The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1894-09-13
A FACTOR IN DIET.
An Exposition of the New Dietetic
Faith.
NATURAL FOOD SOCIETY'S AIM.
Food Which Gives the Heathiest Nourish.
ment With the Least Strain to the
Digestive System.

l0ere is ENTHUSIASTICALLY PTOWluP
disposition among civilized people to
constitute fruit and fruit products a
larger factor in diet than heretofore.
There is, in fact, an association OF fru-
givors undertaking a propaganda i'll
promotion of an approximately straight
fruit diet. How far this extreme tenet
will command adherence cannot be fore
told, but unquestionably the movement
in its behalf is calculated to accomplish
good both for those who eat more large
ly of fruit as the result of its agitation
and obviously for those who are i'll the
fruit producing industry. For both
these reasons we are pleased to lay be-
fore our readers an exposition of the
new dietetic faith as held by Mr.. w. S.
Manning, an educated Englishman,
who is now in California in the interest
of this reform. At a meeting of the
State Horticultural Society, Mr.. Man
ming read pointed essay i'll explana-
ton of his theory and practice, which
we present as follows:
Those who produce the food supplies
of mankind from the soil cannot afford
to neglect to study occasionally the
signs of the times as to the trend of the
teachings of science, as well as of the
popular taste in regard to any impend-
ing and possibly radical change in our
diet We are living in transitional
times, and in these days when proven
tive hygiene is in all quarters searching
out the sources and origin of mans
many physical ills, there will be an in
creasing tendency to go for that form
of food which gives the healthiest nour-
ishment with the least strain to the di
gestive system, especially if available
without sacrifice of the reasonable en-
joyment Of the pleasures of the table,
and the more attractive it is so much
the quicker will the rate of progress be.
Health is recognized to be very large
ly a question of the conservation of
energy, especially in the process of assim-
Hating our food, and, of course, in the
avoidance of those other habits that are
contrary to natural laws. Disease is
looked upon as merely an avoidable
penalty for some wrong done to our
bodies by transgression of law, and it
becomes of infinite Importance to learn
wherein we are most liable to trans
gress. The thorough comprehension of
law is therefore the supreme human at
tainment - especially in chemistry,
physiology and anatomy-if we wish
for accurate knowledge as to our right
! food.
Science, since the days of Cuvier and
Lime, declared unquestionably that
man is of the frugivorous order as an
animal, and they use neither grain nor
meat naturally, that starch foods, like
bread, only become blood by being first
transformed into glucose Cor fruit
sugar., such as the fully ripe fruit sup
plies ready made in the purest form and
without strain ON the system. 1t holds
that the lower bowel of our intestinal
canal is the chief digestive apparatus of
starches, and this entails constant and
needless drain and drag on the SYSTEM
that blood once formed gives the same
force as muscular power, whether it be
blood derived from meat or fruit or
bread, but that with grain or bread we
also get an excess of lime and salt that
set up often very serious diseased con-
ditions, like rheumatism and premature
death.
The milk cure, the grape cure, and
the lean meat and hot water diet of DIR.
Salisbury, have been each famous and
effective in restoring health to tens of
thousands-and they all agree in being
non starch systems of diet.
At the San Bernardino Insane Asy-
lum the medical superintendent claims
that diet of milk and prunes is the
best for his patients, as it gives the
best results, Other noted physicians
in that city have confessed to me that a
non-starch diet is always their prescrip-
ton in disease From Pomona, River
side, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and
Stockton the same testimony from prom
inent physicians has been volunteered
to me-that they warn their patients
uniformly against starch foods.
If it be bad in disease, can starch be
good in health? As we allow the straw
and the smoke to show us the way of
the wind, should not the frail and deli
cate be the best guides to the healthiest
foods for the sound and strong?
The world is governed and guided
gradually by facts and science as well
as by mere sentiment, but the food re-
former has hitherto been guided by SEN
timent or intuition alone. His intui-
tons have led him to abandon, as a
rule, all fish, flesh and fowl, and he has
been satisfied with the arguments, hui
name and aesthetic, that if we abstain
from food that once had life we are on
the straight road for our ideal or perfect
diet. Food is, however, severely sci
entific question and no permanent solu-
ton of it will be arrived at without the
guidance of the opponents of those nat
ural laws that relate to our physical
welfare. If we are living in a progress
sive world, therefore, in regard to diet,
we can only make Roadway by the guild
ance of the scientists, and by practical
experience, and by carefully watching
the experiments of others.
The experiments of natural food
friends (some 1000 or 5000 in Europe,
and probably fully as many in America)
in dietary that excludes bread and
other starch foods, as suggested by DR..
Densmore, all prove that we can much
benefit our constitutions and conserve
our nerve energy by the mere substitu-
ton of fully ripe fruits for cereal and
other seed or starch foods, even if we
continue that other unnatural habit of
flesh eating, which is recommended for
time
Mr.. Gladstone, addressing his neigh