Constipation is declared to be the most prevalent ailment of civilized man. It should be regarded as but a condition of deranged nutrition; and consequently any treatment, to be efficient, must be directed not simply toward the temporary removal of the symptom, but at the cause. A fact which should be more generally known, is that nature provides a powerful yet harmless laxative, which will accomplish for the individual what no medicine can do. This laxative is in all plain, unrefined, wholesome foods as furnished by nature.
Natural foods, when not submitted to the modern refining processes, contain a bulky element the rough, indigestible particles of vegetable matter that absorb moisture and increase the volume of the bowel content, thereby exciting them to more thorough action. Besides promoting this mechanical propulsion, unrefined foods contain certain properties that lubricate the bowels and stimulate peristalsis. These are the acids, the fats, and the mineral salts.
Examples might be multiplied that indicate the evil effects following the continued use of demineralized foods, which have been robbed of the greater part of their essential mineral and vitamine in order to convert them into products that will “keep.” Diagnosticians agree that many of the ills that afflict mankind are preceded by constipation. They also agree that freedom from constipation averts many ills. Peoples who subsist on foods as nature supplies, them are not troubled with constipation. Decaying teeth, appendicitis, tonsillitis, and constipation are rife among all civilized peoples who eat largely of concentrated foods, and who remove the hulls from their cereals in preparing them for eating.