelatine, such as meat, eggs, and a few kinds of nuts, are classed as protein, and require an acid solvent to be digested; therefore can be eaten with safety with all kinds of fruits.

The digestive fluid secreted by the stomach is an acid substance; therefore, the last-named foods are digested mainly in the stomach.

Milk, one of the best foods known, can be taken with all kinds of fruits, provided no cereal starch be eaten at the same meal. All foods that contain both carbohydrates and proteins compose healthful combinations.

Starch, sugar and fats may be properly termed the “fuel of the body.” They supply all the force, energy, heat and brain power of the system, while proteids produce the structure in which this energy is reposed.

The few fundamental rules given here apply to a normal or healthy stomach. Where any abnormal condition is present, selections of food must be made to counteract and overcome them.

The study of food combinations, however, in its last analysis, is the science of trying to ascertain the best way to do the wrong thing. The less foods are mixed and combined at the same meal, the healthier and higher that form of life will be which they build.

The system requires daily so much water, proteids, carbohydrates, fat and salts. The foods necessary to supply these elements can be eaten at different meals, instead of combining them all at the same time. It is this most interesting and important problem that the use of uncooked foods will solve.