Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-07-13

The practical value which is placed by
those who have investigated the subject OF
the new methods of eating as advanced by
Horace Fletcher, DR.. Van Someren and
others and supported by the experiments OF
Prof. Chittenden, is strikingly illustrated by
the interest and approval manifested In
these new methods by army and navy au-
thorities of the United States.
The old-time reliance placed on 'strong
mans food" has received staggering blows
in literary circles. This was the diet that is
summed up Ia the popular phrase, three
square meals a day" 1t Is fully In accord
ance with the ideas almost universally held
by scientists prior to the time when Sir
Michael Foster, Prof. Folin, Prof Pawlow,
Prof. Chittenden and other Psychologists
by scientific experiments based on the ideas
advanced by Fletcher upset the old values
placed on abundant meats and other hearty
foods in the diet; the ideas that strength
and endurance were based on eating things
that in themselves had possessed strength
and endurance, viz, the flesh of animals.
In ancient times and at even a late date
among South Sea Island cannibals, warriors
ate the hearts of their slain enemies in Or
der to absorb into their own persons the
valor they had overcome and the strength
they had laid low. Crude was their reas-
oning. of course, and as fortnight as the
blows of their battle-axes or some hatchets,
yet it was in tune with views held by sci
entists later on that from meat came
strength. OF course, this is SOTO "a certain
extent. 1t is this certain extent that is one
of the chief points of the problem. Those
Wllo hold by the old ideas say eat of meat
much as you can, eat heartily Those
who hold by the new ideas say eat of meat
all that you can thoroughly masticate-for
If you thoroughly masticate 1t, granting
that II is demanded by your appetite and
not eaten merely through habit, why you
will naturally and almost without con-
seriousness of the fact reduce the amount
consumed to very large degree.
Abstention From Meat.
In common practice, no class of men holds
more strongly to the idea that meat is the
most valuable food for the building up of
muscle and the increasing of physical en-
durance than athletes, and especially the
professional trainers of athletes. Dr. Will
liam G. Anderson of Yale, himself fam
Gus athlete and Instructor of athletes, is
the authority for this statement Not that
he holds to that idea but 1t Is one of the
chief points of the opposition he encounters
in attempting to bring the athletes at Yale
around to his view of the matter.
81 feel positive that if the Yale athletes
should adopt Fletcherism it would only be
a question of time before Yale would be su-
preme in athletics. and would distance all
her rivals, Is the statement DR.. Anderson
makes. THE mistake must not be made
that 1 advocate abstention from meat. as
has been assumed in many quarters. Moth
ing is further from the truth. l know of
too many great athletes who are great meat
eaters to hold any such view. The English
college students, for example, tremen-
dous meat eaters, and the Englishmen are
the best athletes. The Americans are the
! best medal winners, but in point Of general