Cycles may be virtuous or beneficent, just as surely as they are vicious or maleficent.

Filling the body with positive elements as these occur in the base-forming foods of the earth tends continually to positive or alkalin states of the body. This reacts on the mind, just as do all bodily states, and the mind freed from the acid effects of a toxic body tends continually to the positive and constructive in everything, while if we reverse this process we have the vicious cycle represented by the body suffering from acidosis and tending to make the pessimistic and degenerate mind that reacts on the body to depress still further all function, and perhaps, in the end, the criminal is evolved.

Fill the mind with constructive and positive thoughts, and the body with positive and constructive foods and all this tendency to wrong thinking and wrong body conditions will vanish overnight.

Never forget that disease of all kinds grows only on a toxic soil, therefore an acid soil--the toxins all being acid, destructive in character--and then it becomes easier to see why we should emphasize the positive in selecting our foods, for the positive are the alkalies, the negative the acids.

The writer has seen whole families of children raised on the negative plan, . . . "do not do this, you mustn't do that" . . . and in all these children he has never seen one positive individual develop.

These children were also fed largely on negative foods, so full of negative, destructive desires, and when freed from restraint their actions showed their natural tendencies, for all their thoughts were centered on destruction.

These were all potential criminals, but all could be so easily changed that it is a pity that parents do not know the a, b, c's of diet.

In breaking the fast without the use of milk it is well to begin with increasing amounts of the fresh fruit juices, and if the alkalin vegetable juices are also increased this tends still further to supplement the body alkalies which are most necessary in the work of reconstruction of the depleted stores of body fuels.

After the juices are raised to the complete satisfaction of desires, then use the fruits in their original skins, these taken just when desire dictates, and as freely as wished, though it is wise to omit the banana, which represents as much carbohydrate food as does the potato, and also to omit the plums and prunes, as these contain hippuric acid in sufficient amount to tie up much alkali. Hippuric acid does not oxidise and disappear from the body quickly as do the other fresh fruit acids, the citric, malic or tartaric acids, all of which are broken up and thrown out of the circulation within about an hour after their ingestion.

Leaving out, then, only bananas and plums, all the rest of the entire line of fresh fruits may be used freely as desired, if wholly unsweetened and if eaten with the skins, except the citrus group, the oranges, lemons and grape-fruit, whose yellow outer skin should be removed, and the white part eaten if it does not cause distress.

After a day or two on the fresh fruits one is then ready for the raw vegetable salads instead of the expressed juices of these vegetables only, as obtained during the fast or the earliest days of its termination.

Salad vegetables of the lighter sort should be used first, as tomato, cucumber, tender lettuce, tender shoots of all kinds, either wholly undressed or with nothing more than the simple lemon juice and olive oil, or plain sour cream.

Seasoning should either be left out wholly or limited to light seasoning with paprika and celery salt, never vinegar or white or black pepper, as these are very irritating and will tend to set up again an abnormal state of the taste buds and the lining mucous membrane of the mouth and digestive tract.

The unadulterated and simple taste of the plain undressed vegetable salads will be a revelation to anyone who has never tried salads in this way.

We habitually season things so highly with such irritating condiments, we sweeten so much of our food, we fry meats, we try all the time to make big tastes, that the sense of taste becomes vitiated and benumbed, and the delectable little tastes are considered flat and uninteresting, while after a fast, or following a long period on regenerative diet, there is again a recrudescence of this taste sense that is wonderful, as it so greatly heightens flavors that every little distinctive flavor of each component of a combination salad undressed is thoroughly appreciated and highly enjoyed. After all, Epicurus was right.

Now if we have hurdled the difficulties in the way of digesting the fresh fruits and fresh salad vegetables comfortably so far, we are in position to take on a certain amount of nuts, these to be used in very small amount at first, thoroughly chewed to a veritable liquid before swallowing, and increased as we take care of these comfortably, but never beyond two ounces a day, as this amount supplies us with all the protein required for any one day's repair; and do not forget that this is all that protein is for.

