The great nutritional value of fruits is unquestioned by the well-informed. Supplemented with nuts, they form the ideal diet of man. All fruits are rich in vitamins and mineral salts and are especially valuable in preventing or remedying deficiency "diseases." Dr. Oswald says: "From May to September fresh fruit ought to form the staple of our diet."

A few years ago, in one of his articles in The New York Evening Graphic, Milo Hastings wrote: " 'A daily reader' without name, sex or address, notes that fruit is always recommended to purify the blood, drive diseases from the body, etc. He, or she, wants to know why we should not live all the time on this superior type of food and so maintain perfect health.

"The idea, with slight modification, has been tried. A generation ago, Prof. Jaffa, of the University of California, made a scientific study of a group of fruitarians, only these persons included nuts in their fruit diet. The professor found them underweight and undersized folks, but all in fine health. He also calculated the total amount of food they ate and found, as measured in caloric units, that they were living on much less total food than the teachings of those times held to be possible.

"At the time this report was issued food authorities taught us that we all ought to overeat because the average man did overeat, and that we all ought to be somewhat fat because the average man was overfat. Looking over that report today, we realize that these minimum eaters were really in first class physical condition and were living the way of long life and freedom from the ills of fleshpots. They were able to live on fruits by including nuts, which are very rich in protein and fat, neither of which elements exist in fruit proper to a sufficient degree to maintain normal life.

"The chief reason we cannot live on fruits is that they contain practically no protein. This is also one reason why adding them to the average diet is beneficial, for the average diet is too rich in protein. Going on a fruit diet is 'cleansing' chiefly because it is a protein fast, and most of the accumulated wastes and poisons of the body are of a protein nature."

Dr. Gibson says of the nut and fruit diet: "In the light of the latest notations in the science of human nutrition, there is no activity in the human system, no process of digestion, assimilation, and nutrition, no nervous expenditure or structural strain, that cannot be sustained and maintained to its highest constitutional potency by a judicious dietetic balance of fruit and nuts. The former gives it sugar for the maintenance of fats and heat of the system; its organic salts to sustain the chemical composition and metabolic balance of the blood; its acids for breaking up tissue congestions, due to accumulation of waste matter; while the nut, with its storage of nitrogen and fat, furnishes material for anatomic repairs, and lubrication of the various joint movements. Finally the carbons contained in both the fruit and nut unite to generate the cerebro-vital explosions which set free the energies of high tensioned nervous life."

Dr. John Round (England) reports that, "In 1854 cholera attacked the Midland counties; there were many deaths in Staffordshire and elsewhere, but the fruit-growing and cider-making villages of Herfordshire escaped. The physicians of that time attributed this to the custom of eating fresh fruit; it is certain that the villagers did not peal their apples, and so consumed vitamins freely, it being a fact that the vitamins exist near the peel in all such fruits."

Dr. Gibson says: "The gains accruing to an individual from a well-established nut-and-fruit-diet would be far reaching. His domestic economy, by virtue of the time-and-labor-saving simplicity of a mostly fireless housekeeping would give rise to surprising assets. Furthermore, the relation between man and his associates in the animal kingdom would find a perfect moral and ethical adjustment. There would be no justification for killing or taking of life, for the sake of life; no dependence on animal sacrifice for our existence. Released from this awful task of compulsory 'slaughter of the innocents,' man would rise into a living protective power of peace and good will to every creature within his zone of influence, aiming at a consecration in place of a desecration of expressions and opportunities of life. His attitude towards his dumb and helpless neighbors would be serene, sweet and peaceful, with no grim implement of murder, concealed in the caressing hand."

Because of the rapidity with which fruits leave the stomach, and the readiness with which they decompose after they have been broken up, fruit is best eaten alone and not in combination with other foods. A fruit meal is the ideal.

Under all conditions and circumstances fruits should be taken alone and not eaten at the same meal with other foods. Fruits digest in the intestine, not in the mouth and stomach, and should not be held up in the stomach to await the digestion of other foods before being passed on to their own digestive fields.

Sugar on fruit means fermentation. Two sugars do not go well together. Cane sugar and beet sugar must be converted into simpler sugar before they can be utilized. Fruit sugars do not. Cane and beet sugar tend to prevent the absorption of fruit sugars until they both ferment.

Preserved fruits are confections, not fruit. We do not advise them. Canned fruits have little to recommend them.

The use of fruit juices as desserts and as appetizers, so strongly advocated in some quarters, is pernicious. The practice is based on the belief that we must secure all of the needed food elements at each meal. It is advocated in total disregard of the limitations of the digestive enzymes. Such eating guarantees indigestion to everyone who practices it.

Drinking fruit juices at all hours of the day, instead of water, is a sure road to indigestion. Fruit juices are foods, not drink, and should be taken as foods. Troubles arising from the misuse of fruits should not be blamed on the fruits.

Dried fruits are superior to bread in nutritive value, besides which they supply the bases so commonly lacking in cereals and cereal products. Sulphured fruits should never be employed. Sun dried fruits are best. Eat them dry or soak them but do not cook them. Fruits should never be cooked. Nor should they be frozen. They should be eaten ripe, fresh and uncooked. Their taste is not always as agreeable in this stage, but they are richer in vitamins before fully ripened. They lose vitamins in ripening. Fruits, like vegetables have more vitamin C in proportion as they are green. Fruits in general, like many nuts, are poor in vitamin A.

Allergies to fruits are commonly not that at all. The troubles attributed to allergy are, in almost every instance due to misuse of the fruit. Eaten in proper combinations, people who imagine they are allergic to fruit, find they have no difficulty with them. Placing these "fruit allergic" people on a diet of fruits, using the very fruits to which they are supposed to be allergic, proves them not to be allergic.