Fletcherism: What It Is; Or, How I Became Young at SixtyFletcher, Horace
Science
Fletcherism: What It Is; Or, How I Became Young at Sixty
Fletcher, Horace
Mastication; Nutrition
Once in Venice a group of experimenters, of which I was one, subsisted
on milk alone. During seventeen days nothing but milk, always from the
same cow, and fresh from the milking, passed my lips in the way of food
or drink. I sipped the milk, and tasted it for all the taste there
was in it, and I learned to be so fond of it that it was with some
difficulty that I went back to a varied diet when the experiment called
for a change. Good, fresh milk is an exception to Nature's dislike for
monotony in food. Milk is the one perfectly-balanced food material; and
while it may not be always the best food for grown persons, it is the
most acceptable as a monotonous diet, and always is good, sufficient
and safe nutriment, if sipped, tasted, and naturally swallowed.
I have forgotten just what the exact quantity was that I consumed daily
during those seventeen days--I believe it was about two quarts. I get
away as far as possible from quantitative amounts, which may influence
other persons. The appetite is the only true guide to bodily need;
and if milk is tasted and swallowed only by involuntary compulsion as
required by right feeding, the appetite will gauge the bodily need
exactly, and cut off short when enough for the moment has been taken.
So I say to all who ask me these questions as applied to themselves:
I cannot advise you appropriately what to eat, when to eat, nor how
much to eat; neither can anybody else. Trust to Nature absolutely, and
accept her guidance.
If she calls for pie, eat pie. If she calls for it at midnight eat
it then, but eat it right. Understand the food filter at the back of
the mouth as I have described it in a previous article, and use it in
connection with the pie. If it is used properly, and all the taste is
extracted from the pie, and it is swallowed only in response to the
natural opening of the gate, and if the ingredients of the pie that are
not swallowed naturally are removed from the mouth, nothing will happen
to disturb profound sleep.
Few persons will crave mince pie or Welsh rarebit late at night. The
worker on a morning paper may do so, and often does. He has earned
his appetite, and sometimes it is so robust as to call for mince pie
or Welsh rarebit; but if these are eaten properly they will then be
utilised by the body, eagerly and easily.
I dwell purposely upon this extravagance of eating. It is to accentuate
the fact that we want to get as far away as possible, when cultivating
vital economies, from the idea of extraneous advice in the matter of
food.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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