ALL DECENT EATERS ARE FLETCHERITES
Dietetic Righteousness--The Disgrace of Sickness--The Optimism of the
Fletcherite
In order that there shall be no misunderstanding let us agree upon the
dictionary definition of "Decent." It is "Having propriety of conduct."
Let us also take the dictionary definition of Fletcherite, as an agreed
meaning. It is: "One who practises Fletcherism."
Fletcherism, in turn, is defined as "A method of thorough mastication
recommended by Horace Fletcher."
No self-respecting person wishes to be indecent about anything, and
especially about things that are sacred.
I use the term "Indecent" because it has an ugly look and sound. It
is more than thoughtless or careless. It is positively indecent and
nothing less. So is ugly and irreverential eating more culpable than
mere heedlessness when we come to consider what it means in the way of
consequences. It spells Indecency from the beginning to the end of the
process involved in the act.
You may have a very poor opinion of the namesake in the case, but you
must be glad that he discovered for himself that decent eating means
recuperation of health if it has been shaken: preservation of health if
it is a fortunate possession: and epicurean enjoyment that cannot be
realized in full without it.
I repeat that the term Fletcherite is not a personal monopoly but a
popular and dictionary creation. I am selfish enough to be glad that
Gladstone escaped the distinction of having his great name used as a
designation of decent eating.
DIETETIC RIGHTEOUSNESS
When I was called upon to deliver an address before the New York
Academy of Medicine on "Possibilities of Recuperation after Fifty,"
I used a phrase of my own coining, "Dietetic Righteousness," and was
later called to account for having been irreverent in using sacred
terms in connection with food and eating. "By George!" I replied, in
righteous indignation, "Is there anything more sacred than serving
faithfully at the altar of our Holy Efficiency?" "Is there any
righteousness more respectable than that which furnishes fuel for
healthy efficiency and moral stability?" And the question may now be
repeated, "Is there?"
As for indecency: Is there any conduct having less propriety than
regarding our wonderful mouth, with its prodigious potency for
protection and pleasure, as a mere food and drink hopper for good
material, which becomes really swill in the alimentary canal if it
is not properly treated in the mouth? Can any one think of anything
more indecent than offensive odours which are the inevitable tell-tale
of indecent eating, and which are eliminated from possibility of
development if eating has been decently performed? The penance, or
even pleasure, of frequent bathing, in order that the tell-tales of
indecency may not become public, does not atone for the sinning in the
beginning. The real damage has been done in the, and to the, delicate
alimentary canal, with consequences to be realized later on in terms of
odious disease or premature death. These are the inside facts in the
case made bare by frank presentation.
THE DISGRACE OF SICKNESS
I believe it was the great American philosopher, Emerson, who said that
it is "A greater disgrace to be sick than to be in the penitentiary.
When you are arrested it is because you have broken a man-made
statute, but when you are ill, it is because you have disobeyed
one of God's laws." As elsewhere remarked, it is almost impossible
in civilized surroundings not to disobey some of the natural laws:
body-ventilation, first of all; but no sinning is so dreadfully
punished as indecent eating persistently practised.
Some of the ancients believed that the mysterious Something that they
called the Soul was located in the stomach and not in the heart or
brain. There was reason for thus placing the location, because the
bad effect of unhappy thought or anything that "touches the heart" is
first felt in the stomach if it has any troubles of its own at the
moment to worry about, due to indecent haste or carelessness in eating.
To the habitual Fletcherite such double disaster does not come. Easy
digestion has been assured by beginning it in the manner required by
Mother Nature, and to arrest it by unfavourable psychic influence for
a little time does not result in the production of those poisons which
wear out the body faster than any other cause. The worst of news may
be sprung on one as a terrible surprise, and cloud the happiness for
a time without causing damage to the delicate vital organs. Thus the
misfortune, or its opposite in disguise, as the case may be, does not
set up a vicious circle of accumulating fad effects. The thorough
Fletcherite is a philosopher, with a solid foundation for his or her
faith in the Good that may be lodged in even seeming misfortune, and
the recovery from the shock of disappointment, in order to discover
the Good at next hand, is as speedy as desired. The faithful one is
ever ready to go before the bar of Death's Tribunal for the approving
judgment his dietetic righteousness is sure to secure. Good circles of
healthy cause and effect have been swirling about in the organism as
the result of faithful decent eating, and Nature or Nature's God never
fail to perpetuate the evolution of the Good.