We are now on Nature's full diet just as God gave it to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden eons ago, and just as complete and satisfying today as it was to those simple children of Nature at that time, and just as capable of keeping us in good health and perfect repair as in that long-gone time.

When we speak of ideal diet this is it; but few wish to live so long or enjoy such health as this sort of living would favor--or guarantee if persisted in as a life habit--so it is not to be expected that many will come to such a standard, even after a fast.

For those who wish to return to a full modern standard of diet there can still be safety from the usual diseases if in rebuilding these two things are kept constantly in mind:

The first is that we do need much vital base-forming food every day, and for this reason we should let salads and fruits occupy first place in our daily dietary. The second safeguard of nutrition is to keep in mind always the compatibilities and incompatibilities of foods, as these will not do us nearly so much harm if combined in such a way as to prevent the usual fermentations to which the average man or woman is subject every living day from these avoidable errors in combination.

For those who wish to retain the cooked food habit, as interfering less with conventional living, the next stage is the soup or cooked leafy greens.

Soups to be harmless must contain neither thickening nor yet meat stocks, as the thickening places the soup in the class with the starchy foods, and the meat stock places it in the protein class. Even if these two dissimilar classes were not incompatible in the digestive tract, yet the introduction of either thickening or stock makes of soup something to be digested, which it should not be.

To make a good soup that tastes like soup, cook the selected vegetables together till the water is reduced low and the vegetables very tender. Select celery tops, spinach, carrot tops, turnip tops, chiefly the top part of the vegetables carrying worlds of chlorophyl and salts and vitamines that the bulbous root does not to the same extent, and stew these together till tender. If a thin soup is desired add only butter to this, while if a more substantial soup is desired puree the tender vegetables through a strainer and add only butter for seasoning, perhaps a little celery salt if this seems necessary for normal taste, but always remember that the less salt used the easier it is to keep well.

Either of these vegetable soups makes a tasty addition to the meal, and supplies that lack of something that the user of cooked food misses so much in the raw meal.

Later the whole cooked roots and greens may be eaten freely, as they do no harm except as they might take the place of the more vital raw foods.

After a week on salads, fresh fruits and vegetable soups, with cooked roots and greens, the more substantial foods may be used; if the starchy foods, then baked potatoes rather than the whole grain breads, as these contain but one-third as much starch as do the breads or other cereal preparations.

But when meats are used no starchy food of any kind is to be combined with them, as you will remember from the directions in the chapter on compatible and incompatible foods.

If the baked potato or the bread is used, then no acid fruits or acid dressings on salads or greens, and no meats, eggs, fish or cheese, because these dissimilar foods do not digest together in the same stomach at the same time.

It is very desirable to cultivate early the habit of eating but two meals a day instead of the conventional three, for many reasons, chief of which is that we never need more than one meal a day, and this after all activities are over for the twenty-four hours. All over this is built up habit; and also, if we are going to make mistakes, to overeat or to combine our food wrong, it is better and safer to offer ourselves but two opportunities daily to commit these mistakes, rather than three.

If milk is to continue to form a part of the diet, it is necessary to omit this from any meal at which starches, sugars or the concentrated proteins are to be used, as milk does not digest well with any other classes of foods aside from the non-starchy, or low-starchy, vegetables and the fruits.

If the restored faster does not fall into the very same dietary mistakes that were habitually made before the fast was undertaken, he will be permanently benefited by his experience; but if he does, he may be surprised to find that the system, temporarily freed from these mistakes, refuses to go back to them in future, and he may experience much digestive discomfort from attempting to force it to do so.

It is these difficulties in the way of a return to wrong habit that make so many feel that the fast has done them harm, for they cannot now do easily the gastronomic stunts that before were easy for them, and they feel that they have been grievously wronged in being restrained from doing themselves harm enjoyably.