[Illustration: EUGENE CHRISTIAN.]
[Illustration: M. GRISWOLD CHRISTIAN.]
Uncooked Foods &
How to Use Them
A TREATISE ON HOW TO GET
THE HIGHEST FORM OF
ANIMAL ENERGY FROM FOOD
With Recipes for Preparation, Healthful
Combinations and Menus :: :: ::
BY
_Mr. & Mrs. Eugene Christian_
As the building is, so the structure must be.
FIFTH EDITION
Revised and Enlarged
NEW YORK
THE HEALTH-CULTURE COMPANY
151 WEST 23D STREET
COPYRIGHT, 1904
BY
EUGENE CHRISTIAN
Dedication
To the Women of America
on whom depend the future greatness
of our glorious country,
we most affectionately dedicate
this work.
We may live without poetry, music and art,
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends, we may live without books,
And civilized man _can live_ without cooks.
(_Apologies to Owen Meredith._)
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
The first edition of this work was received by both the press and the
people with favor, and the immediate demand it met with confirms our
opinion that the people are awakening or beginning to realize the great
importance of the food question, and its relation to both the mental
and physical man.
The most convincing evidence we have had in regard to the correctness
of our theory is found in the letters we have received from the people
of nearly every English speaking country, telling of the benefits they
have gained by adopting the use of elementary foods, according to the
theories advanced in this work.
The fact that people in nearly all walks of life are giving so much
thought to this subject, leads us to hope that the time will soon come
when it will be a matter of common knowledge that incorrect feeding is
the primary cause of nearly all diseases and that correct or natural
habits of eating will prevent and cure the great multitude of ills with
which the majority of mankind are afflicted.
The most learned and advanced thinkers of every civilized country are
gradually turning their attention more and more each year to the food
question to ascertain the causes of disease and its cures; it will
therefore be but a few years until the light of the world’s greatest
minds will be turned fair and full upon the material out of which MEN
AND WOMEN ARE MADE, and the immutable laws of nature will be their
“star by day and pillar of fire by night.” It is then that the food
question will in very truth become a science.
That this book may contribute to that end is the wish of
THE AUTHORS.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 15
THE PROBLEM OF PROBLEMS 19
THE FUNCTION OF FOODS 23
FOOD PRODUCTS 29
RAW FOODS 35
ECONOMY--SIMPLICITY 39
AS A REMEDY 43
EMANCIPATION OF WOMAN 49
THE SELECTION OF FOODS 55
FOOD COMBINATIONS 61
THE PREPARATION OF FOOD 69
PREPARATION OF UNCOOKED FOODS 73
EFFECTS OF COOKING FOOD 76
COOKING MILK 81
FLESH FOODS 85
NUTS 89
FRUITS 93
CEREALS 97
VEGETABLES 100
BREAD FERMENTATION 103
CONDIMENTS 108
HOW TO EAT 113
MASTICATION 119
FEEDING CHILDREN 125
FOOD VALUES AND TABLES 133
FLESH FOODS--_Table_ 134
DRIED FRUITS--_Table_ 136
GREEN VEGETABLES--_Table_ 136
DAIRY PRODUCTS--_Table_ 137
NUTS, SHELLED--_Table_ 137
FRUITS AND BERRIES--_Table_ 138
HOW TO BEGIN 139
RECIPES 143
SOUPS 147
VEGETABLES 153
FLESH FOODS 157
EGGS 159
CEREALS 163
SANDWICHES 167
NUTS 169
SALADS 173
FRUIT AND FRUIT DISHES 183
MELONS 192
EVAPORATED FRUITS 193
CHEESE AND JUNKET 197
CAKES, PUDDINGS AND PIES 199
JELLIES 201
MOUSSÉS, SAUCES AND WHIPS 209
CREAMS 213
ICE CREAMS, ICES AND DRINKS 217
MENUS FOR SEVEN DAYS 221
BANQUET MENUS 229
WHY THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN.
Some years ago we, the authors of this work, both became so impaired in
health as to almost totally disqualify us for the performance of our
daily work. A very exhaustive study of our condition convinced us that
it was caused mainly, if not wholly, by incorrect habits in eating.
This brought forth a very careful and studied series of experiments
in diet which was confined entirely to cooked foods, because we at
that time accepted implicitly the common theory that foods could be
predigested and improved by heat.
Failing utterly in this, our attention was turned toward what have been
called natural foods, but what in reality mean food in its elementary
or unchanged state. Less than a year of study and experimenting with
this system of feeding resulted in the total elimination of all
stomach disorders and our complete restoration to perfect health. From
scientific research, in addition to these failures and successes,
we have studied out a system of both eating and drinking, which has
been tried by many others under our direction, and in every instance
health, strength and vitality have come to those who have obeyed our
instructions.
In order to bring this theory more conspicuously before the public
we gave a seven course dinner or banquet of uncooked foods, which
was attended by many distinguished New York people. It received much
attention by the New York press, and was widely commented on all over
this and foreign countries through the press exchanges. A flood of
inquiries concerning the use of uncooked food, especially referring to
their remedial values, followed this publicity. This gave the first
hint of the great interest that the public is now taking in this method
of living.
These inquiries showed that thousands of intelligent people were
dissatisfied with their present methods of living.
A second Elementary food banquet was spread at the same hostelry a few
months later, which was given still wider publicity by the press, and
which brought forth inquiries in such volume and of such intricate
detail that it became impossible to answer them. Therefore as a labor
saving method of making reply and in order to place intelligently
before the public the results of our work and experiments, it was
decided to incorporate them into pamphlet form. But it was soon
discovered that this was entirely inadequate, so the present volume is
the result.
If it gives to men more strength, more vitality, more endurance; if it
gives them more health and less disease, more sympathy, more affection
and more love. If it gives them higher senses of Mercy and Justice
which flow more freely from a fountain of robust health, and which are
the warp and woof in the great fabric of a higher civilization!
If it contributes one degree to the elevation and freedom of woman, if
it gives her one hour more of pure air and sunshine, if it gives her
new thoughts, new dreams, new hopes with which she may endow the race
to be, if but in dreams it shifts the scene from four dark walls hung
with pots and bones to gardens and fields, where nature’s bounteous
store of purple and red is swung with prodigal hand in sunshine and
autumn leaves, waving and waiting to mingle their life with hers; if it
brings her more youth and years, less sorrow and tears, if this book in
the least lightens the leaden load that has been laid upon her by our
civilization,--if in all the world it changes one hour of suffering to
an hour of peace or pleasure, we will be repaid.
EUGENE CHRISTIAN.
MOLLIE GRISWOLD CHRISTIAN.
INTRODUCTION.
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.