THE OPTIMISM OF THE FLETCHERITE
Fairness or politeness to the part of the wonderful alimentary canal
which Mother Nature has assigned to herself to manage is nothing more
than common decency; and no privacy of privilege can ever excuse any
indecent eating. Just think of all the latitude Mother Nature has given
her favourite child man in the way of easy convenience in doing the
right thing in eating. He is not compelled to eat every few minutes to
keep himself alive, as he is compelled to do in breathing: or every
few days, as in hydrating his internal economy with moisture. Never is
he caught with his bunkers empty of food for fuel or repair material.
Be he as thin as a hatpin, comparatively, he has stored under his skin
enough nourishment to last him comfortably for a month. Neither is he
terrorised by the conventional gnawing of hunger. He is _per force_
wise as to the physiology of nourishment and his stored resources
within, and turns any impatience for his habitual rhythm of feeding
into a savings bank fund for use when convenient. He is not frightened
to death, as indecent thinkers or eaters are, by the prospect of a
fast lasting a few hours or days. He knows that he has on him and in
him enough reserve supply of nourishment in the form of visible or
interstitial fat, and other necessary supply, to last for a long time,
forty or fifty days, at least, and there is plenty of time for expected
or unexpected relief to happen. He comes to know the value of his
mechanism, and the mental and soul essence it produces and supports.
His knowledge of his own resourcefulness is sufficient to enable him
to conserve all vital strength until hoped for relief comes. Or, being
in tune with the good intentions of the Universal Life of which he is
a part, he never dreads the promotion we call death. It is merely a
station on the road of evolution, and just as sure as we are of death
and taxes, so is a faithful Fletcherite certain that he is travelling
the road of natural evolution. He has not only eaten decently in the
way of fulfilling the natural mechanical and chemical requirements in
the mouth, but he has abstained from eating when the mental state was
not favourable, and has refrained from worry when the prospect of a
meal was deferred for a little while or indefinitely. He may have been
whinnying like a healthy horse in anticipation of revelling in the
delights of delicious taste, and yet is not filled with disappointment
at the postponement of the expected pleasure if the dinner appointment
is upset or delayed.
This quite Utopian possibility of stable equanimity is the assured
result of consistent decent eating, and thinking relative to
nutrition. It is the constitution and bye-laws of Fletcherism.
As a natural presumption, when decency in one direction leads to such
delightful fruition, the opposite of it, indecency, must swing its
pendulum to the extent of its full scope in the contrary direction,
and it does, for compensation is one of the laws of Nature that must
be fulfilled. It is true that Nature is always trying to accommodate
herself to any abuse. She may permit being so much accustomed to it
that the punishment of it at the moment is not noticed. She even
encourages the acceleration of the vicious circle that leads to
momentary bankruptcy of resistance, penitence, and reform, as in the
case of "bilious attacks." The man who takes his daily or hourly
prescription of alcoholic stimulant is permitted to believe that if
a little seems good, more should be better until he is landed under
the table. He becomes more and more efficient in "standing" the
abuse until "under the table" means "under the sod." The abuses have,
however, been just as disagreeable to Normality all the way along as
the first drop of alcohol was distasteful to the infant in arms. So,
too, with tobacco, in a less violent form.
Faithful practice of decent eating reverses the order of progress.
Normality of taste is the new direction taken. Appetite is given a
chance to discriminate, and it chooses simple food, having the chemical
constituents required by the body at the moment. It accommodates itself
to the daily activity, and can be trusted as the only completely-wise
prescriber of what food to take, and how much of it the body can
utilize just then.
Herein lies the value of decent respect for Appetite in securing
optimum digestion and nutrition. It does not treat all persons
alike because no two persons can be alike. Infinite variety is the
fundamental law of Nature. Some persons are born to carry more fat
than others. To try to keep them thin is a sin against the natural
intention. To allow them to become too fat is also a sin. Strictly
decent eating settles this question in conjunction with the sort and
amount of activity that the particular person is intended by his or her
"Hereditary Tendency" to exert.