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SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION 
 SIMPLIFIED 
 
SCIENTIFIC 
 NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 A CONDENSED STATEMENT AND EXPLANATION FOR 
 
 EVERYBODY OF THE DISCOVERIES OF 
 
 CHITTENDEN, FLETCHER, 
 
 AND OTHERS 
 
 BY 
 
 GOODWIN BROWN, A.M. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 

 Copyright, 1908, 
 By FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 April, 1908 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 rpHE object of this book is to present in 
 A concise form and in language free 
 from technicalities a popular summary of 
 the information necessary for the practical 
 application of the new principles of nutri- 
 tion advanced by Mr. Horace Fletcher, 
 Prof. Russell H. Chittenden, Prof. Irving 
 Fisher and other investigators. 
 
 Although the subject has been most ably 
 presented from the point of view of its fore- 
 most layman, from the point of view of one 
 of the highest scientific authorities in Amer- 
 ica, and from the point of view of a famous 
 political economist, it has not yet been 
 treated by a private person who has tested 
 the merits of the system in his own life and 
 found it good. 
 
 It is this task that has been attempted 
 here. In his fifty-fourth year, the origina- 
 tor of this book felt that he was ageing rap- 
 
 iii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 idly, going painfully down the wrong side 
 of the hill of life and giving up one by one 
 all the pleasures that had made living at- 
 tractive to him. He had lost his power to 
 work, his enjoyment of social pleasures and 
 all his interest in intellectual pursuits. He 
 suffered from intense pain which he took to 
 be muscular rheumatism, and, at times, from 
 a mild form of aphasia. His one object 
 was to get done with his necessary work as 
 rapidly as possible and go to bed. Some- 
 times he was so overcome with weakness, 
 dizziness and fatigue in the middle of the 
 day that he was forced to go to his club and 
 lie down for an hour or so before he could 
 go on with his work. 
 
 To-day he is in better health than he has 
 enjoyed since he was a boy and feels that — 
 barring accidents — he should live to be a 
 hundred. For this he has to thank the new 
 system of diet described in the following 
 pages. 
 
 The best part of the new plan is that it 
 costs nothing to adopt it. It requires no 
 expensive apparatus, no consultation of spe- 
 
 iv 
 
PREFACE 
 
 cialists, no change of climate, no release 
 from daily work ; it is a mere matter of get- 
 ting and applying certain easily understood 
 information. 
 
 However, as a busy professional man, he 
 realizes how difficult it is for a man engaged 
 in the exacting and complicated occupations 
 of modern life to search out this informa- 
 tion through the various books in which it is 
 to be found and to devise a method for ap- 
 plying it. Therefore he has secured a digest 
 of the points which he has found most valu- 
 able in working out his own problem with 
 the idea of presenting a sort of lawyer's 
 brief of the subject. 
 
 His hope is that the work will attract the 
 attention, not only of men and women, who 
 in the prime of life are suffering — as he was 
 himself at one time — from all the symptoms 
 of old age, but of the young men and women 
 whose constitutions are subjected to the 
 strain of commercial life; of the boys and 
 girls in the schools and colleges whose bodily 
 forces are taxed to the utmost by the exac- 
 tions of modern education; and of the par- 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ents and educators who have the guidance 
 of the lives of the coming generation. It 
 is his sincere conviction that the application 
 of the principles recommended will yield an 
 immense increase of energy for daily work 
 and will add many useful years to their 
 lives. 
 
 VI 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 As the author's object has been to present not his 
 own ideas, but discoveries that bear the stamp of 
 authority, he has introduced no new theories. He lays 
 no claim to original research, but has gone direct to 
 the fountain-heads and has expounded in this book 
 doctrines expressed fully in the works that have been 
 of most help and guidance to him personally. 
 
 His thanks are especially due to Mr. Horace 
 Fletcher for the ideas and information contained in 
 " The A. B.— Z. of Our Own Nutrition " and " The 
 New Glutton or Epicure/' published by Frederick A. 
 Stokes Company, New York; and to Professor Russell 
 H. Chittenden for the use that has been made of 
 his " Physiological Economy in Nutrition " and " The 
 Nutrition of Man," issued by the same publishers. 
 Acknowledgment is also gratefully made to Professor 
 Irving Fisher, of Yale, for the use of valuable mate- 
 rial contained in his pamphlets, magazine articles and 
 lectures ; to Dr. Hubert Higgins, author of " Humani- 
 culture " ; to Dr. C. W. Saleeby, the author of 
 " Worry, The Disease of the Age," and to Professor 
 Lafayette B. Mendel, of Yale, author of " Childhood 
 and Growth." (These books are all published by 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company.) 
 
 vii 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 Those interested in pursuing further any particular 
 topic will find specific reference to the authorities 
 quoted in this book. To those who desire a more com- 
 prehensive knowledge of the subjects treated in this 
 book and a more thorough acquaintance with the new 
 conception of diet are recommended the works of 
 Professor Chittenden, Mr. Fletcher and Dr. Sager. 
 The three books that will probably be found most 
 helpful to the ordinary reader are: 
 
 The A. B. — Z. of Our Own Nutrition, by Horace 
 Fletcher. 
 
 The Nutrition of Man, by Professor Russell H. 
 Chittenden. 
 
 The Art of Living in Good Health, by Dr. D. S. 
 Sager. 
 
 As a busy professional man the author has found it 
 necessary to secure the services of an experienced 
 writer in the preparation of the manuscript. For 
 such services he acknowledges his indebtedness to 
 Frances Maule Bjorkman, whose enthusiasm for the 
 subject and ability in writing have contributed to 
 make the book what it is. G. Be 
 
 vm 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 Introductory .. 1 
 
 Chapter I 18 
 
 Topics: Mr. Fletcher's discovery and his quest for 
 scientific endorsement. The test of his claims at 
 Cambridge. Opinions of Sir Michael Foster and 
 Dr. Hubert Higgins. Observation of the system at 
 Yale. Dr. Anderson's report. Professor Chitten- 
 den's experiments on professional men, soldiers, 
 athletes and dogs. Professor Fisher's experiments 
 upon students and upon meat-eaters and vegetar- 
 ians. Summary of the evidence. 
 
 Chapter II 56 
 
 Topics: Composition of foods. Purposes served by 
 the various food elements. Digestion. Changes 
 occurring in the mouth. New discoveries in regard 
 to saliva. The effect of mastication upon the di- 
 gestive process. Taste and appetite as stimuli of 
 the digestive secretions. Other psychic influences 
 in digestion. Assimilation. Poisonous properties of 
 the body-waste. Metabolism. Quantities of food 
 necessary to the maintenance of physical efficiency. 
 The old dietary standards. The new standards. 
 
 Chapter III 94 
 
 Topics: The principles of Mr. Fletcher's theories. 
 Appetite, true and false. Taste, the guardian of 
 the digestive tract. Nature's Food Filter. The Art 
 
 ix 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 of Mastication. Inutility of Gladstone's rule. In- 
 hibitive effect of excess of attention. Influence of 
 the mental and emotional state. Objections to the 
 system considered. Results. Testimony of the 
 rejuvenated. 
 
 Chapter IV 139 
 
 Topics: True food requirements. Reduction of pro- 
 teid. The question of meat-eating. Vegetable 
 proteid. Amount of fuel-foods necessary. Speci- 
 men dietaries. Tables indicating proteid and fuel 
 value of common foods. The question of stimulants 
 and condiments. Physiological value of sugar. In- 
 utility of foods as specifics. General principles. 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Index 195 
 
 List of Authorities 199 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION 
 SIMPLIFIED 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 TITHEREVER one may look over the' 
 * * civilized world to-day, he will find in 
 progress a systematic movement for the im- 
 provement of the race. In every country 
 the greatest scientists are giving their best 
 efforts to the study of the human organism, 
 while sociologists, economists, reformers and 
 philanthropists are laboring by means of 
 popular health movements to build up a peo- 
 ple with strong and vigorous bodies. One 
 of the typical expressions of this great race 
 movement is the establishment in America of 
 the Committee of One Hundred — a body of 
 leading scientists, social workers and finan- 
 ciers appointed by the American Associa- 
 tion for the Advancement of Science, to 
 work for the creation of a national depart- 
 ment of public health. 
 
 These numerous and varied activities have 
 one point in common — a vigorous insistence 
 
 l 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 upon the importance of more intelligent 
 ways of feeding. In the face of the per- 
 haps not wholly unwarranted prejudice 
 against any attempt at a scientific regula- 
 tion of diet, laboratory investigators and 
 social workers are urging the members of 
 the human race to learn to feed themselves 
 with at least as much wisdom as they have 
 used for years in the feeding of their 
 domestic animals — the physicians and 
 physiologists declaring that practically all 
 functional disorders have their rise in faulty 
 nutrition, and the sociologists, political eco- 
 nomists and social workers asserting just as 
 emphatically that much of the poverty, vice 
 and crime of the world is directly traceable 
 to errors in diet. 
 
