The eliminating diet is now frequently miscalled a fast--a fruit fast, an orange fast, a grape fast, etc. It is also often called a cleansing diet. It is a diet of juicy fruits, or green vegetables or both.

There is a sense in which the orange diet, for example, is similar to a fast in its effects. During a fast the cells feed on the accumulated reserves stored in the body and do not secure their sustenance from fresh supplies which have just arrived by way of the digestive tract.

An orange diet is a true fast in the sense of abstinence from proscribed foods, but it is not an orange fast. Considered, however, from the point of view that such a diet turns the cells away from freshly arriving food supplies to the stored reserves, to meet their food needs, it has very much (not all) the same effects as a complete fast. Milo Hastings has very nicely illustrated this matter in the following words:

"The essential action might be explained by likening the body to a store. If the manager of a store has been too ambitious a buyer he is very likely to have accumulated certain stocks of goods until his shelves are too crowded, and the general efficiency of the store's activities is impaired. So he decides to put on a sale, mark down his prices and have a general housecleaning--all of which is often a very wise move for the health of the business.

"A complete fast or abstinence from all food would be like a clearance sale during which a store ceased entirely to purchase new stocks. But a partial fast would be like a clearance sale during which the store continued to purchase new stocks, but less new stock than the sale was consuming. Good management in a store would indeed often suggest the wisdom of just such clearance sales during which the major inflow of new goods was shut off, but in which the supply of certain new goods much in demand and which had not been accumulated to excess was still continued from an outside source.

"This last condition nicely pictures the argument for the partial fast. But as in store management, so in nutritional management, the wisdom of such a clearance or such a partial fast would depend on whether one used wisdom in choosing what new material should be supplied while the old accumulations were being used up."

The purpose of the eliminating diet is not to see how many glasses of juice one can take in a day in an effort to "alkalinize" the body, or to supply an excess of minerals or vitamins. Indeed, this method of drinking juice largely defeats the purpose of the diet. The nearer the diet approaches a complete fast, the more effective it becomes. Juice salesmen and sellers of juice extractors will deny this, but they are in no position to know what they are talking about.

The food substances that are consumed in greatest excess and which are likely to accumulate in the body are fats, sugars, starches and proteins. Proteins can never accumulate in amounts as great as can the fats and carbohydrates, but the excess of protein may be most harmful. The eliminating diet accomplishes more than merely compelling the utilization of excesses of proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

There are two sides to the story of nutrition. One side deals with the building up of the body and the manufacture of secretions. The other side deals with the elimination of waste-matter from the blood and tissues. This latter part is accomplished by the use of food substances that never really become part of the body but are held in solution in the blood. The protein wastes of the cells are carried to the liver where they are combined with the alkaline, organic mineral elements which convert them into soluble salts. These salts are then easily eliminated by the kidneys and skin. A diet rich in bases and poor in acids is an eliminating or "curative" diet.

It is often difficult to distinguish between normal body waste and a mere excess of food. The normal wastes of the body are commonly assumed to be the usual daily excretions from a conventionally fed man. But average conditions are often far from the ideal. In the case of the element, nitrogen, for example, excreted through the kidneys, it was for a long time assumed that the average daily wastes represented normal and necessary wastes from true physiological processes. Later investigations have shown this to be a mistake. It has been found that by reducing the intake of protein, from which the nitrogen is derived, the nitrogen excreted through the kidneys could be reduced to less than one-fourth of the quantity which was formerly assumed to be necessary and normal. Similar facts are true of common table salt and other mineral elements.

These things are quickly brought to light during a fast. After the first few days, during which time there is usually an increase in elimination, the elimination of waste rapidly drops to levels much lower than the amounts daily eliminated by individuals who are customarily over-fed.

.A house cleaning process is inaugurated. The body throws off its surplus elements after which it strikes a new balance of elimination, one which probably represents the actual daily wastes of the processes of life. Much of the former greater amounts of waste eliminated presumably represented the overflow of a surplus of material consumed by the individual, which had reached the danger line of active poisoning from excess.

The striking benefits produced by fasting are attributable largely to the cleaning out of these excess materials which have been accumulated by habitually eating in excess of the actual body requirements.

This surplus material may quite accurately be spoken of as toxins or poisons, for it definitely injures the body if it is not promptly eliminated. It may even result in some degree of injury, other than the waste of energy and secretions in handling it, by passing through the body when performing no useful function.

Of the three main groups of food elements (carbohydrates, hydrocarbons, and proteins), carbohydrates offer the least danger of creation of possible toxic substances and proteins the most danger. Both of these are commonly consumed greatly in excess of requirements, the carbohydrates usually in the greatest excess, and these are capable of producing much trouble if they are permitted to ferment in the digestive tract.

Keep in mind that the most healthful food may be harmful if consumed in excess. Excesses of proteins and carbohydrates are especially likely to produce harm. That life continues in spite of the fact that we are constantly putting into the body a surplus of food and introducing poisonous substances therein, is due to its possession of an elaborate system of getting rid of the surplus and toxins.

It is often assumed that the digestive organs are able to reject any substance that would prove injurious to the body. Unfortunately their capacity to do this is very limited. Otherwise, the thousands of drugs poured into human stomachs, would have no effect beyond irritating the lining surfaces of the digestive organs. That they are absorbed by the blood and do produce their injurious effects throughout the body is evident enough.