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
Some years ago there was born in me the ambition to formulate the
rules of economic procedure in securing optimum nutrition in a space
of not more than ten pages of coarse print that mothers, teachers,
and children of primary school age could understand as easy as the
noses on their faces. Mr. Rockefeller has "beat me out" in brevity by
several lengths. He has made the revelation with the lucky number of
thirty-three words, and left room for a final remark full of scriptural
tone, as is his wont.
PROFITABLE ECONOMY
There is one argument in favour of a meatless diet that appeals to
everybody, and that is the economy and cleanliness of it. In Professor
Irving Fisher's classic investigation to test the merits of Fletcherism
it was proven that careful attention to the mastication, insalivation,
and enjoyment of food while in the mouth, and swallowing only in
response to a strong invitation to swallow, and removing from the mouth
whatever remainder that did not practically _swallow itself_, a net
gain of approximately 40 per cent. was achieved without any attempt at
economy. The saving was in the money cost alone, and it came from more
and more inclination towards farinaceous and vegetable foods and away
from more expensive meat.
This form of saving is very telling. Dr. Francis E. Clark, founder
and permanent president of the great International Christian Endeavour
organization, noticed a reduction of one-third in the food expenses
of his family. The health officer of a suburb of Hamburg accomplished
a saving of two thousand marks a year in his family of three without
other assistance than careful eating and an inclination towards
non-flesh food material. The "Poor White Trash" community in America,
before mentioned, saved an average of three dollars a month each, three
thousand dollars a month among a thousand members of the community, and
the missionary workers who taught them to Fletcherize save half of the
cost of their sustenance. Accompanying all of this wonderful economy
was an immunity from the ordinary illnesses that was worth more than
the money saving.
In the Rockefeller family any decrease in the cost of food is a
negligible quantity in comparison with the total expenses, but seven
years of immunity from indigestion and replacing the demon with good
golf-health form have been worth more than millions of money.
APPENDIX
WAS LUIGI CORNARO RIGHT?
A PAPER READ BEFORE THE PHYSIOLOGICAL SECTION OF THE BRITISH MEDICAL
ASSOCIATION, AUGUST, 1901, BY ERNEST VAN SOMEREN
_Mr. President and Gentlemen_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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