 " We eat or drink for health or ill health," 
 says Dr. Daniel S. Sager. " Explain it as 
 you will, this is the only way in which dis- 
 ease can occur in the human body. . . . 
 Aside from surgery and midwifery, the 
 practice of medicine for the most part re- 
 volves about the stomach. . . • While 
 
 medical science has thousands of names for 
 
 2 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 diseases, at bottom all diseases are alike. 
 Poisonous principles are thrown into the 
 blood and the result is disease. There are 
 several hundred organs and tissues in the 
 body, each one of which, when affected, 
 gives a name to a disease; but while the 
 names of diseases are different, yet the cause 
 which produces them is generally the same — 
 overeating, which produces auto-intoxica- 
 tion, self -poisoning, malassimilation, prema- 
 ture old age or disease, — call it what you 
 will. The conditions which produce Bright's 
 disease will also produce gout, rheumatism, 
 cancer, or appendicitis." 1 
 
 This is the view of the modern physician. 
 Professor Irving Fisher of Yale, speaking 
 as a political economist, says: 
 
 " Much attention is now being paid to the 
 physiological condition of the laboring 
 classes, their housing, the sanitation of fac- 
 tories, hours of labor, child labor, etc. 
 Equally important is the problem of the nu- 
 trition of these classes. Industrial inef- 
 
 iSager: "The Art of Living in Good Health," pp. 8, 
 168, 179. 
 
 $ 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 ficiency is the price of malnutrition. In- 
 creased labor power will be the practical out- 
 come of diet reform." 2 
 
 Out of this agitation there has at last 
 emerged a complete new conception of di- 
 etetics, the chief recommendation of which is 
 that it gives all the best results of a scientific- 
 ally regulated dietary in combination with 
 all the advantages of a reliance upon in- 
 stinctive promptings of taste and appetite. 
 
 The new conception has been fittingly 
 named "economic nutrition" because its 
 fundamental purpose is to save the body 
 from unnecessary labor through a reduction 
 of food to exact physiological needs. 
 
 This, the originators of the new concep- 
 tion point out, is an unqualified advantage to 
 anyone, as every ounce of food over and 
 above the amount necessary to furnish 
 building materials during growth, to repair 
 tissue that has been broken down by muscu- 
 lar exercise, and to supply fuel to keep the 
 body warm and energy to keep it running, 
 places upon every organ the thankless task 
 
 2 Irving Fisher, Ph. D.: The Independent, August, 1907, 
 
 4 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 of working over this excess of food for the 
 sole and exclusive purpose of getting it out 
 of the way. 
 
 The new theory attacks the deep-rooted 
 idea in the mind of man that everything he 
 can get down will do him good and that he 
 will surely receive a return for it, if not in 
 increased energy for work, then in a reserve 
 which he can call upon some day when he 
 needs it. On the contrary, it declares that 
 food in excess of physiological requirements 
 does not yield increased energy for work, 
 but actually takes energy that might be 
 given to work; furthermore, that food can- 
 not be stored by the body in any considerable 
 quantity, and that the residue which is left 
 floating about in the blood is the chief source 
 of disease to the human organism. 
 
 This principle applies with particular 
 force to the class of foods which forms the 
 great staple of the diet of most of the civil- 
 ized peoples of the world: the tissue-build- 
 ing or " proteid " foods, consumed chiefly 
 in the form of meat, fish, eggs, and in a 
 lesser degree in peas, beans, lentils, nuts and 
 
 5 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 cheese. The reason for this is that these 
 foods — unlike the fuel-producing foods 
 found in grains, fruits, vegetables, butter 
 and oil — cannot be completely burned up by 
 the body, but leave behind them a solid 
 " ash," which, as Dr. Edward Curtis has ex- 
 pressed it, " must be raked down by the liver 
 and thrown out by the kidneys." 3 
 
 If you think of the body in the light of an 
 engine, the theory at once becomes clear. 
 After you have your engine built you do not 
 feed it on brass and iron and copper: you 
 feed it on coal. It is true that you have to 
 put iron and steel and copper into it now 
 and then when repairs become necessary, but 
 in nothing like the quantities of coal that 
 you have to use to keep it running. It is 
 obvious that if you dumped iron and steel 
 and copper into the furnace in amounts 
 equal to or exceeding the coal, it would soon 
 wear out or break down. 
 
 This is exactly what the originators of the 
 new theories of dietetics say happens to the 
 
 s Edward Curtis, M. D.: "Nature and Health," p. 70, 
 Henry Holt & Company, New York. 
 
 6 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 human body when it is fed upon building 
 material in excess of fuel. To the common 
 practice of eating more meat than vegeta- 
 bles they attribute most of our ills. Further- 
 more, they declare that it is our excessive 
 eating of " high-proteid " foods like meats 
 that cuts us off in our prime at seventy or 
 eighty or so, when, according to the biologi- 
 cal law that the lifetime of an animal should 
 be from five to seven times the growing 
 period, he should live to be a hundred at the 
 very least. 
 
 It must therefore be evident that the new 
 discovery is of immense importance to prac- 
 tical men and women with work to do in the 
 world. Everybody would like to be up to 
 his or her best all the time. Most of us ex- 
 perience only brief spurts of our maximum 
 efficiency. If it be true that one of the lead- 
 ing causes, if not the leading cause, of the 
 sense of inefficiency that hangs over us like 
 a pall, is due to the fact that we are consum- 
 ing an excess of food — then the new diet 
 plan supplies us with at least one effective 
 means of tapping those "new levels" of 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 energy that Professor James speaks of 
 in his famous essay, ' The Powers of 
 Men." 4 
 
 For the benefit of those who may be in- 
 clined to reject the new plan — for all its ad- 
 vantages — on the grounds that it will inter- 
 fere with the pleasures of the table, it may 
 be stated that the universal testimony of 
 those who have adopted it is that they never 
 realized what true enjoyment of food was 
 before they tried it. On this point Profes- 
 sor Chittenden says : 
 
 " Simplicity of diet does not diminish but 
 rather increases the pleasure of eating, 
 especially when daily restriction in diet — in- 
 dulged in until a new habit is formed — has 
 created a greater keenness of appetite, since 
 under such conditions the palate takes on a 
 new sensitiveness, and manifests a fuller ap- 
 preciation of the variations of even a simple 
 dietary. There is therefore no hardship, 
 nor curtailment of the pleasure of eating in 
 the restriction of the diet to the real needs 
 of the body. Neither is there implied any 
 
 4 Professor William James: "The Powers of Men," 
 American Magazine, November, 190T. 
 
 8 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 cessation of that kindly hospitality that de- 
 lights in the ' breaking of bread ' with one's 
 friends. With enlightened methods of liv- 
 ing, on the other hand, will come a truer ap- 
 preciation of the dignity of the body, and a 
 lessened desire to manifest one's feelings of 
 hospitality by a lavish intemperance that is 
 as unphysiological as it is wasteful." 5 
 
 To those who are timid about adopting it 
 because their " doctors told them it was dan- 
 gerous to cut down the food that makes 
 muscle," it may be pointed out that no one 
 — doctor or not — who has not made an ex- 
 haustive study of the subject with the same 
 thoroughness or the same facilities as its 
 originators is qualified to give an authorita- 
 tive opinion regarding it. The theory is an 
 advance over old ways of thinking and can- 
 not, therefore, be tested by any but the most 
 advanced ideas. 
 
 Everyone will concede that there is a limit 
 to the quantity of food that can be consumed 
 with advantage. For example, everyone 
 will concede that ten pounds a day is too 
 much — or nine pounds, or eight pounds, and 
 
 5 " Physiological Economy in Nutrition," p. 472, 
 
 9 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 so on down ; but in the descending scale there 
 comes a point where a doubt as to the suf- 
 ficiency of the amount will be justified. 
 That this point, below which it is dangerous 
 to reduce the consumption of food, can be 
 determined by science, will hardly be dis- 
 puted. Every investigation of the subject 
 has endeavored to fix it. In the generally 
 accepted " diet standards," the minimum 
 quantities of food commonly consumed by 
 man have been accepted as the minimum 
 quantities required. 
 
 " Within certain rather wide limits," says 
 Professor Chittenden, " there is an appar- 
 ent tendency for people of different na- 
 tions, having a free choice of food and not 
 restricted by expense, to consume daily ap- 
 proximately the same amounts of nutri- 
 ments; to use what may be called liberal 
 rather than small amounts of food; and 
 lastly, to consume food somewhat in pro- 
 portion to the amount of work done. It is 
 perhaps, therefore, not strange that stu- 
 dents of nutrition should have taken these 
 results, obtained by the statistical method, 
 
 10 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 as indicating the actual needs of the body 
 for food, and that so-called 'standard 
 diets ' and ' normal diets ' should have been 
 constructed, based upon these and cor- 
 responding data. . . . These standards 
 covering the quantities of food per day ' are 
 intended to show the actual food require- 
 ments of persons under different conditions 
 of life and work.' Here, however, lies an 
 assumption which seems to meet with wide 
 acceptance, but for which it is difficult to 
 conceive any logical reason. The thousands 
 of dietary studies made on peoples all over 
 the world, affording more or less accurate 
 information regarding the average amounts 
 of proteid, fat, and carbohydrate consumed 
 under varying conditions, are indeed most 
 interesting and important, as affording in- 
 formation regarding dietetic customs and 
 habits ; but the writer fails to see any reason 
 why such data need be assumed to throw any 
 light on the actual food requirements of the 
 body. In the words of another, 'Food 
 should be ingested in just the proper amount 
 
 to repair the waste of the body ; to furnish it 
 
 11 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 with the energy it needs for work and 
 warmth ; to maintain it in vigor ; and, in the 
 case of immature animals, to provide the 
 proper excess for normal growth, in order 
 to be of the most advantage to the body.' 
 (Benedict.) Any habitual excess of food, 
 over and above what is really needed to meet 
 the actual wants of the body, is not only un- 
 economical, but may be distinctly disadvan- 
 tageous. . . . With these thoughts in 
 mind, may we not reasonably ask why it 
 should be assumed that there is any tangi- 
 ble connection between the dietetic habits of 
 a people and their true physiological needs? 
 Arguments predicated on custom, habit, and 
 usage have no physiological basis that ap- 
 peals strongly to the impartial observer. 
 Man is a creature of habits; he is quick to 
 acquire new ones when his environment 
 affords the opportunity, and he is prone to 
 cling to old ones when they minister to his 
 sense of taste. The argument that because 
 the people of a country, constituting a given 
 class, eat a certain amount of proteid food 
 daily, the quantity so consumed must be an 
 
