These fallacies about meat and vegetable foods are far from dead and we hear them repeated quite often today. It is no uncommon thing to hear a patient, who is on a fruit and vegetable diet, told that he or she needs "a more nourishing diet," meaning that the patient should have meat or eggs. Nourishment is still thought of in terms not only of stimulation, but also in terms of proteins, carbohydrates and calories.

The term "high living," as commonly employed, means gluttonous indulgence in unhealthful dishes. When those who thus eat become bloated masses of disease or attenuated wrecks of prematurely worn-out bodies, they are said to be victims of "high living." The term and its use implies that it is decidedly vulgar to eat plain, wholesome foods and stay well.

The miserable dyspeptic who has lived on hot biscuits, fried meats, short cakes, plum puddings and other concentrated foods and "knic-knacs," until he is nearly dead, is said to be suffering from the effects of "too good living"--as though healthful living is actually bad. We are told that greasy dishes, gravies, cakes, etc., that prove to be distressing to the digestive organs, are "too rich"--as though foods that are wholesome and good are and must necessarily be poor.

All Hygienists, from the days of Jennings and Trall to the present, have been consulted by "poor, wretched invalids," who have suffered for half a lifetime or more, of misery and infirmity, due largely to improper diet, who upon being told that the adoption of and rigid adherence to a sensible diet of fruits and vegetables would enable them to regain a fair degree of health, comfort and usefulness and materially prolong their lives, reply "with solemn, yet almost ludicrous gravity," as Trall put it, that they "had rather live a little better and not quite so long"--as though healthful living is necessarily not so good.

Obviously no man who is in possession of "definite and correct ideas of the relations of food to health, could ever talk in this nonsensical manner." These expressions not only mislead those who hear them, but they indicate an evident lack of clearness and precision in the minds of those who use them.

"Eat what agrees with you" is the usual advice of the physician to those who seek information about their diet. What agrees with us? This advice, like the advice to eat what appetite calls for, usually amounts merely to the advice to eat according to long established habits. In popular estimation as well as in the view of the physician, the absence of distress in the abdomen immediately following the ingestion of food is evidence that it is causing no harm.

There can be no greater fallacy than this advice and this view. The very worst foods that can be eaten, those that are least valuable or most harmful, seldom produce any abdominal distress. Not only is the digestive system capable of withstanding a great deal of abuse, but the true test of food value is: does the food nourish the tissues?

It does not matter how perfectly the digestive organs may function, nor how easy and comfortable one may be after his meals, the body cannot obtain from food, elements that are not there. If the diet is lacking in some of the essential elements of nutrition, the tissues must suffer because of this lack. And this is the reply to those Chiropractors who assert that "if the Chiropractor restores the digestive organs to normal, the patient may eat what he likes." The body cannot take from its food, elements that are not there any more than a plant can extract elements from the soil if these are lacking.

Finally, imperfect digestion may result in fermentation and putrefaction and the consequent poisoning, with no immediate discomfort after meals. Perhaps a little gas a few hours after eating will be the only abdominal discomfort the individual will experience.

A lack of certain food elements, or an excess of others, or the presence in the food of deleterious elements are all that can cause trouble. We must feed the body, not the organ or the "disease."'

My friend of happy memory, Dr. Wm. H. Havard, suggested the following practical classification of diets, according to the prime purposes they are intended to serve:

1. The Building Diet, or the diet of physical growth, rich in proteins, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins, for the growing child, the pregnant mother, the convalescent patient and the person who has had a long fast.

2. The Mature Diet, or the Diet of Maintenance, rich in minerals, vitamins and carbohydrates, but poor in proteins, for the healthy adult individual.

3. The Curative Diet, or Diet of Elimination, rich in minerals and vitamins and practically protein-starch-sugar-fat free, for the chronic sufferer. The eliminating diet is fully discussed in the preceding chapter.

A chasm too great to be bridged with any possible compromise exists between a feeding system that feeds according to digestive and assimilative capacity and all other systems that endeavor to force-feed in keeping with apparent or theoretical systemic needs without regard for or consideration of the patient's ability to digest and assimilate. Hygienists take into consideration, not alone digestive capacity, but also assimilating capacity. We realize that nothing is to be gained from merely passing food that is not used, through the patient.

"'Nourishment' is the prevailing cry of 'those that would cure us,'" says Adolph Just in his Return to Nature; "'You need more nourishment!' But how can a body be nourished when it is incapable of absorbing, and especially incapable of expelling, that which has been already stuffed into it? The fact is that in nearly every instance the sufferer to whom more nourishment is recommended is one who is already brought low by excessive nourishment--he is actually pining through overplus!"

These patients are not only incapable of absorbing but, also, of digesting food. How foolish to give more food when it cannot be digested, absorbed and assimilated! Not more food, but more ability to assimilate and excrete, is needed and must be first provided through rest, fasting and hygiene before food is to be thought of. Nothing is of more advantage in most cases of "disease" than a fast, often a long one. A reduction of surfeit is essential to the most vigorous manifestations of vitality and to the restoration of vigor.

Many doctors of all schools will disagree with this. Since, however, almost none of them have ever undertaken a protracted fast, nor have they ever supervised a representative number of protracted fasts for the benefit of others, and since few of them have ever really studied fasting, they have no right to put forth considered views upon a procedure of which they know little or nothing from the practical viewpoint. There is really no problem of feeding in acute "disease," for no food should be given in acute states.