“The vitality stored up in uncooked plants and fruits is greatly impaired by all our culinary processes.”—Ibid., p. 116.
“Animals in a state of nature, subsisting upon their own chosen foods, are capable of fully digesting the nutritive elements, leaving only an inoffensive residue, while the unsuitable character of human foods is sufficiently indicated by the horrible and disease-breeding product which they yield.—Ibid.”
“Uncooked fruits, especially, excite the mind to its highest activity. After eating them we experience an inclination to vigorous exercise, and also an increased capacity for study and all mental work; while cooked food causes a feeling of satiety and sluggishness.”—Ibid.
Were I to enumerate the foods at present eaten raw by all of our millions of people, less surprise would be felt by my readers at the suggestion of restricting one’s diet to such articles as are agreeable in their natural state. Take, for example, apples, pears, peaches, grapes, oranges, etc.; all of the plums; bananas, dates, figs, raisins; cabbage, lettuce, celery, radishes, etc.; and to this list might well be added sweet corn, and the common variety of green corn, and peas; few people but find the latter delicious to their taste, and the corn is as much more crisp and juicy and wholesome raw than cooked, as are peaches or pears. I know individuals who were never fond of corn, would never eat it until happening to try a fresh young ear au naturel, who now use it freely every summer. This would be the case with very many, if not most people, if their prejudices were cast aside. I have named only a few articles of a few classes, but any one can extend the list at pleasure, adding walnuts, almonds, filberts, etc., etc. Unfortunately these raw foods have been commonly used as surfeit dishes, delicious articles that we can eat after having already over-eaten, and when more steak, potatoes, and gravy, or pastry, would, perhaps, send a shudder throughout the frame, and, often enough, when an emetic would be a more wholesome dessert than even walnuts and raisins. Let any one, first arranging for a clean stomach by skipping supper the previous night, try a breakfast consisting of a couple of bananas, one or
two dozen walnuts (or any sort preferred), with a handful of nice raisins,—both the nuts and raisins being thoroughly masticated, the latter to the point of well crushing the stones,—ending, or beginning, the seance with oranges, and, at night, the second and last meal, of favorite fruits, beginning with a small portion of “oat groats” or wheat, (of course any other choice may be made, a dozen, or a score, indeed, from week to week,) taking care to exercise enough to “earn” his food,[70] and see if this principle of alimentation will not cure his disorders, whatever they may be. It would end the wretched business of “colds” and “hay-fever” which, according to the Boston Herald, a noted American divine says, “will make a man forget his God, the Bible, and everything else—but his disease.” Even the common hygienic diet, so called, and abstemious living, would make such blasphemy impossible, and would make a better man of the great London preacher, for example,—Mr. Spurgeon,—who recently wrote to a friend, and, apparently without the least shamefacedness: “My old disorder has come upon me like an armed man and laid me low. I can not walk or even stand, and the pain renders it difficult to think consecutively upon any subject.” And this with reference to a disorder (the gout) caused by eating and drinking unwholesomely—the injury being augmented, directly and indirectly, by the use of tobacco or wine. Mr. Spurgeon’s weight is fifty, if not seventy-five pounds greater than is normal
for him, considering fully his natural physique, and the use he makes of his muscular system. He may be in the habit of restricting his appetite; he may eat much less than most of his associates, and even be esteemed a small eater and very abstemious; nevertheless his form is gross, and he has the gout—two unimpeachable witnesses to the truth of my position.
[70] “Live on sixpence a day and earn it,” was the “favorite prescription” of a famous London physician.
“We can not doubt,” says Dr. Oswald, “that the highest degree of health could only be attained by strict conformity to Haller’s[71] rule, i.e., by subsisting exclusively on the pure and unchanged products of Nature. This view is indorsed (indirectly) in the writings of Drs. Alcott, Bernard, Schlemmer, Hall, and Dio Lewis, and directly by Schrodt, Jules Virey, and others. In the tropics such a mode of life would not imply anything like asceticism: a meal of milk and three or four kinds of sweet fruits, fresh dates, bananas, and grapes, would not clash with the still higher rule, that eating, like every other natural function, should be a pleasure and not a penance. Heat destroys the delicate flavor of many fruits, and makes others indigestible by coagulating their albumen. But,” continues this authority,—and I am not disposed
to dispute the soundness of the position, speaking generally (as, indeed, Dr. Oswald, himself, was speaking),—“in the frigid latitudes, where we have to dry and garner many vegetable products in order to survive the unproductive season, the process of cooking [some classes of] our food has advantages which fully outweigh such objections.” To the very rational assumption that, “few men with post-diluvian teeth would agree with Dr. Schlemmer that hard grain is preferable to bread,” I would reply, that for people who could not or would not grind their own grist, as do our most robust animals—well nourished, but hard-working draught or road horses—the whole-wheat meal, freshly and coarsely ground, with a light dressing of rich milk,[72] or, more wholesome still, eaten with nuts and thoroughly masticated, is more delicious than bread, even if made from the same quality of Graham. If the Graham be taken dry, with a few raisins at each mouthful, it would require a fine taste to distinguish between this and the walnuts and raisins so generally acceptable to epicures. If the milk dressing is used, it should simply be poured over the (unsifted) Graham, and not made into a batter. With a dish of Graham as described, and such fruit as can usually be obtained all the year round, either fresh or (in winter) dried, as apples, raisins, dates, figs,[73] prunes (the last, like dried apples, peaches, etc.,
soaked not overmuch, but until tender), one may make a meal sufficiently delicious, and at the same time absolutely pure—if the milk is derived from a healthy creature. And here I would remark, that although cow’s milk is a strictly natural food for the calf only, still, if the cow be properly fed (not “driven,”[74] as is the custom in dairies) and the milk properly cared for—kept free from air vitiated by the emanations of decaying vegetables, meats, or other source of impurity, but open[75] in a pure atmosphere—few need abstain altogether from this most delicious food. Nevertheless, no one may feel at liberty to drink milk copiously, as water: calves, babies, etc., whose natural food it is, take it slowly and “chew” it thoroughly! We may well take a hint from this. (See Biliousness.)