 12 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 indication of the amount needed to meet the 
 requirements of the body, is as faulty as the 
 argument that because people of a given 
 community are in the habit of consuming a 
 certain amount of wine each day at dinner 
 their bodies must necessarily be in need of 
 the stimulant, and that consequently alcohol 
 is a true physiological requirement." 6 
 
 Accordingly, Professor Chittenden, actu- 
 ated by his belief that what a man eats is no 
 guide to what he should eat, has shown by 
 a series of elaborate experiments, extending 
 over long periods of time, that persons of 
 widely varying habits of life temperament, 
 and constitution, can maintain, and even 
 heighten their mental and physical vigor, on 
 far smaller quantities of food than these 
 " minimum requirements " of the diet stand- 
 ards. Since the point to be determined is 
 the quantities of food men can live on, not 
 what they do live on, it appears safe to as- 
 sume that Professor Chittenden has come 
 nearer than anyone else to determining the 
 minimum food requirements of man. 
 
 « Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," pp. 157-159. 
 13 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Secondly, everyone must concede that it is 
 possible for science to ascertain the mini- 
 mum requirement of man for proteid food, 
 and also to ascertain whether the quantities 
 of proteid in excess of this amount are of ad- 
 vantage or of disadvantage to the body. So 
 far no one has been able to refute Professor 
 Chittenden's conclusion, drawn from his 
 elaborate experiments, that the quantities of 
 proteid consumed by the average man are 
 far in excess of the quantities assimilated, 
 and that the excess of proteid not assimi- 
 lated is of unqualified disadvantage to the 
 body. 
 
 > Thirdly, everyone will concede that it is 
 possible for science to determine whether or 
 not the complete mastication advocated by 
 Horace Fletcher is of any specific value 
 to the nutritive processes. So far all the 
 scientists who have investigated the matter 
 have been convinced that it is. The remarks 
 of Elie Metchnikoff in his book, " The Pro- 
 longation of Life," which have been taken 
 by some persons as a scientific refutation of 
 the claims of Mr. Fletcher's theory, are of 
 
 14 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 an extremely casual nature, and are Based, 
 not upon extensive investigations such as 
 will be described in this book, but upon the 
 statements of a single physician, who, in a 
 small pamphlet, has published an account of 
 his observations upon two persons suffering 
 from an intestinal disease which he attrib- 
 uted to the fact that they gave an unusual 
 amount of care to the mastication of their 
 food. The remarks in question are as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 " The habit of eating quickly favors the 
 multiplication of microbes around about the 
 lumps of food which have been swallowed 
 without sufficient mastication. It is quite 
 harmful, however, to chew the food too long, 
 and to swallow it only after it has been kept 
 in the mouth for a considerable time. Too 
 complete a use of the food material causes 
 want of tone in the intestinal wall, from 
 which as much harm may come as from im- 
 perfect mastication. In America, where 
 Fletcher's theory took its origin, there has 
 already been described, under the name of 
 'Bradyfagy,' a disease arising from the 
 
 15 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 habit of eating too slowly. Einhorn, a well- 
 known specialist in the diseases of the diges- 
 tive system, has found that several cases of 
 this disease were rapidly cured when the pa- 
 tients made up their minds to eat more 
 quickly again. Comparative physiology 
 supplies us with arguments against too 
 prolonged mastication. Ruminants, which 
 carry out to the fullest extent Mr. Fletch- 
 er's plan, are notable for extreme intestinal 
 putrefaction and for the short duration of 
 their lives. On the other hand, birds and rep- 
 tiles, which have a very poor mechanism for 
 breaking up food, enjoy much longer lives." 7 
 Mr. Fletcher himself has pointed out that 
 there is danger in carrying the practice of 
 mastication to extremes. Once the swallow- 
 ing impulse has asserted itself, he says, there 
 is no advantage in and there may be direct 
 injury from attempting to hold the food in 
 the mouth, even if it has not been reduced 
 quite to the point of complete liquefaction 
 and tastelessness. 
 
 7 Metchnikoff : " The Prolongation of Life." G. P. Put- 
 nam's Sons, New York. 
 
 16 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 MetchnikofF's statement that the rumi- 
 nants are notable for intestinal putrefaction 
 and shortness of life is at least open to ques- 
 tion. The experiments of Dr. C. A. Herter 
 with animals of all classes indicate that, 
 while the bacteria in the intestines of the 
 fast-eating animals (such as cats, dogs, lions, 
 tigers and wolves) are of a deadly character, 
 the bacteria in the intestines of the slow 
 eaters (such as buffaloes, goats, horses and 
 elephants) are practically harmless. 8 And 
 while it may be true that the lives of birds 
 and reptiles are longer than those of rumi- 
 nating animals, it has yet to be proved that 
 the lives of fast-eating animals are longer 
 than those of the ruminants. 
 
 The practical experience of everyone who 
 has adopted the new plan supplies ample 
 evidence that it is productive of only the best 
 possible results. We have now to see that 
 the reason it produces these good results is 
 because it rests on a firm basis of scientific 
 truth. 
 
 s C. A. Herter, M. D.: " Character of the Bacterial Flora 
 of Carnivorous and Herbivorous Animals," Science, p. 859, 
 December 28, 1906. 
 
 17 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 Topics: Mr. Fletcher's discovery and his quest for 
 scientific endorsement. The test of his claims at 
 Cambridge. Opinions of Sir Michael Foster and 
 Dr. Hubert Higgins. Observation of the system at 
 Yale. Dr. Anderson's report. Professor Chitten- 
 den's experiments on professional men, soldiers, 
 athletes and dogs. Professor Fisher's experiments 
 upon students and upon meat-eaters and vegeta- 
 rians. Summary of the evidence. 
 
 I" IKE many another discovery of the 
 ■*-^ highest value to science, the principles 
 of the new conception of dietetics set forth 
 in this book were hit upon by accident and 
 applied in everyday life before they were 
 worked out in theory; and, like many an- 
 other great discovery, they had to bear the 
 brunt of popular ridicule before they were 
 stamped with the seal of scientific recogni- 
 tion. 
 
 Only a few years ago the mention of the 
 word " Fletcherism " was enough to provoke 
 a laugh. A mere American business man, 
 without any scientific authority whatever, 
 
 18 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 was declaring from the housetops that he 
 had stumbled upon a great truth in regard 
 to human nutrition that the authorities on 
 dietetics had overlooked. His contention 
 was based on the fact that by chewing both 
 his solid and liquid food until, literally, there 
 was nothing left of it, he had cured himself 
 of a complication of diseases and made him- 
 self eligible for life insurance, although only 
 a short time before he had been rejected as 
 an unsafe risk. 
 
 He asserted that the practice of thorough 
 mastication had revealed to him that one-half 
 the quantities of food consumed by the aver- 
 age man was more than enough to meet all 
 true bodily needs ; and that when the faculty 
 of taste was given a chance to pass on every- 
 thing taken into the mouth, the appetite was 
 not only satisfied with much smaller quanti- 
 ties, but that it indicated a preference for 
 vegetable rather than animal food and 
 tended to reject alcoholic liquors, tea, coffee, 
 and most condiments. 
 
 Although a member of some of the most 
 famous clubs in the country and a social f a- 
 
 19 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 vorite in San Francisco, New Orleans, Chi- 
 cago, New York, and generally throughout 
 America, Mr. Fletcher suddenly found him- 
 self an object of ridicule. He and his chew- 
 ing-cult were made the subjects for endless 
 humorous newspaper paragraphs. He was 
 cartooned and lampooned from one end of 
 the country to the other. Some of his 
 friends, shocked and offended at seeing a 
 man they knew rapidly becoming a national 
 joke, actually cut his acquaintance. 
 
 Nothing daunted, however, Mr. Fletcher 
 went serenely on his way, talking his discov- 
 ery whenever and wherever he could get any- 
 one to listen, and finally hurling defiance in 
 the faces of his critics by writing a pamphlet 
 on the subject, which is now incorporated in 
 his book, " The New Glutton or Epicure." 1 
 His method of eating as set forth in this vol- 
 ume may be briefly summarized as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 Eat only when there is a vigorous appe- 
 tite, expressed, not in a gnawing of the stom- 
 ach — never pay any attention to that — but 
 
 i Fletcher: " The New Glutton or Epicure." 
 20 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 in a watering of the mouth. If there is no 
 appetite, wait — even if you have to omit a 
 few meals. 
 
 Never eat when you are hurried. If you 
 haven't time to give full attention to the 
 taste of a meal, don't eat until you can get 
 time. 
 
