The Natural Food of Man: Being an attempt to prove from comparative anatomy, physiology, chemistry and hygiene, that the original, best and natural diet of man is fruit and nutsCarrington, Hereward
Science
The Natural Food of Man: Being an attempt to prove from comparative anatomy, physiology, chemistry and hygiene, that the original, best and natural diet of man is fruit and nuts
Carrington, Hereward
Food; Vegetarianism
There is an additional argument against meat-eating which might be
mentioned in this place. It is this: That meat, being a highly
stimulating article of diet, has a tendency to make us eat _too much_,
both of meat, and of other foods, which are before us at the time.
When the meal consists largely of simple, non-stimulating food-stuffs,
it will be found that this tendency is absent, and there will be no
temptation to overeat, or eat to excess, as is the case when meat is
largely indulged in. _Less_ food, and not more, will be eaten—which
corresponds with the argument drawn from physiology and chemistry—which
shows us that we can abstract the same amount of nutriment from less
food of another character. Instead of eating more food, when we adopt
a vegetarian diet, therefore, we should eat less! And, as a matter of
fact, most vegetarians _do_ eat less than meat-eaters. Thus, Mr Henry
Salt, in his “Logic of Vegetarianism,” p. 63, says:
“If the chemist were a man of action, and not merely a man of study,
the practical aspects of this question might, at the outset, give him
pause. Had he known vegetarians, lived among vegetarians, and talked
with vegetarians, instead of regarding them theoretically, he would
have been aware that the average vegetarian eats decidedly _less_ in
bulk than the average flesh-eater.”
This agrees with our argument advanced elsewhere—that meat is not as
nutritious as other articles of food; and, further, when we come to
consider the question of a fruitarian diet, we shall find that cooking
also destroys a large amount of the vital properties of food, and that
less raw food may be eaten than cooked food. For further discussion on
this point, I would refer the reader to the chapter on the quantity of
food necessary to sustain life.
The question of the influence of the diet upon the mental, emotional
and moral life should, perhaps, be insisted upon a little more fully.
Many of the older writers have insisted on this fact very strongly,
and furnished numerous examples and illustrations of the effects of the
diet upon this side of man—either for better or worse. Judge Woodruff,
writing on this subject, says:
“On my return to Smyrna, I stopped at Syra.... I there became
acquainted with Dr Korke, an eminent teacher from Switzerland. He
had charge of the principal school at Syra, containing from two
hundred to three hundred pupils.... I can truly say that these Greek
children manifested a capacity for learning which exceeded anything
I had ever before or have since witnessed. Dr Korke attributed this
extraordinary ability in his pupils, mainly to their habits of living,
which were exceedingly simple. Coarse, unbolted wheat-meal bread, with
figs, raisins, pomegranates, olives, and other fruit, with water,
constituted their diet. Figs and other fruit composed a large portion
of their food; but I am confident they did not consume an ounce of
flesh meat in a month.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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