Very briefly and shockingly stated, many people are simply walking garbage cans. They keep their hides so stuffed with food that the better part of the energy of the body is consumed in eliminating the surplus. Every organ is loaded with effete matter to the point of breaking down, and disease is the logical and inevitable result - they simply dig their graves with their teeth.

Too much good food is far worse than a reasonable amount of bad food. The system is able to take care of considerable waste effectively, but no body can be used as a continual dumping ground for food, be it good, bad or indifferent, and not be injured thereby.

Most people eat too much. It is very easy to acquire the habit of over-eating. It is not easy to correct this habit, for a diseased appetite craves food all the time, this craving is itself an evidence of its diseased condition. And often from the superabundance of the food put in the stomach the body is actually starved for lack of proper nourishment. That old saying, often jokingly applied to some person, that "he eats so much that it makes him poor to carry it around," is often a fact. Every dyspeptic is a proof that it is not what the body takes in that helps it, but what it is able to assimilate into life energy.

Every particle of food taken into the system that is not assimilated, allowing a reasonable amount for normal waste, is a clog and detriment to the body, a cause of weakness, disease, premature old age and death. Most of you will be much surprised when you actually learn, by demonstration if you will, how very little good food is needed to supply your body with an abundance of life force and physical energy.

I recently made a lecture date in an automobile. The road was heavy after a hard rain, and in addition we encountered about two miles of fresh gravel. After making the trip of over twenty miles, and back, thinking that the hard roads had consumed considerable gasoline, I opened the tank to add five more gallons - I found, however, that not much over three gallons had been consumed. Three gallons of liquid to push a car weighing twenty-six hundred pounds, and with an additional load of four grown people, through the mud and wet sand and new gravel over forty miles of road. This is what a machine of man's construction can do, a machine that is not nearly so wonderful as the machine that you and I are driving every day, our bodies that are much better adapted than a gas engine, to manufacture vital energy from their food supply.

For most people two meals a day - light ones of fruit, nuts, and milk - are enough. A great many can live even better on one meal, and a very light lunch at supper time.

The man who works at hard physical labor may need more; it all depends on the amount of energy expended, how much must be replaced. But it is safe to say that nine people out of ten overeat all the time, and the tenth one part of the time.

It is no easy thing to conquer the abnormal appetite that is the heritage of the ages of wrong living, return to nature's food, - which is raw, - and learn to live right. But it is very much worth while, for it means abundant life and health, clear mental vision, and a sense of cleanliness and at-one-ness with old Mother

Nature that can only come to those who are willing to "live the life."

And now in conclusion, ask the toper to give up his dram. He has a thousand excuses and reasons why he should not comply; his case, as he sees himself, is invariably an exception to the rule, and he really prefers to keep right on tippling. I am not asking you to give up a single meal or a mouthful. When the conviction comes to you that you should do this and live for the sake of expressing your life in the terms of mental aspiration and moral as well as physical growth and unfoldment; then you will seek to know the laws of your physical being and obey. Until that time remember this: never were truer words spoken or written - "Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap".

And right here I am willing to confess that I am perhaps what might be called an extremist, and that an exclusive diet of raw food, or even vegetarian, is not absolutely necessary to health. I have found it works fine in my own case, and feel sure that most people who are willing to make the personal demonstration will find that after a month's trial they are able to live nicely on such food, and enjoy it. At first, I seemed to have very little to eat, that is, little variety to choose from. But I have come to see that with fruits and nuts and good milk, honey, etc., I have a great plenty, and that one does not need to eat very many things to satisfy one's hunger and one's physical needs. I do not eat many vegetables; tomatoes, celery, etc., taste good to me, and I find I have cultivated an appetite for raw carrots that I believe are very good food. I tried fresh sweet corn, and must confess that I like it cooked on the cob better than raw, though my normal appetite may some day return in full, and I may find that I can eat raw corn with relish - I can't do it now.

I do know that many foods are better raw than cooked, but there are other foods that may be improved with cooking. These foods, in my judgment, are not so good as those that are best raw, and that is why I am selecting these raw foods, and I feel well satisfied with the selection. Though this experiment with me at this writing has only covered about six months, it has enabled me to add twelve pounds to my weight over any point I have previously reached, for many years back. My muscles are firm and I feel full of vital force and in perfect health, and that is the way I want to feel.

Occasionally I am out on a lecture trip, or am invited out to dine. Then I go back to my ordinary vegetarian cooked diet. (I never eat meat, no matter where I am.) I find, however, that I can note the effect of even one ordinary meal, that I feel sluggish and - well it does not agree with me as does my raw food and I am glad to get back to my peaches and cream and honey. The fact is, I can't think of anything that sounds better than peaches and cream and honey, or that tastes better either.

And it's so simple to prepare, and so cleanly. I get my own meals, and when I'm through I wrap the waste up in a paper, and there is just a knife, fork, and spoon, one dish and a glass to wash, and they are not greasy or dirty in the ordinary sense; a little cold water rinses them off quickly. How nicely does this fit in with the ideal of Robert Blatchford, the great English writer - "opulence of mind and frugality of body".