I have been accustomed all my life to think of meat as a very "heavy"
article of food, an article of food suited for men doing hard physical
labor; it is a curious fact that the view I am setting forth here is
precisely the opposite. So long as I am doing hard physical labor,
whether it is walking ten miles a day, or playing tennis, or building a
house, I get along perfectly upon the raw food; but when I settle down
for long periods of thinking and writing--often sitting for six hours
without moving from one position--I find that I need something else,
and nothing has answered that purpose quite so well as beef-steak. It
appears to be, so far as I am concerned, the most easily digested and
most easily assimilated of foods. And because the work that I am doing
seems to me to be important, I am willing to make the sacrifice of
money and time and trouble which it necessitates. My diet at such times
will consist of beef or chicken, shredded wheat biscuit, and a little
fruit. If any one is disposed to follow my example and make this
experiment, I beg to call his attention especially to the fact that I
name these three kinds of food, and none others; and that I mean these
three kinds and none others. The main trouble with advising anybody to
eat meat is that he proceeds to eat it in the everyday world, where
it means not the eating of broiled lean beef, but also of bacon and
eggs, and of bread and butter, and of potatoes with cream gravy, and of
rice pudding and crackers and cheese and coffee. Please do not proceed
to eat these things and then hold meat-eating responsible for the
consequences.
I do not for a moment wish to give the impression that I believe that
meat-eating is necessary to a normally active person, or that humanity
will always continue to eat meat. No invention of science can ever make
meat as cheap a food as nuts and fruit, and nothing can ever make it
as beautiful or attractive a food, nor as clean a food, nor as easily
prepared a food. I believe that children can be brought up without
knowing the taste of meat, and can be trained to lead normal and active
lives from the very beginning, and can live on the raw-food diet and
thrive. What I am discussing here are my own experiences, and I do not
regard myself as a normal specimen of humanity, because I work a great
deal harder than anybody has a right to work. I do that because there
are so many idle and useless people in the world at present--and some
have to make martyrs of themselves, until conditions of injustice and
cruelty have been done away with.
APPENDIX
SOME LETTERS FROM FASTERS
LONDON, ONTARIO, May 2, 1910.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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