 Never eat when you are worried, angry, 
 exhausted or unhappy. It is better to go 
 without food for a week than to eat when 
 the negative emotions have you in their 
 grip. 
 
 Masticate all food, liquid as well as solid, 
 until it is sucked down into the throat by an 
 involuntary swallowing impulse, giving at- 
 tention, not to the mechanical movements of 
 chewing, but to the sensations of taste pro- 
 voked thereby. 
 
 Remove from the mouth the tasteless resi- 
 due. It can be done without observation, 
 and it is better to risk criticism than to make 
 a waste basket of the stomach. 
 
 The result of this practice of eating, Mr. 
 Fletcher declared, was a utilization of food 
 so complete as practically to do away with 
 
 21 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 the decomposing waste products of the body 
 and to leave nothing to the organs of excre- 
 tion but an inoffensive deposit of cellulose 
 and other dry, unabsorbable material. 
 
 The first recognition of his theory which 
 Mr. Fletcher received from the scientific 
 world came from a brief review of this book 
 in the London Lancet , in which the au- 
 thor, Dr. Joseph Blumfield, intimated that 
 Mr. Fletcher had apparently stumbled upon 
 some physiological truths that had been over- 
 looked by the experts and that might be well 
 worth their while to look into. 
 
 This gave Mr. Fletcher a new idea. It 
 was to get the endorsement of science for his 
 discovery — and he started out seeking for 
 authorities forthwith. 
 
 Dr. Ernest Van Someren, an English 
 physician, was the first member of the medi- 
 cal profession whom he succeeded in per- 
 suading to test his claims for the practice of 
 what he called " physiologic mastication." 
 Dr. Van Someren, who had long been a suf- 
 ferer from a case of gout which had refused 
 to yield to the treatment of a London spe- 
 
 22 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 cialist, adopted Mr. Fletcher's plan of pro- 
 longing the mouth treatment of food, both 
 liquid and solid, until its taste had been ex- 
 tracted and it was sucked down into the 
 throat by the " involuntary swallowing im- 
 pulse," and, in the course of a few weeks, 
 his symptoms began to disappear. 
 
 His conversion was complete. He ini- 
 tiated a series of experiments upon his own 
 account and set forth the results in a paper 
 which he presented first to the British Med- 
 ical Society, and later, more elaborately, 
 before the International Congress of Physi- 
 ologists at Turin, Italy, in 1901. 2 
 
 The paper created a sensation among the 
 physiologists, and brought Mr. Fletcher and 
 Dr. Van Someren an invitation from Sir 
 Michael Foster to visit Cambridge Univer- 
 sity in England and submit their theory to 
 scientific tests at the hands of Dr. F. Gow- 
 land Hopkins and the other physiological 
 experts in the Cambridge laboratories. 
 
 These experiments brought the subject 
 
 2 For this paper see, " The A. B.— Z. of Our Own Nutri- 
 tion," pp. 27-46. 
 
 23 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 definitely and permanently before the scien- 
 tific world. Dr. Hubert Higgins, demon- 
 strator of anatomy at the University, after 
 trying the system recommended by Mr. 
 Fletcher and Dr. Van Someren upon him- 
 self, and thereby reducing his weight from 
 two hundred and eighty-two to one hundred 
 and ninety-six pounds, became so enthusias- 
 tic that he wrote a book on the subject to 
 prove, on grounds of pure science, that the 
 practice of " physiologic mastication " would 
 contribute largely to the complete regenera- 
 tion of the human race. 3 Sir Michael Foster, 
 permanent honorary president of the Inter- 
 national Congress of Physiologists, pub- 
 lished a " Note " in which he declared that 
 the observations upon Mr. Fletcher and Dr. 
 Van Someren established beyond all question 
 that a full and careful study of their conten- 
 tion was urgently called for. 
 
 " In the two individuals who pushed the 
 method to its limits," wrote Sir Michael Fos- 
 ter, " it was found that complete bodily 
 efficiency was maintained for some weeks 
 
 3 Dr. Hubert Higgins: " Humaniculture." 
 24 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 upon a dietary which had a total energy 
 value of one-half that usually taken, and 
 comprised little more than one-third of the 
 proteid consumed by the average man. 
 . . . The scientific and social importance 
 of the question is clearly immense, and it is 
 greatly to be desired that its study should 
 be encouraged." 4 
 
 The reports of the Cambridge experi- 
 ments aroused the interest of Dr. Henry P. 
 Bowditch of Boston, and, through him, of 
 Prof. Russell H. Chittenden, President of 
 the American Physiological Society, Direc- 
 tor of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, 
 and one of the leading physiological chem- 
 ists of the world. Professor Chittenden 
 invited Mr. Fletcher to come to Yale and 
 submit himself to further observation in 
 order that the scientists of America might 
 investigate the claims of the new theory. 
 
 The story of how Mr. Fletcher went to 
 Yale, and, on a diet of breakfast food, milk 
 
 4 For full text see " The A. B.— Z. of Our Own Nutri- 
 tion," pp. 48-52 ; or " The New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 
 18-24. 
 
 25 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 and maple sugar, beat the records of some 
 of the best athletes in the University, has 
 already been made familiar to the people of 
 this country by the newspapers. However, 
 in order that the tale may bear the weight of 
 scientific authority, it may be well to give 
 here the official report of the endurance tests 
 written by Dr. W. G. Anderson, director of 
 the Yale gymnasium. 
 
 " I gave to Mr. Horace Fletcher the same 
 kind of exercises we give to the varsity 
 crew," wrote Dr. Anderson. " They are 
 drastic and fatiguing and cannot be done by 
 beginners without soreness and pain result- 
 ing. The exercises he was asked to take 
 were of a character to tax the heart and 
 lungs, as well as to try the muscles of the 
 limbs and trunk. I should not give these 
 exercises to freshmen on account of their 
 severity. 
 
 " Mr. Fletcher has taken these movements 
 with an ease that is unlooked for. He gives 
 evidence of no soreness or lameness, and the 
 large groups of muscles respond the second 
 day without evidence of distress after or 
 
 26 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 during the endurance test, that is, the long 
 run. The heart is fast but regular. It 
 comes back to its normal beat quicker than 
 does the hearts of other men of his weight 
 and age. 
 
 " The case is unusual, and I am surprised 
 that Mr. Fletcher can do the work of trained 
 athletes and not give marked evidences of 
 overexertion. My conclusion, given in con- 
 densed form, is this: Mr. Fletcher per- 
 forms this work with greater ease and with 
 fewer noticeable bad results than any man 
 of his age and condition I have ever worked 
 with." 5 
 
 In making these tests the investigators 
 took care to assure themselves that Mr. 
 Fletcher's records were not accounted for by 
 the fact that he had been an athlete in his 
 youth, or on the grounds that he was a soma- 
 tic freak of abnormal muscle development. 
 Other men who had been practicing his sys- 
 tem of eating were subjected to the same 
 tests and it was found that they surpassed 
 Mr. Fletcher in just so far as they had a 
 
 e " The New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 32-33. 
 27 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 natural advantage over him in youth or phys- 
 ical training. 
 
 The tests convinced Professor Chittenden 
 that the amounts of food ordinarily con- 
 sumed — particularly of the food known as 
 " proteid," which is eaten chiefly in the form 
 of meat — were far in excess of the real needs 
 of the body. Therefore he initiated a series 
 of experiments upon men of widely differ- 
 ing dietary habits, activities, temperaments, 
 and physical condition, extending over a 
 long period of time, with the purpose of de- 
 termining what was the minimum of food — 
 particularly proteid food — upon which the 
 average person can maintain himself in phys- 
 ical and mental vigor. 
 
 The subjects of the first experiment were 
 Professor Chittenden himself; Dr. Lafay- 
 ette B. Mendel and Dr. Frank P. Underhill, 
 two other physiological chemists in the Shef- 
 field Scientific School; Dr. Arthur L. Dean, 
 instructor in plant physiology in the same 
 institution, and Mr. George M. Beers, a 
 clerk in the treasurer's office. 
 
 While the work of these men was chiefly 
 
 28 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 mental, they could hardly be classified 
 strictly as sedentary, because — with the ex- 
 ception of Mr. Beers — they all had to be 
 on their feet and moving about in their 
 laboratories for the greater part of every 
 day. 
 
 As Professor Chittenden's purpose was 
 not to test the merits of Mr. Fletcher's 
 claims for the benefits of mastication, but to 
 ascertain the exact physiological require- 
 ments of man for food in general and pro- 
 teid food in particular without introducing 
 any conditions, he did not require his sub- 
 jects to masticate their food with any un- 
 usual degree of care. The only change he 
 made in their accustomed dietaries was pre- 
 scriptively to reduce the amount of meat 
 and other proteid food about one-half. 
 During the six months that the subjects were 
 under observation their weight remained sta- 
 tionary, they improved in general health and 
 experienced a quite remarkable increase of 
 mental clearness and energy. Furthermore, 
 the laboratory tests revealed the fact that the 
 composition and general character of the 
 
 29 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 blood remained unimpaired and that the sys- 
 tems were in " nitrogenous equilibrium " — 
 which means that the men were not paying 
 out more than they were taking in, a condi- 
 tion of prime importance to the maintenance 
 of health. 
 
