Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1897-06-14
LESS FOOD, MORE LIFE.
FROM THE NO-BREAKFAsT PLAN TO
y MEAL A DAY.
Why Two Meals May BE better Than
Three and One Meal Better Than
Either-SIeep That Comes
TO an Empty Stomach.
From the New York Sun.

what tney think are normal lives and get
the most out OF existence.
When about fifteen years ago the citizens
OF Meadville, Pa. learned that DR.. Ed
lished physicians, was advising some OF his
patents 10 fast until the midday meal,
opinion became very emphatic. but some
what divided. About half of the people.
except his own patrons. affirmed that the
idea was founded on idiocy. He became
lginatOr and promoter of a heresy be-
lieved to be absolutely dangerous to life.
1t was said even that his patients who
died went down to death with the pangs
of burger added to the pangs OF disease.
For many years his was a ministry of self
sacrifice. Not only was he held up as the
crank-in-chief of the entire city, but he
was made to feel professional ridicule and
breakfast plan has spread and taken such
hold on many persons that they have also
given up their luncheons or their dinners.
Some go so far as to live on one meal a
day.
John Hamlin Dewey. NJ. D.. who conducts
the School of Higher Life in this city. and
is the author Of many books, has an orig
inal idea about food. He thinks il is n mis-
taken idea that people derive their strength
from what they eat. His family adopted
the no breakfast plan over two years ago,
and have made many converts, who are
now nov enthusiasts ISto Is o., t Mhen n asked ir = mere GdS
and abstaining at another, he said:
Yes, decidedly there is. II a person in
tends to give up one meal, 1t is far more
beneficial to health to give up the early
morning meal than any other. Why?
Sleep is not a hunger producing process.
Should 1 ask you what is the best prepara-
ton for a day Of hard mental or physical
toll, your answer would be, "A long night
of perfect sleep which means perfect rest.
At the end of such a night one gets up
in a perfectly rested condition. and is there
fore ready to begin the days work. HAY
hours of the night, can you be naturally
hungry on arising? No. Morning hunger,
so-called. is morning want.
9TH old notion that one should go to bed
on an empty stomach is a good one. If
one goes to bed on a full stomach the
stomach does not get sufficient rest, and is
left in an irritated condition. which creates
a false appetite In the morning. One can
go to bed hungry and get up not hungry.
Everybody has had that experience. l re-
peat morning hunger is not real hunger.
How do 1 know this2 Because sleep never
makes one hungry and because the thou
sands who have given up the bad habit of
eating breakfast find that all want Of 1t
totally disappears. Nature would not let
US of so easily II we actually needed this
early meal. 1t IS not time to eat until ma
ture rings the bell, as DR.. Dewey, the
founder of this plan, who, by the way, is
no relative of mine, puts 1t.
81 believe that 1t is a mistaken Idea that
food gives strength. 1 regard 1t as pure
our food. Food is used in building and re-
pairing the body, just as the carpenter
uses material in building and repairing a
house. There is no more reason to sup
pose that the force which builds the body
Is derived from the food which it uses
for material than that the skill and the
force used by the builder Is derived from
the materials used in building a house. BY
way of Illustration. take the first food of
an infant-the mothers milk. If there was
no original force resident in the vital or
gans Of the infant there could be no diges-
ton and appropriation of the milk. If IL
isn't required for the first meal. why
should that meal furnish force for the di-
| gestiOn of the next, and so on to the end?
Ordinary waste and repair is going on all
the time. Injury calls for another prin-
The life is more than meat and the
body than raiment.' ] use this quotation
in confederation Of my theory. Whence
comes this force that uses the material in
repairing and building the body? We say
that the life Of the child Is derived from
the mother and that the building up Of
the child's organism is under the brooding
life of the mother, but now the child is
separated from the mother by birth into
an independent existence. The force resi-
dent in the cbild's organism was not de-
rived from any previously digested food
In the child's own nutritive system, yet 1t
was sufficient to digest the first meal. Now
comes the point Of the introduction of the
active, independent force of the child. The
first manifestation or expression of the
child's independent life was a cry. The
cry was produced by the sudden expulsion
from the lungs of the air taken in imme-
diately at birth. There is no conscious
ness in the brain until the lungs breathe
the air. Independent life began with
breathing. The brain responds to the ac- |
ton of the lungs. Consciousness begins
and ends with breathing. We breathe |
deeply and fully, or partially and shortly, |
tAA AhE ~ vi INV VI dAAA tNdtlAl COT |
responds. Those people who take short |
steps and walk all day in a half busheI. |
as the saving goes, accomplish but little.
Watch. them and you will find that their
breathing corresponds with their stems |
and their thought and mental action with |
their breathing. They never finish a sem |
tence, and their thought is chopped nm
Deep. full breathing means deep, fun life,
rs there any, proof that sleep more ben
than In the daytime? Yes. for II has been |
proved that normal provisions OF nature |
conditions so often adopted by man. The
activity of the world is awakened by the
rising Of the sun. Then the birds begin to
sing. the chickens to crow. and all animal
life springs into activity with the dawn OF
the day as II sinks to rest with the decline
of the sun. If a person attempt to sIeep |
when all animate creation is awake and acp1
tive il Is like a persons attempting TO seek |
repose in the midst Of a battle. The very
stiffness of nature at night is conducive to |
Sleep, and whatever is normal is more
health-giving. If a person IS forced to turn
noise, the atmosphere that he breathes
Is surcharged with activity. and so perfect
rs It not true that some people can
school themselves to five hours of sleep a
day and get along as well as II they slept
elghtF' asked the reporter.
That is a matter CT temperament" an
sWered DR.. Dewey. Il knew one man who
actually could not sleep over two hours
without injury. If he made himself sleep
three or four hours he had to work him
self back to his normal condition. l think
tnS OAMS . CoHulHS Wnen men VIII live so Il
that they will require very little sleep.
The waste of the nervous system must be
repaired by sleep. Muscular fatigue or
waste can be repaired by repose. but the
brain, the voluntary life, must be repaired 4
by sleep. The heart and lungs and other
organs DO not sleep, but a nervous system
requires II, and is more thoroughly re-
paired when nature provides quiet for this
purpose"
Mr.. Abel Easton, proprietor Of some up
Town baths, IL convinced that he owes his
lie TO giving up the early breakfast habit.
He agreed that II going without breakfast
nid done him so much good, giving up his
dinner also would make him even better,
and so for a year he has been living on one
meal a day. He Is not alone In this prac-
tice. for 1t is not an thing for
those who adopt the no-breakfast plan to
get into the habit Of doing without either
the midday or evening meal |
IF man wouldn't make his stomach an
obstruction. he would never be sick" said
Mr.. EastOn when questioned about his
mode of living. For years I was in
vertigo. I consulted many prominent ply
sicians. and while none Of them seemed 10
be able to tell what allied me, they all rec
commended changes Of climate. While these
changes did much toward building up my
general health. 1 couldn't get rid of the YER
tigo. I had heard of DIR. Dewey's plan
through friends. and read his book. THE
New Gospel of Health. or the True Science
of Living but ! was so miserable I didn't
think much about II. A little over a year
ago I was in San Diego, and the crisis
seemed to come in my case. My physician
not possibly live through the night, and
asked him what he should do with my
body. l got wind of II somehow, and the
next morning / fired all of the doctors out