It is hard for the ordinary man, or woman, to distinguish between dieticians, food faddists, and scientific food experimenters. Nevertheless, neither of these types of people, who claim superior knowledge concerning food and its benefit to the body, would have gained much public attention unless there had been a sufficient merit in their ideas to keep them alive by repetition.
The scientific food experimenter, of course, has a definite leg to stand upon, for each and every food has been analyzed for con-tent, and tested upon animal life for value.
The dietician has scientific knowledge at hand to warrant the selection of the proper food containing caloric value, and sufficient vitamin, mineral, and protein content.
Even the food faddist has something of value to offer. However, the food faddist has the unhappy faculty of jumping upon a single routine and chasing it so enthusiastically that sight is lost of the why and wherefore of given results. Sooner than later, food faddists tend toward commercializing their ideas, and a new in-fallible food, or food routine, is born.
The milk diet faddists, the grape faddists, and the health food faddists were born out of the maze of food experimenters. Far be it from the writer’s idea to trample upon the faddists. In their enthusiastic way, they have done a pioneer service in calling attention to the fact that a change in diet is beneficial. In fact, any change from a set and steady routine diet of too few foods is beneficial to health.
The great mistake made by food faddists is in believing their idea, or method, is the answer to all conditions of ill health. They pursue their food direction without scientific reason until the recipient becomes tired and lapses into his own routine wherein the benefit is lost.
No one will sit under the wing of a dietician very long. The dietician becomes a dictator, and no one will long be told that they must eat of this and that, and how much.
Even the scientific experimenter in foods can not persistently stack up a list of foods which you must eat. Not even a physician may hold his patient too long upon a strict food regimen. All things concerning food restrictions become a diet in the minds of the people who are restricted. The very word diet sets up a negative mental reaction for the great majority of men and women.
Who can blame a person, with indigestion, becoming weary of diets, when ten different diets may be suggested from ten different sources for the same indigestion? Even so, the lack of some food elements causes all indigestion. What to do? Read on!
Ideas of food for health range from a fasting regimen to a myriad of diets. The very fact of many diets is a very definite proof that but few have a real reason back of them. One manner of eating suffices for the health of all people except under the ad-vice of a physician who treats organic breakdown. In fact, the food faddist who adopts a certain diet for continual living may live to an age of sixty-five years. Whereas, had he eaten every type of food, he would have lived to the age of eighty-three.
If we wish to reach an extended age in life, we must learn how to replenish our body cells with proper food. The fire of life is kept alive by food just as the furnace fire is kept alive with coal. When we learn how to keep body repair materials on hand, we will have learned how nature repairs cellular tissue and prevents its destruction.
Food faddists must, eventually, give way to food scientists. The grape cure faddists must learn that the lowly grape is not alone in the field of fruit re-alkalization of the body. The grape does not do a miraculous restoration to health because it is a grape, but because the tartaric acid principal of this fruit aids restorative body metabolism. The citric acid of lemon, or lime, will accomplish the same thing.
Proper eating, in a great measure, aids in the reestablishment of health, but that proper eating can not be a fanatical assertion of value in one food. Food values must re-alkalize, and re-mineralize worn body tissue; this can only be done by eating many foods.
It is but a short step from food faddism to commercial opportunism. Any food combination which may carry body benefit by faddist assertion, becomes doubly beneficial when packed into a dollar container; beneficial to health, and beneficial to pocket.
Neither fad foods nor commercial foods are necessary to your well being. You people, with gaseous indigestion, nervous indigestion, and chronic constipation, may obtain excellent benefit from merely correcting your manner of eating. You do not have to diet. All you need do is eat more types and varieties of food.
The chemical eating chart, found in the front of this book, will aid you immensely if you will select your foods according to its direction. Eat all you want, and when you want it, but see that your meals have as great a variety as you can secure during any period of week, month, or year.
The healthy person is the person who can’ brag that there is NO food which he does not like and does not eat. To those people, we say: “Go to it, Brother; you do not need to read “FIFTY MIL-LION BELLYACHES.”
The chemical eating chart is neither fad, fancy, nor diet. It invites you to eat. Any person may pick and choose their own foods. Only the distressed need watch their combinations. An organic disease may cause your physician to withdraw certain foods from your menu. But, unless this action is necessary for actual disease, you bellyachers will find the chemical eating chart correct according to the manner in which your foods are chemically changed within your body. Such a manner of eating will assure you obtaining sufficient food elements to maintain body tissue and rebuild cell life.
The answer to food faddism is anyone’s guess. If you happen to be deficient in certain minerals, and you happen to be advised to get the right food for that deficiency, and that food contains the minerals you need, then you will get the results you look for. But, if someone says that alfalfa will be the thing, or if others claim an onion, or a grape, is what you need, it is a faddism instead of a certainty.
The chemical eating chart says: “Here is a grape, an orange, a grapefruit, a tomato, and a lemon; all these contain the elements you need for digestive alkali. Take your choice, or eat them all.” This is not a faddist theory. It is a food truth, and you are on your own; not dictated to in your selection of one or the other.
If you select your meals in accordance with the general outline of the chemical eating chart, you will be assured a sufficient mineralization to replenish your body needs, WITHOUT the danger of restricting your body ALKALI. Foods, containing minerals and alkali producers, automatically supply sufficient vitamins.
With mineralization and alkalization maintained, the body of man is not so often attacked by disease. Constipation and gaseous distress rarely bother the healthy body. Colds can not hang on to an alkalized system. In fact, distress and disease are largely your own fault. What you do not eat hurts you.