 To meet the objection that the new diet 
 theory, while meeting fully the requirements 
 of persons of dainty dietary habits and high 
 intellectual development, might fail to sat- 
 isfy men of a more material mould, Profes- 
 sor Chittenden used for his next experiment 
 a detachment of twenty soldiers, volunteers 
 from the hospital corps of the United States 
 Army, only thirteen of whom, however, 
 really took part as subjects. For six 
 months these men were quartered in a build- 
 ing near the Sheffield Scientific School at 
 New Haven under command of Dr. Wallace 
 De Witt, First Lieutenant and Assistant 
 Surgeon of the United States Army, and 
 subject to constant surveillance of the com- 
 manding officer and the non-commissioned 
 officers. 
 
 " They represented," says Professor Chit- 
 
 30 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 tenden, " a great variety of types : of differ- 
 ent ages, nationalities, temperaments, and 
 degrees of intelligence. They were men ac- 
 customed to living an active life under vary- 
 ing conditions, and they naturally had great 
 liking for the pleasures of eating. Further, 
 it should be remembered that, although the 
 men had volunteered for the experiment, 
 they had no personal interest whatever in the 
 principles involved, and it could not be ex- 
 pected that they would willingly incommode 
 themselves, or suffer any great amount of 
 personal inconvenience. Again, there were 
 necessary restrictions placed upon their 
 movements, when relieved from duty, which 
 constituted something of a hardship in the 
 minds of many of the men and added to the 
 irksomeness and monotony of their daily life. 
 Regularity of life was insisted upon, and this 
 was a condition which brought to some of the 
 men a new experience. These facts are 
 mentioned because their recital will help to 
 make clear that, from the standpoint of the 
 men, there were certain depressing influences 
 connected with the experiment which would 
 
 31 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 add to any personal discomfort caused by 
 restriction of diet. 
 
 ' The ordinary army ration to which these 
 men were accustomed was rich in proteid, 
 especially in meat, and during the first few 
 days they were allowed to follow their usual 
 dietary habits, in order that data might be 
 obtained bearing on their average food con- 
 sumption. The details of one day's food in- 
 take will suffice to show the average charac- 
 ter and amount of the food eaten per man : 
 
 Breakfast — Beefsteak 222 grams (7£ oz.), gravy 68 grams 
 (2£ oz.), fried potatoes 234 grams (7§ oz.), onion 34 
 grams (1 oz.), bread 144 grams (4§ oz.), coffee 679 grams 
 (22f oz.), sugar 18 grams (f oz.) 
 
 Dinner — Beef 171 grams (5f oz.), boiled potatoes 350 
 grams (11§ oz.), onions 55 grams (2 oz.), bread 234 grams 
 (7| oz.), coffee 916 grams (30J oz.), sugar 27 grams 
 (1 oz.) 
 
 Supper — Corned beef 195 grams (6$ oz.), potatoes 170 
 grams, (5§ oz.), bread 158 grams (7§ oz.), fruit jelly 
 107 grams (3$ oz.), coffee 450 grams (15 oz.), sugar 21 
 grams (§ oz.) 
 
 " It is not necessary to comment upon the 
 large proportion of proteid matter in the 
 day's ration ; the three large portions of meat 
 
 32 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 testify clearly enough to that fact, while the 
 three equally large volumes of coffee indi- 
 cate a natural disposition toward generous 
 consumption of anything available. Habit, 
 reinforced by inclination, has evidently 
 placed these men on a high plane of food 
 consumption. 
 
 " For a period of six months, a daily diet- 
 ary was prescribed for the subjects ; the food 
 for each meal and for every man being of 
 known composition, each article being care- 
 fully weighed, while the content of nitrogen 
 in the day's ration was so graded as to bring 
 about a gradual reduction in the amount 
 of proteid ingested. The rate of proteid 
 katabolism [breaking down, opposed to 
 anabolism, or building up] was likewise de- 
 termined each day by careful estimation of 
 the excreted nitrogen, balance experiments 
 being made from time to time in order to 
 ascertain if the men were in a condition of 
 nitrogen equilibrium. Finally, it should be 
 mentioned that the subjects lived a fairly 
 active life, having each day a certain amount 
 of prescribed exercise in the university gym- 
 
 33 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 nasium, in addition to the regular drill and 
 other duties associated with their usual work. 
 "As just stated, the amount of proteid 
 food was gradually reduced, three weeks 
 being taken to bring the amount down to a 
 level somewhat commensurate with the esti- 
 mated needs of the body. This naturally re- 
 sulted in diminishing largely the intake of 
 meat, though by no means excluding it. 
 Effort was constantly made to introduce as 
 much variety as was possible with simple 
 foods, though the main problem with this 
 group of men was to keep the volume of the 
 food up to such a point as would dispel any 
 notion that they were not having enough to 
 eat. A second problem, which at first threat- 
 ened trouble, was the fear of the men, as they 
 saw the proportion of meat gradually drop 
 off, that they were destined to lose their 
 strength; but, fortunately, they very soon 
 began to realize that their fears in this direc- 
 tion were groundless, and a little later their 
 personal experience opened their eyes to pos- 
 sible advantages which quickly drove away 
 all further thought of danger, and made 
 
 34 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 them quite content to continue the experi- 
 ment." 6 
 
 The following is a sample of the daily 
 meals given to the men after the first month 
 when the amount of their proteid food had 
 been reduced : 
 
 APRIL 1 
 
 Breakfast — Fried hominy 150 grams (5 oz.), syrup 75 
 grams (2£ oz.), butter 20 grams (f oz.), one cup coffee 
 350 grams (llf oz.) 
 
 Dinner — Baked spaghetti 200 grams (6§ oz.), mashed po- 
 tato 250 grams (8£ oz.), boiled turnip 150 grams (5 oz.), 
 bread 10 grams (J oz.), apple sauce 200 grams (6§ oz.), 
 one cup coffee 350 grams (llf oz.) 
 
 Supper — Fried bacon (f oz.), fried sweet potato 200 grams 
 (6§ oz.), bread 35 grams (1£ oz.), butter 20 grams (f oz.), 
 jam 100 grams (3£ oz.), apple-tapioca pudding 300 grams 
 (10 oz.), one cup tea 350 grams (llf oz.) 
 
 Total nitrogen content of the day's food 7,342 grams. 
 
 From this sample meal it will he seen that 
 during the last five months of the experiment 
 the men were living on about one-third of the 
 proteid food to which they were accustomed. 
 
 " If," says Professor Chittenden, " the 
 relatively small amount of proteid food 
 
 e Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," pp. 193-197. 
 85 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 made use of in this trial was inadequate for 
 the real necessities of the body, some indica- 
 tion of it would be expected to reveal itself, 
 with at least some of the men, by the end of 
 the period. One criticism frequently made 
 is that the subject draws in some measure 
 upon his store of body material. Should 
 this be the case, it is evident that the body- 
 weight — in a such a long experiment as this 
 — will gradually but surely diminish. Fur- 
 ther, the subject will show a minus nitrogen 
 balance, i. e., there will be a constant tend- 
 ency for the body to give off more nitrogen 
 than it takes in. As bearing on the first 
 point, the following table showing the body- 
 weights of the men at the commencement of 
 the experiment in October, and at the close 
 of the experiment in April, will be of in- 
 terest : 
 
 Table of Body- Weights. 
 
 October, 1903 April, 1904 
 
 kilos pounds kilos pounds 
 
 Steltz 52.3 115.27 53.0 116.81 
 
 Zooman 54.0 119.01 55.0 121.22 
 
 Coffman 59.1 130.25 58.0 127.83 
 
 Morris 59.2 130.47 59.0 130.03 
 
 Broyles 59.4 130.91 61.0 134.44 
 
 36 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 October, 1903 April, 1904. 
 
 kilos pounds kilos pounds 
 
 Loewenthal ...60.1 132.46 59.0 130.03 
 
 Sliney 61.3 135.10 60.6 133.56 
 
 Cohn 65.0 143.26 62.6 137.97 
 
 Oakman 66.7 147.00 62.1 136.86 
 
 Henderson ....71.3 157.14 71.0 156.48 
 
 Fritz 76.0 167.50 72.6 160.01 
 
 Bates 72.7 160.23 64.3 141.71(Feb.) 
 
 Davis 59.3 130.69 57.2 127.06(Jan.) 
 
 " As is readily seen, five of the men prac- 
 tically retained their weight or made a slight 
 gain. Of the others, Coffman, Loewenthal, 
 Sliney, and Cohn lost somewhat, but the 
 amount was very small. Further, the loss 
 occurred during the first few weeks of the 
 experiment, after which their weight re- 
 mained practically stationary. Fritz and 
 Oakman lost weight somewhat more noticea- 
 bly, but this loss likewise occurred during the 
 earlier part of the trial. . . . Of all the 
 men, Bates was the only one who underwent 
 any great loss of weight. He, however, was 
 quite stout, and the work in the gymnasium, 
 reinforced by the change in diet, brought 
 about what was for him a very desirable loss 
 of body-weight. It is evident, therefore, 
 that there was no marked or prolonged loss 
 
 37 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 of body-weight as a result of the continued 
 use of the low proteid diet." 7 
 
 Professor Chittenden says that regarding 
 the second point, viz., the nitrogen equili- 
 brium, two different balance experiments 
 with each of the men, one about the first of 
 March and the other a month later, indicated 
 plainly that the men were receiving more 
 proteid food than was necessary to maintain 
 their bodies in nitrogen equilibrium. 
 
