This section is from the book "The Relation Of Food To Health And Premature Death", by Geo. H. Townsend, Felix J. Levy, Geo. Clinton Crandall. Also available from Amazon: Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source with More Than 200 Recipes for a Healthy and Sustainable You.
"Celery contains some 90 to 93 per cent water, about
1 I - 4 per cent of cellulose, I per cent of mineral matter, about I to 2 per cent of vegetable albumen and 4 per cent sugar and starch."
"Not more so than any other stringy food. It is simply a question of making it fine enough."
"Yes, but it contains less fiber and also less mineral matter, though it has a great deal of both."
"Well, it is a pity to shatter their faith but there is no real foundation for the belief, except the bare possibility, that the mineral matter might be of benefit to those who are in the habit of living on food that contains but little of the mineral salts."
"Not in the sense in which it is used. If they did brains would be brain food and we would all be wise. Food simply furnishes heat and material to replace the waste tissue according to the needs of the body, let that be wherever it may."
"Its flavor. It is an excellent thing to flavor other kinds of foods less palatable. The seed as well as the stems, are also used for this purpose."
"Certainly, only those who are in the least subject to ailments of digestion should take particular care to not swallow it with its strings. On the whole, celery is one of the most pleasant and appetizing of all garden vegetable, and as a relish deserves to stand ahead of any others, because it is free from acrid and irritating oil found in radishes, onions, peppers and other vegetables."
 
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