The Jasper news. [volume] (Jasper, Missouri) 1898-1924, 1908-02-11

distinct from subjective or natural)-
the scientific choice of food is artifi-
cial, but these artificial means are
natural-they are the same means In
concentrated form that nature uses.
Therefore, we may say that the artif1-
cial is natural.
1t is urged by the advocates Of the
omnivorous diet that the human sys-
tenn has acquired a wonderful power
Of adaptation, that 1t has become
adapted to the diet we now follow, and
that, therefore, return to the simple
diet would be injurious; that the sys-
tenn is adapted to cooked food and
that, therefore, uncooked food would
be harmful.
1t is true that we are temporarily
adapted to an irregular diet, not per-
manently. Experiments made under
my direction and by myself show that
the system quickly re-adjusts itself
to monodiet, and that improved
health and working capacity result in
every case. The same has Invariably
been the result of living on uncooked
food, except cereals or spoiled fruit
or meat. OF course sudden changes
may work temporary injury and an In
complete ration can never be salts
factory.
The fact that uncooked cereals are
indigestible agrees with the theory
that nuts are the natural staple diet,
for nuts contain little or no starch, but
much fat as milk does. Wheat is a
substitute for nuts; its starch needs
cooking and it lacks fat.
The essential element of food, of all
animals, is albumen. Flesh is chiefly
albumen. The food of the amoeba,
the one-celled animal. which is typical
of all animal life, is albumen. AL
bumen is the warp of the blood from
which all tissues are built. The
amoeba absorbs its food from the wa
ter in which it lives, and that al
humen must be in its natural state;
If furnished only cooked a1bumen, II
will die. Now, the blood cells are es.
sentially amoeba, and their natural
food is natural albumen.
Albumen coagulates at a tempera-
ture of 100 degrees, becoming, to use
a popular term, leathery and insult
| able for cell food. 1t is for this rea.
son partly, that a large percentage OF
albumen is found in the excreta from
whole wheat bread, as stated in pre-
ceding article 1t is for this reason
partly, that while a raw egg digests
in one hour hard-boiled egg re-
quires three.
Natural albumen is quickly con
verted in the stomach by the action oi
pepsin and hydrochloric acid into
soluble. This peptone cannot be
coagulated by heat, and easily
passes through animal membranes;
that Is, 1t is easily absorbed in the
intestinal canal. But when 1t is al
ready coagulated by heat before it is
conveyed to the stomach, 1t cannot be
converted into non-coagulable, sol
uble peptone; 1t cannot become as
similable cell food. OF course the co
agulation by heat Is rarely complete
/ even in roasted foods, but any tenn
perature above 100 is injurious. Fol
instance, child cannot be prop
erly nourished on boiled milk
The heat that kills the bacteria also
kills the nutritive value of the albu
men. No one experienced in infant
feeding advises boiled milk some OBJ
ject even to pasteurizing. This. how
ever requires much lower tempera
ture
Heat. is the most destructive of al
agents. 1t is the means most com
monty used in the laboratory to sepa
rate the elements of a chemical com
pound, to decompose or destroy mat
ter. Digestion is process of chem
ical change, but when chemica
changes are effected in advance by
heat, the conditions are changed, ant
digestive results cannot be the same
as if the food were unfired.
Cereals contain an engine which di
gests the starch for the young plant
heat destroys this. While the starct
cells of cereals are being broken NJ
by cooking, so as to open them to the
action of the digestive fluids, the al
bumen is being coagulated and the di
gestive principle in the engine de
stToyed.
| have already indicated in the