20. If one meal happens to fall a little below the average in either quality or variety, see that the next is fully up to the mark.
The evil results which follow bad food combinations may be summed up in a very few words. We know that certain chemical elements, acting upon one another, will form resultant gases. Various food substances that do not properly combine, will form such gases in precisely the same way; and these will be largely absorbed by the blood, and carried to the cells throughout the body, which they poison, more or less, in consequence. The harmful results of these poisonous gases, absorbed in this manner, are particularly noticeable in their effect upon the various nerve centres—producing an inhibitory effect upon them, and inducing that general condition of weariness and debility experienced and noticed under the host of symptoms known to us as nervous exhaustion, fatigue, lassitude, etc., etc. The simple and obvious method that should be followed in all such cases, in order to eliminate these poisons from the system, is to abstain from food until the system has had a chance to eliminate such toxic substances. This once accomplished, the system being freed from the ashes of previously mal-assimilated food material, and a fresh supply of oxygen being furnished, by continued breathing, in the interval, the system will soon return to its normal condition of health, and will enjoy a higher standard of energy and vitality than has been the case for some considerable time in the past.
XIV
HYGIENIC FOODS AND HYGIENIC COOKERY
In discussing this question of foods and food values and constituents, we must be very careful to keep clear in the mind the distinction between proximate elements, or foods proper, and chemical or ultimate elements. This is very important. All alimentary substances are composed of certain constituent parts, which may be properly called alimentary principles. These are formed by certain combinations of elementary constituents, which are denominated chemical elements. Thus wheat, beef, potato, apple, etc., are aliments, or foods proper; and starch, sugar, rum, fibrin, albumen, gelatin, etc.—their constituents—are proximate elements. Proximate elements of food are compounds of the simple or chemical elements; and aliments or foods proper are compounds of the proximate principles.
It is important to keep these distinctions in mind, because the human body can be nourished and retain its health upon organic combinations of proximate elements, while it would starve to death on the ultimate elements administered in exactly the same proportions. Dogs have been fed on sugar, gum, starch, butter, fat, fibrin, albumen, etc., exclusively, and with the uniform result that they sooner or later starved to death! No animal can sustain prolonged nutrition on any single alimentary principle, though all of them may on a single aliment.
Other things being equal, a food is nutritious, and capable of sustaining life, in proportion to its complexity. The more simple the food, the less it is capable of sustaining life and health. This does not mean that a large number of foods should be eaten at one meal—in order to supply this lack—since nearly all foods, or a reasonable admixture of them—contain all the essentials for sustaining life in a state of health and vigour. Certain foods—nuts, e.g.—seem to contain about all the essentials and in exactly the right proportions. I have discussed this aspect of the question in the chapter on the fruitarian diet.
One very important fact may be mentioned here. Animals cannot appropriate mineral or inorganic elements directly; they must obtain all these substances through or by means of the vegetable world. Vegetables have the power of utilising these inorganic materials, and build them into their bodies; but animals have to obtain all such substances in an organised form—i.e. organic materials—and cannot possibly utilise the inorganic elements. Thus, if an animal requires iron, it cannot eat iron filings, to supply this need, but must take it in the form of spinach, and cabbage, and fruits containing large quantities of iron; he cannot possibly eat it in its mineral form. The vegetable world, on the contrary, has the power of building these mineral elements into its structure. Vegetables feed upon minerals, and animals upon vegetables; and this order cannot be reversed. It will thus be seen that the vegetable world is that designed for man’s food; and from it he should derive all his nourishment. Certainly he can derive no part of it from the mineral world.
Hints on Hygienic Cookery.—While I believe that the ideal diet is that which is uncooked—or sun-cooked—nevertheless some foods are best cooked, if the ordinary vegetarian diet is to be adhered to. Thus, grains when uncooked are but slightly nutritious, a large portion of their starch remaining unconverted; but when cooked this is converted into dextrine, and thus rendered more appropriable by the system. Cooking is therefore justified, if vegetable foods and grains are to be eaten; and I propose, accordingly, to jot down a few notes and instructions which will, I believe, be found useful to all those who wish to reform their food habits, to a certain extent, and cook as hygienically as possible. I shall not attempt any elaborate outline of hygienic cookery in this place; several of the vegetarian cookbooks on the market go into great detail on these questions, and I shall therefore confine myself to a few brief notes.