 " The experiment results presented," says 
 Professor Chittenden, " afford very convinc- 
 ing proof that, so far as body-weight and 
 nitrogen equilibrium are concerned, the needs 
 of the body are fully met by a consumption 
 of proteid food far below the fixed dietary 
 standards, and still further below the 
 amounts called for by the recorded habits of 
 mankind. General health is equally well 
 maintained, and with suggestions of im- 
 provement that are frequently so marked as 
 to challenge attention. Most conspicuous, 
 however, though something that was entirely 
 unlooked for, was the effect observed on the 
 
 7 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 198-200. 
 38 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 muscular strength of the various subjects. 
 When the experiments were planned it was 
 deemed important to arrange for careful 
 quantitative tests of the more conspicuous 
 muscles of the body, with a view to measur- 
 ing any loss of strength that might occur 
 from the proposed reduction in proteid food. 
 The thought that prompted this action was 
 a result of the latent feeling that somehow 
 muscular strength must be dependent more 
 or less upon the proteid constituents of the 
 muscles, and that consequently the cutting 
 down of proteid food would inevitably be 
 felt in some degree. The most that could be 
 hoped for was that muscle tone and mus- 
 cular strength might be maintained unim- 
 paired. Hence, we were at first quite as- 
 tonished at what was actually observed. 
 
 "With the soldier detail, fifteen distinct 
 strength tests were made with each man dur- 
 ing the six months' period, by means of ap- 
 propriate dynamometer tests applied to the 
 muscles of the back, legs, chest, upper arms 
 and forearms reinforced by quarter-mile run, 
 vault, and ladder tests, etc. The so-called 
 
 39 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ' total strength ' of the man was computed 
 by multiplying the weight of the body by the 
 number of times the subject was able to push 
 up (strength of triceps muscles) and pull up 
 (strength of biceps muscles) his body while 
 upon the parallel bars, to this product being 
 added the strength (dynamometer tests) of 
 hands, legs, back, and chest. It should be 
 added that all of these tests were made quite 
 independently in the university gymnasium 
 by the medical assistants and others in charge 
 of the work there. It will suffice for our 
 purpose to give here the strength tests of the 
 various members of the soldier detail at the 
 beginning and close of the experiment : 
 
 Total Strength 
 
 October April 
 
 Broyles 2560 5530 
 
 Coifman 2835 6269 
 
 Cohn 2210 4002 
 
 Fritz .-; 2504 5178 
 
 Henderson 2970 4598 
 
 Loewenthal 2463 5277 
 
 Morris 2543 4869 
 
 Oakman 3445 5055 
 
 Sliney 3245 5307 
 
 Steltz 2838 4581 
 
 Zooman 3070 5457 
 
 40 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 "Without exception we note with all of 
 the men a phenomenal gain in strength, 
 which demands explanation. Was it all due 
 to the change in diet? Probably not, for 
 these men at the beginning of the experi- 
 ment were untrained, and it is not to be as- 
 sumed that months of practical work in the 
 gymnasium would not result in a certain 
 amount of physical development, with cor- 
 responding gain in muscular skill and power. 
 Putting this question aside for the moment, 
 however, it is surely proper to emphasize this 
 fact, viz., that although the men for a period 
 of five months were restricted to a daily diet 
 containing only one-third to one-half the 
 amount of proteid food they had been accus- 
 tomed to, there was no loss of physical 
 strength; no indication of any physical de- 
 terioration that could be detected. In other 
 words, the men were certainly not being 
 weakened by the lowered intake of proteid 
 food." 8 
 
 In order to ascertain how much of the im- 
 provement in the muscular strength, skill 
 
 s Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," pp. 202-204. 
 41 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 and endurance of the soldiers was due to the 
 change in diet alone, as well as to demon- 
 strate the fallaciousness of the old belief that 
 a man doing heavy muscular work requires a 
 large quantity of proteid food, Professor 
 Chittenden secured as subjects for his next 
 experiment a group of eight of the leading 
 athletes of the University, all in " training 
 form" and engaged constantly in violent 
 muscular exercise. For five months they 
 lived on a diet comprising not more than one- 
 half to one-third the quantity of proteid food 
 they had been in the habit of eating: as in 
 the case of the soldiers, nitrogenous equili- 
 brium was maintained, the weight, when once 
 adjusted to the new level, remained practi- 
 cally constant and the gymnasium tests to 
 which they were frequently subjected 
 showed, in every man, a truly remarkable 
 gain in strength and endurance. 
 
 " Naturally," says Professor Chittenden, 
 " in the case of these men the gain in strength 
 recorded cannot be assigned to systematic 
 training. The only change in their mode of 
 living which can in any sense be considered 
 
 42 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 as responsible for the improvement is the 
 change in diet. 
 
 The main fact to be emphasized, how- 
 ever, is that these men — trained athletes, 
 accustomed to living on relatively large 
 amounts of proteid food — for a period of 
 five months reduced their intake of pro- 
 teid food more than fifty per cent, without 
 loss of bodily strength, but, on the contrary, 
 with a marked improvement in muscular 
 power." 9 
 
 Convincing as these experiments may 
 seem to the average lay mind they did not 
 meet the old argument, drawn from certain 
 experiments upon dogs, that high-proteid 
 animals cannot live and thrive for any great 
 length of time on the low proteid diet, and 
 that, therefore, while man, as a moder- 
 ate proteid-eater, can endure for a while 
 even large reductions in proteid food he 
 will eventually manifest some of the disas- 
 trous results obtained experimentally with 
 dogs. 
 
 9 Chittenden: " Physiological Economy in Nutrition," p. 
 438. 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Therefore Professor Chittenden's next 
 step was to demonstrate that these old ex- 
 periments proved nothing at all except that 
 any animal will not thrive if kept in close 
 confinement under unhygienic conditions 
 and fed on a monotonous diet. Accord- 
 ingly the twenty dogs used in his experiment 
 were kept under scrupulously hygienic con- 
 ditions and fed on a diet sufficiently varied 
 to be tempting to the appetite, although 
 containing only about one-half to one-third 
 the amount of proteid food to which the 
 dogs had been accustomed. 
 
 Professor Chittenden's account of his ob- 
 servations on one of his subjects is as 
 follows : 
 
 " The animal employed in this experiment 
 weighed on July 27, 1905, 17.2 kilograms 
 (87.9 pounds) ; it was apparently full 
 grown, but was thin and had the appearance 
 of being underfed. At first, it was given 
 daily 172 grams (5§ oz.) of meat, 124 grams 
 (4<t oz.) of cracker dust, and 72 grams (2j 
 oz.) of lard, the day's ration containing 
 8.66 grams of nitrogen and having a fuel 
 
 44 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 value of 1389 calories. 10 These figures are 
 equivalent to 80 calories, and 0.50 gram of 
 nitrogen, per kilogram (2.204 pounds) of 
 body-weight. The animal took kindly to 
 the diet, but on August 3 it refused to eat 
 and seemed to have a little fever. The next 
 day it was better, but for the three follow- 
 ing days its appetite was poor, and only a 
 portion of the daily food was eaten. Body- 
 weight began to fall off, and was soon at 
 15.5 kilograms (34.16 pounds). On the 
 7th of August, a dose of vermifuge was 
 
 io '"A calorie may be defined as the amount of heat re- 
 quired to raise one gram of water 1 degree C. This unit 
 is usually spoken of as the small calorie to distinguish it 
 from the large calorie, which represents the amount of heat 
 required to raise one kilogram of water 1 degree C. Hence, 
 the large calorie is equal to one thousand small calories. 
 When burned in a calorimeter, one gram of carbohydrate 
 yields on an average 4100 gram-degree units of heat, or 
 small calories; one gram of fat yields 9300 small calories. 
 Both of these non-nitrogenous foods burn or oxidize to the 
 same products — viz., carbon dioxide and water — when util- 
 ized in the body as when burned in the calorimeter; hence 
 the figures given represent the physiological heat of com- 
 bustion, per gram, of the two classes of food stuffs. Ob- 
 viously, the fuel values of different foods belonging to the 
 same group or class will show slight variations, but the 
 above figures represent average values." — Chittenden: " Nu- 
 trition of Man" p. 14. 
 
 45 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 given, after which the appetite returned and 
 the animal appeared in good spirits. From 
 this time forward it seemed in perfect health, 
 with good appetite, and showed the usual 
 vivacity and playfulness of dog-kind. The 
 diet as specified was continued unchanged 
 until August 25, a balance experiment cov- 
 ering a period of ten days, from the 15th 
 to the 24th of August inclusive, being 
 carried out, in which the nitrogen of the in- 
 take was cpmpared with the output for each 
 day. • . . During this first period the ani- 
 mal was laying on or gaining an average of 
 2 grams of nitrogen per day. 
 
