The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-CureDewey, Edward Hooker
Science
The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure
Dewey, Edward Hooker
Fasting; Nutrition
For the highest efforts of genius, of art, of the simplest labors of the
hands, the forenoon with empty stomach and larger measure of stored-up
energy of the brain is by far the better half of the day; and, more than
this, it is equally the better for the display of all the finer senses
of the tastes, the finer emotions of soul life. In addition to
these--and what is vastly more important--it is by far the better half
of the day for the display of that energy whereby disease is cured. All
this with no power lost in any special exercise for the health!
The time to stop the forenoon labor is when the need to rest has become
clearly apparent; and there must be rest before eating, to restore the
energy for digestion. This always determines Nature's time when the
first meal shall be taken, and not the hour of the day.
This is especially important to all who are constitutionally weak or
have become disabled through ailings or disease. Disappointments have
come to hundreds who have given up breakfasts, because of the mistaken
idea that they must wait till noon before breaking the fast, and hence
had become too tired to digest; and therefore experienced a loss rather
than a gain from the untimely noon meals.
The desire for morning food is a matter of habit only. Morning hunger is
a disease under culture, and they who feel the most need have the most
reason to fast into higher health. They who claim that their breakfasts
are their best meals; that they simply "cannot do one thing" until they
have eaten, are practically in line with those who must have their
alcoholics before the wheels can be started.
Now it has been found by the experience of thousands that by wholly
giving up the morning meal all desire for it in time disappears, which
could hardly be the case if the laws of life were thereby violated; and
the habit once fully eradicated is rarely resumed.
To give up suddenly the use of alcoholics or of tobacco in any of its
forms is to call out loudest protests from the morbid voices that have
been kept silent by those soothing powers; and yet no one would accept
those loud cries as indicating an actual physiological need. The
difficulties arising from giving up the morning meals--even as those
from giving up the morning grog--are an exact measure of the need that
they shall be given up in order that health, and not disease, shall be
under culture.
I once heard a Rev. Mrs. tell a large audience of ministers that for
more than a week she spent most of her forenoons in bed to endure better
the headaches and other angry, protesting voices that were averse to the
no-breakfast plan. She won her case, and thence on a hint of headache or
other morbid symptoms was a matter of humiliation and fasting, with
prayer for forgiveness and for greater moral strength against the
temptations of relish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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