Food Remedies: Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal UsesDaniel, Florence
Science
Food Remedies: Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses
Daniel, Florence
Diet therapy; Functional foods; Nutrition
Some vegetarians object that it is possible to eat too much fruit, and
recommend caution in the use of it to people of nervous temperament, or
those who seem predisposed to skin ailments. It is true that the
consumption of large quantities of fruit may appear to render the
nervous person more irritable, and to increase the external
manifestations of a skin disease. But in the latter event the fruit is
merely assisting Nature to throw the disease out and off more quickly,
while in the former case the real cause lies not in the fruit but in
some nerve irritant, tea, for example, the effects of which are more
acutely felt under the new _regime_. The nervous system tends to become
much more sensitive upon a vegetarian, especially fruitarian, diet, and
people often attribute their increased nervousness and irritability to
the diet when it is simply that they now react more quickly to poisons.
This is not a bad thing, on the contrary, it shows that the system has
become more alert. Under the old _regime_ we tend to store up poisons
and impurities in the body, but the effect of a vegetable diet,
especially when united with the use of distilled water, is to cause all
our diseases and impurities to be expelled outwards and downwards. Tea
is a slow poison, and so is coffee except under exceptional conditions
when it is used as a medicine, and then it should always be
pale-roasted.
Fruit should always be eaten at the beginning of a meal. Again, when the
diet consists of a mixture of cooked and uncooked foods, the uncooked
should always be eaten first. Also when the meal consists of two
courses, a sweet and a savoury dish, sufferers from indigestion should
try taking the sweet course first. I have known several cases where this
simple expedient has resulted in a complete cessation of the discomfort
of which the patient complained.
_A Pioneer of Food Remedies._
The pioneer, in England, of the treatment of all sorts and conditions of
disease by means of a vegetable (chiefly fruit) dietary was Dr. Lambe, a
contemporary of the poet Shelley. His last book appeared in 1815, and in
it and the one preceding are recorded some wonderful cures, especially
in cases of cancer. It is only fair to add here that in Dr. Lambe's
opinion no system of cure is completely efficacious so long as the
patient is allowed to drink the ordinary tap or well water. Distilled
water was the only drink he advised. But he held it better still not to
drink at all if the necessary liquid could be supplied to the body by
means of fresh, juicy fruits. He contended that man is not naturally a
drinking animal; that his thirst is a morbid symptom, the outcome of a
carnivorous diet and other unwholesome habits. And I think that anyone
may prove the truth of this for him or herself if he or she will adopt a
fruitarian dietary and abstain from the use of salt and other
condiments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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