 " On August 25, a radical change was 
 made in the diet, by reducing the amount of 
 meat to 70 grams (2J oz.) daily, thereby 
 lowering the intake of nitrogen to 4.76 
 grams or 0.27 gram per kilo of body- weight; 
 the cracker dust and lard being kept at es- 
 sentially the same levels as before. This 
 diet was continued through the next balance 
 period, the dog in the meantime gaining in 
 body-weight, and showing for the second 
 balance period an average gain by the body 
 
 46 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 of half a gram of nitrogen per day. The 
 food was then altered by substituting bread 
 for cracker dust, but so adjusted that the 
 nitrogen and fuel values of the day's food 
 remained practically unchanged. There was 
 still, however, a gain in body-weight and a 
 slight gain in body nitrogen. At the close 
 of the third balance period, the diet was 
 again altered, one-half of the meat being 
 replaced by milk, while cracker dust was 
 substituted for the bread. The morning 
 meal consisted of 170 grams (5§ oz.) of 
 milk, 86 grams (3 oz.) cracker dust, and 18 
 grams (f oz.) of lard, while the afternoon 
 meal was composed of 35 grams (lj oz.) of 
 meat, 63 grams (2 oz.) of cracker, and 35 
 grams (l<t oz.) lard. The day's ration, 
 however, still contained 4.76 grams of 
 nitrogen and had a fuel value of 1249 
 calories. This diet was maintained until 
 November 20, when the animal was again 
 placed on a daily ration of meat 69 grams 
 (2 J oz.) , bread 166 grams (5J oz.) , and lard 
 80 grams (2§ oz.) with a total fuel value of 
 1228 calories and 4.77 grams of nitrogen. 
 
 47 • 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 This was continued until December 2, the 
 dog still showing a plus nitrogen balance, 
 but with a little loss in body-weight. On 
 December 2, the diet was again changed by 
 substituting milk for a portion of the meat, 
 but the nitrogen and fuel values were main- 
 tained at the same level as before. After a 
 week, December 9, the food was modified as 
 follows: the morning meal contained 170 
 grams (5§ oz.) of milk, 110 grams (3§ oz.) 
 of rice, and 11 grams (i oz.) of lard, while 
 the afternoon meal was composed of 35 
 grams (lj oz.) of meat, 81 grams (2§ oz.) 
 of rice, and 30 grams (1 oz. ) of lard. The 
 total nitrogen content of the day's ration 
 was 4.07 grams, while the fuel value was 
 1255 calories. At this time, the animal 
 weighed 17.1 kilograms (37.68 pounds), 
 consequently the intake of nitrogen had been 
 reduced to 0.23 gram per kilo of body- 
 weight, while the fuel value stood at 73 
 calories per kilogram. This diet was con- 
 tinued until February 9, the balance period, 
 between January 2 and 11, showing that the 
 animal was in nitrogen equilibrium, in spite 
 
 48 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 of the material reduction in the intake of 
 proteid, and that body-weight was increas- 
 ing. The next balance period, January 30 
 to February 8, showed still further gain in 
 weight with continuance of nitrogen equili- 
 brium. On February 9, the diet was 
 changed by returning to 70 grams (2j oz.) 
 of meat, 158 grams (5| oz.) of cracker dust, 
 and 60 grams of lard, with a daily intake 
 of 0.28 gram of nitrogen per kilo of body- 
 weight. 
 
 ' In this manner, the experiment was con- 
 tinued with frequent changes in the charac- 
 ter of the diet, but always maintaining essen- 
 tially the same value in nitrogen and calories 
 as shown in the table, until June 27; having 
 extended through just eleven months, with 
 the animal at the close of the experiment still 
 gaining in body-weight, with a steady plus 
 balance of nitrogen, and with every indica- 
 tion of good health and strength. For ten 
 months the animal lived with perfect com- 
 fort and in good condition on an average 
 daily intake of 0.26 gram of nitrogen per 
 kilogram of body-weight, and with an aver- 
 
 49 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 age fuel value of 70.3 calories per kilo. 
 Further, it is to be observed that at no time 
 during the ten months did the daily intake 
 of nitrogen rise above 0.28 gram per kilo, 
 while during one month it fell 0.23 gram per 
 kilo. 
 
 Similarly, the fuel value of the daily 
 food never exceeded 73 calories per kilo, 
 while at times it dropped as low as 67 and 65 
 calories per kilo. That this diet was more 
 than sufficient, both in nitrogen and fuel 
 value, is indicated by the steady increase in 
 body-weight and by the plus nitrogen 
 balance observed in most of the periods 
 throughout the experiment. Indeed, with 
 the comparatively low degree of muscular 
 activity which this animal was accustomed 
 to, it would have been unwise to have kept 
 the subject much longer on a diet so rich as 
 the above, since there would have been 
 danger of detriment to its health and good 
 condition." n 
 
 Professor Chittenden's conclusion from 
 these experiments is as follows : " These 
 
 ii Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 244-248. 
 
 50 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 experiments on the influence of a low pro- 
 teid diet on dogs, as a type of high proteid 
 consumers, taken in their entirety, afford 
 convincing proof that such animals can live 
 and thrive on amounts of proteid and non- 
 nitrogenous food far below the standards 
 set by Munk and Rosenheim. The delete- 
 rious results reported by these investigators 
 were not due to the effects of low proteid or 
 to diminished consumption of non-nitrogen- 
 ous foods, but are to be ascribed mainly to 
 non-hygienic conditions, or to a lack of care 
 and physiological good sense in the prescrip- 
 tion of a narrow dietary not suited to the 
 habits and needs of this class of animals. 
 Further, it is obvious that the more or less 
 broad deductions so frequently drawn from 
 the experiments of Munk and Rosenheim, 
 especially in their application to mankind, 
 are entirely unwarranted and without 
 foundation in fact. Our experiments offer 
 satisfying proof that not only can dogs live 
 on quantities of proteid food per day smaller 
 than these investigators deemed necessary, 
 and with a fuel value far below the standard 
 
 51 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 adopted by them ; but, in addtion, that these 
 animals are quite able on such a diet to gain 
 in body-weight and to lay by nitrogen, 
 thereby indicating that even smaller quan- 
 tities of food might suffice to meet their true 
 physiological requirements." 12 
 
 Further experimental evidence in the in- 
 vestigation of both Mr. Fletcher's claims 
 for mastication and Professor Chittenden's 
 claims for a deliberately restricted proteid 
 diet, has been contributed by Professor 
 Irving Fisher, professor of political 
 economy at Yale, who, as a political 
 economist, has been interested in testing 
 the alleged effect of the new system of diet 
 upon a man's output of work. 
 
 Professor Fisher's first experiment was 
 upon nine Yale students, in vigorous health 
 and of ordinary student occupations, and 
 lasted twenty weeks. The men were in- 
 structed to follow their own tastes in choos- 
 ing the character and amount of the food 
 taken, but were asked not to eat until they 
 were equally hungry and then to masticate 
 
 12 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 263-264. 
 
 52 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 both solid and liquid food until it was in- 
 voluntarily sucked down into the throat. 
 
 The experiment is thus described by Pro- 
 fessor Fisher: 
 
 " Two years later," (than the experiments 
 upon Mr. Fletcher), "in 1906, nine Yale 
 students under my direction experimented 
 with Mr. Fletcher's method of instinctive 
 eating. Careful records were taken of the 
 amounts of food consumed and the propor- 
 tions of proteid, fat and carbohydrate (starch 
 and sugar) used. In order to avoid the an- 
 noyance of weighing the food at the table 
 it was all weighed in the kitchen and served 
 in definite portions of known food value. 
 From these records the proportions of pro- 
 teid, fat and carbohydrate were worked out 
 by means of a Mechanical Diet Indicator, 
 which I have described in The American 
 Journal of Physiology and The Journal of 
 the American Medical Association. Records 
 w T ere made for each man and each day dur- 
 ing the five months of the experiment. It 
 was found that the proteid element was 
 gradually and unconsciously reduced. Dur- 
 
 53 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ing the second half of the experiment this 
 reduction was somewhat accelerated by sug- 
 gesting to the men that when appetite was 
 in doubt they should give the benefit of that 
 doubt to low proteid non-flesh foods: but 
 the men were never encouraged to choose 
 any food when their instinct definitely pre- 
 ferred another. 
 
 " The main lesson from the experiment, 
 however, was that the men improved in 
 health and physical endurance. By actual 
 gymnasium tests it was found that the 
 physical endurance of the men was approxi- 
 mately doubled in five months. . . . Only 
 one of the men failed to improve in endur- 
 ance, and this exception proved the rule, for 
 he was the only one of the nine who was not 
 thorough in his practice of mastication, nor 
 did he, in consequence, reduce his flesh foods 
 as much as did the other experimenters. The 
 majority of the men who took part in the ex- 
 periment have become enthusiastic, have con- 
 tinued to ' Fletcherize,' and have taken up 
 physical culture in all of its branches." 13 
 
 is Fisher: The Independent, New York, August, 1907. 
 
 54 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 A previous experiment made by Profes- 
 sor Fisher with a number of meat-eaters and 
 vegetarians showed that " those who ate 
 little or no flesh foods have greater endur- 
 ance than those who use flesh foods in abund- 
 ance " 14 — a fact which also tends to uphold 
 the argument for the merits of a low-proteid 
 diet. 
 
 Both Professor Chittenden's and Profes- 
 sor Fisher's experiments lead to the same 
 conclusion — i. e., that man can live and 
 thrive on from one-half to one-third of the 
 amount of food prescribed by the so-called 
 "standard" dietaries; and in the author's 
 opinion seem to confirm, without scientific- 
 ally proving, Mr. Fletcher's claim that, by 
 the practice of complete mastication, the 
 amounts of food demanded by the appetite 
 may be brought naturally into conformation 
 with these true physiologic needs. 15 
 
 i* Fisher: "The Influence of Flesh-eating on Endurance." 
 New Haven, Conn. 
 
 is For the convenience of the reader, the terms of the 
 metric system used by Professor Chittenden in designating 
 the amounts of food, etc., used in his experiments, have 
 been indicated in terms of the avoirdupois system. 
 
