From a theoretical standpoint it is easy to reason to the conclusion that a raw diet - grains, vegetables, fruits and nuts - should be the natural food of man. One can easily imagine how the first man to discover fire found comfort in basking in its warmth, and how natural it would be under these circumstances for him to also first warm any food that he might wish to eat.

Thus it is not at all difficult to find the origin of cooking, for, from warming to cooking a food is but a step. Although from a theoretical standpoint raw food seems to have been intended by nature as the best for all animal kind, human and otherwise, the fact that we have for many generations subsisted almost entirely on cooked food must be considered. Although many experiments are recorded where a raw-food diet has been followed with advantage, there is not a large amount of satisfactory information to be obtained on the subject. It appears that those who have adopted a diet of this character were usually in bad health, and naturally not a great amount of confidence is created unless one can point to a vigorous example of the results of following a particular diet. Recently, however, there has been more interest in the subject, and I am personally carrying on some experiments that will no doubt enable me to say something of value along this line in the next edition of this book. This much has been conclusively proven, namely that diseased conditions of all kinds will disappear more rapdly under the influence of a properly arranged raw diet than with a cooked diet.

A raw diet contains of course, all the waste that is so advantageous in keeping the bowels regular, while most cooked foods are sadly lacking in this regard. One enthusiast on a raw diet, who claims to have cured himself of serious physical weakness by adopting this diet, states that cooking destroys the life germs of all grains, and that in eating such food we lose just that much. In other words he maintains that if the food is eaten raw one will absorb this life germ, that it will add just that much to life, and strength, and the theory undoubtedly sounds quite plausible. I have done some experimenting with a raw diet and the results have been of a character to encourage me to desire to do more. But enthusiastic readers are warned to use great care in any experiments they may attempt. Do not go to extremes. In any radical change that you may contemplate making in your diet you should feel your way step by step. All the raw-food enthusiasts claim that there is not the slightest danger of overeating when following this natural diet, that it does away entirely with the desire for a stimulant of any kind.

There is, however, much to be learned along this line and it would be well for those inclined to be reckless to await the results of the experiments of those who have given the subject careful study before seriously considering the advisability of giving such a diet a trial. An experiment made by the U. S. Agricultural Department has clearly shown that cooking tends to decrease the digestibility of foods in the case of animals. Though it will naturally be argued that this proves little or nothing as to the value of cooking foods intended for the human stomach, because of our having been accustomed to cooked food for generations; still, it shows quite clearly that there is reason to believe that prolonged experimenting with raw-food diet for human beings may reveal some valuable information.

I quote the following from the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Bulletin No. 22: -

"Ladd, while connected with the New York State Station, reported analyses of cooked and uncooked clover hay and corn-meal and determination of digestibility of the same. These showed that the percentage of albuminoids and fat and the relative digestibility of the-albuminoids were more or less diminished by cooking. The experiments made by our experiment stations in preparing food have been mostly with pigs. At least thirteen separate series of experiments in different parts of this country have been reported on the value of cooking or steaming food for pigs. In these cooked or steamed barley, meal,corn-meal and shorts; whole corn; potatoes, and a mixture of peas, barley, and rye have been compared with the same food uncooked (usually dry). In ten of these trials there has not only been no gain from cooking, but there has been a positive loss, i. e., the amount of food required to produce a pound of gain was larger when the food was cooked than when it was fed raw, and in some cases the difference has been considerable."

Prof. Byron Tyler has some interesting theories about raw food which I quote herewith: -

"All disease is the result of disobedience of Nature's laws. It is a crime againt Nature to eat the food she provides in any other condition than that in which she provides them. Nature doer not err.

"No one can improve upon Nature, yet that's what man attempts to do when he subjects his food to the heat of fire, destroying its vitality and changing its chemical constituents. The product of mother earth, given us for sustenance, are uncooked save by the heat of the sun - the source of all energy.

"The sun is productive of life. Fire is destructive of life.

"Cooking destroys the life cells in food - the cells which make and sustain life in man. Cook a seed thoroughly and see whether it will sprout when planted. Or graft a dead cutting to a live limb and see whether it will grow or whether it will help the growth of the live branch. All live vegetation is capable of either reproducing its own kind or of furnishing life or vitality to other organized living things; take away its life and it can do neither. Life cannot come from death.

"The man who eats cooked food subsists upon the few cells which escape destruction by fire. He is obliged, therefore, to take large quantities of food to secure the required amount of nourishment. He is surfeited with material which his system cannot appropriate - dead matter which must be gotten rid of. The system cannot expel this waste material fast enough, and much of it ferments or decays in the stomach or intestines, furnishing food for the germs and bacilli which daily enter the system.

"The raw-food diet prolongs life. Uric acid is now recognized as one of the chief causes of old age. This poison is present to a greater or less extent in all persons who eat devitalized food, and the accumulation increases with the age of such persons. Another cause of sensibility is the presence of an oversupply of earthy salts or mineral matter in the blood and bones, this is also being produced by the eating of emasculated or lifeless food. These foreign substances ossify the bones and obstruct the blood-vessels, interfering with the exercise of vital functions and diminishing the vitality more and more.

"By natural dieting these calcareous deposits, uric acid and other poisons, are absorbed or dissolved and eliminated, and their further accumulation prevented. Thus juvenility is retained and 'old age' warded off."