 55 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Topics: Composition of foods. Purposes served by 
 '•the various food elements. Digestion. Changes 
 occurring in the mouth. New discoveries in regard 
 to saliva. The effect of mastication upon the di- 
 gestive process. Taste and appetite as stimuli of 
 the digestive secretions. Other psychic influences 
 in digestion. Assimilation. Poisonous properties of 
 the body-waste. Metabolism. Quantities of food 
 necessary to the maintenance of physical efficiency. 
 The old dietary standards. The new standards. 
 
 TN order that the argument that follows 
 A can be readily understood, it is desirable 
 that the reader should have a general work- 
 ing knowledge of the chemical composition 
 of his foods, of the several purposes which 
 the various food elements serve in the bodily 
 economy, and of the diiFerent processes by 
 which these purposes are accomplished. 
 
 All foods, whether animal or vegetable, 
 are made up of three distinct classes of 
 organic compounds known as proteid or 
 nitrogenous or albuminous substances, car- 
 bohydrates, and fats; and of some fifteen 
 
 56 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 different inorganic salts. 1 Of these the pro- 
 teid substances held the first place. They 
 form the chemical basis of all living cells* 
 and without them, there can be no life. 
 They are the material which builds the body, 
 which insures growth and which repairs 
 tissue broken down by muscular exercise. 
 
 " The vital part of all tissue is proteid," 
 says Professor Chittenden, " and only pro- 
 teid can serve for its growth or renewal. 
 . . . Every living cell, whether of heart, 
 muscle, brain or nerve, requires its due allow- 
 ance of proteid material to maintain its 
 physiological rhythm. No other foodstuff 
 stands in such intimate relationship to the 
 vital process." 2 
 
 As has been said before, the foods which 
 contain the highest percentages of proteid 
 and which, therefore, are known as " proteid 
 foods," are meat, fish, eggs, nuts, peas, 
 
 1 Note — Proteid substances are characterized by contain- 
 ing about 16 per cent, of nitrogen. In addition, they con- 
 tain on an average 52 per cent, of carbon, 7 per cent, of 
 hydrogen, 23 per cent, of oxygen, and 0.5 — 2.0 per cent, of 
 sulphur . . . Carbohydrates . . . are entirely free 
 from nitrogen, containing only carbon (44.4 per cent.), 
 hydrogen (6.2 per cent.), and oxygen (49.4 per cent.), and 
 hence are classified as non-nitrogenous foods. — " Nutrition 
 of Man" pp. 3-5. 
 
 2 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 4-5. 
 
 57 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 beans, lentils and cheese; but there is no 
 article of human diet except sugar and pure 
 fat, into which it does not enter in a greater 
 or less degree. Other things being equal, 
 proteid seems to serve its purpose in the 
 bodily economy equally well whether de- 
 rived from the animal or from the vegetable 
 kingdom. 
 
 The carbohydrates and fats furnish the 
 fuel for the body. They yield the heat that 
 keeps it warm and the energy that enables 
 it to do its work. While they are incapable 
 of adding to the lean tissue without which 
 the body cannot exist, they are able — when 
 taken in excess of immediate fuel needs — to 
 lay up a store of fat which the body can 
 draw upon for its heat and energy whenever 
 its food supply is cut off. 
 
 The carbohydrates are found chiefly in 
 grains; in vegetables (other than peas, 
 beans and lentils) ; and in fruits. All sweets 
 and all " starchy " foods — of which the 
 sweets are really only a form — belong in 
 this class. For this reason the carbo- 
 hydrates are frequently called " the starches 
 and sugars." 
 
 58 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Fats are found in almost all the proteid 
 foods. There is no meat that is not streaked 
 with them to a greater or less extent, and 
 nuts are generously supplied with them in 
 the form of oil. Of all the vegetables the 
 ; * fattest " are the " legumes " — peas, beans, 
 lentils and peanuts. Cheese is almost as rich 
 in fat as it is in proteid. About the only 
 foods which are prized primarily for their 
 fats, are butter and vegetable oils. 
 
 Inorganic salts are required by the body 
 for the building of bones and teeth, and for 
 the regulation and control of the nutritive 
 processes. They cannot build live tissue or 
 furnish heat and energy, but they are essen- 
 tial as aids to digestion and assimilation. 
 They are contained in all forms of food, but 
 they exist in the vegetables in the greatest 
 number and variety. 
 
 The following table, compiled by Profes- 
 sor Chittenden from data given in Bulletin 
 28 (Revised Edition) of U. S. Department 
 of Agriculture, indicates the relative distri- 
 bution of the various classes of food ele- 
 ments in some common articles of diet. 
 
 59 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 The Chemical Composition of Some Common Food 
 Materials.^ 
 
 * . . £*o 
 
 MATERIALS | S fg S J5 S |g || S 1 Sj| 
 
 Cooked beef 
 
 roasted 22.3 28.6 48.2 1.3 1620 
 
 Cooked round 
 
 steak 27.6 7.7 63.0 1.8 840 
 
 Tenderloin steak 
 
 broiled 23.5 20.4 54.8 1.2 1300 
 
 Dried beef, 
 
 canned 39.2 5.4 44.8 11.2 960 
 
 Stewed kidneys, 
 
 canned 18.4 2.1 5.1 71.9 2.5 600 
 
 Lamb chops 
 
 broiled 21.7 29.9 47.6 1.3 1665 
 
 Roast leg lamb ..19.4 12.7 67.1 0.8 900 
 Roast leg 
 
 mutton 25.9 22.6 50.9 1.2 1420 
 
 Smoked ham, 
 
 fat 14.8 52.3 27.9 3.7 2485 
 
 Roast Turkey ...27.8 18.4 52.0 1.2 1295 
 
 fvf*l Oft Q^PPfl 
 
 chicken 17.6 2.4 11.5 67.5 1.0 855 
 
 Cooked bluefish .26.1 4.5 68.2 1.2 670 
 Broiled Spanish 
 
 mackerel 23.2 6.5 68.9 1.4 715 
 
 Canned salmon ..21.8 12.1 63.5 2.6 915 
 
 Canned sardines.. 23.0 19.7 52.3 5.6 162 
 Fresh round 
 
 clams 6.5 4.2 0.4 86.2 2.7 215 
 
 Fresh oysters ... 6.0 3.3 1.3 88.3 1.1 230 
 
 Boiled eggs 13.2 12.0 73.2 0.8 765 
 
 Butter 1.0 85.0 11.0 3.0 3605 
 
 Full cream 
 
 cheese 25.9 2.4 33.7 34.2 3.8 1950 
 
 Milk 3.3 5.0 4.0 87.0 0.7 325 
 
 Boiled rice 2.8 24.4 0.1 72.5 0.2 525 
 
 3 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 7-10. 
 
 60 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ... . £»o 
 
 *J w+i *J +2 ti ^3 fl 
 
 FOOD |S i|S 8 fcS g§S ^I| 
 
 MATERIALS Eg stfc. tag I S s!& 1 fc| 
 
 Php, cap, fcp, ^a S^ft feftS 
 
 Brown bread .... 5.4 47.1 1.8 43.6 2.1 1050 
 Wheat bread 
 
 rolls 8.9 56.7 4.1 29.2 1.1 1395 
 
 Wholewheat 
 
 bread 9.4 49.7 0.9 38.4 1.3 1140 
 
 Soda crackers... 9.8 73.1 9.1 5.9 2.1 1925 
 
 Ginger bread.... 5.8 63.5 9.0 18.8 2.9 1670 
 
 Lady fingers 8.8 70.6 5.0 15.0 0.6 1685 
 
 Spongecake 6.3 65.9 10.7 15.3 1.8 1795 
 
 Apple pie 3.1 42.8 9.8 42.5 . 1.8 1270 
 
 Tapioca pudding. 3.3 28.2 3.2 64.5 0.8 720 
 
 Cooked beets 2.3 7.4 0.1 88.6 1.6 185 
 
 Dried peas 24.6 62.0 1.0 9.5 2.9 1655 
 
 Boiled potatoes.. 2.5 20.9 0.1 75.5 1.0 440 
 
 Fresh tomatoes . 0.9 3.9 0.4 94.3 0.5 105 
 Baked beans, 
 
 canned 6.9 19.6 2.5 68.9 2.1 600 
 
 Apples 0.4 14.2 0.5 84.6 3.0 290 
 
 Bananas, yellow. 1.3 22.0 0.6 75.3 0.8 460 
 
 Oranges 0.8 11.6 0.2 86.9 0.5 240 
 
 Peaches 0.7 9.4 0.1 89.4 0.4 190 
 
 Strawberries ... 1.0 7.4 0.6 90.4 0.6 180 
 
 Almonds 21.0 17.3 54.9 4.8 2.0 3030 
 
 Peanuts 25.8 24.4 38.6 9.2 2.0 2560 
 
 Pine nuts 33.9 6.9 49.4 6.4 3.4 2845 
 
 Brazil nuts 17.0 7.0 66.8 5.3 3.9 3265 
 
 English walnuts. 16. 6 16.1 63.4 2.5 1.4 3285 
 
 In using this table, the fact should be 
 borne in mind that foods containing equal 
 quantities of the various food elements are 
 not necessarily, because of their varying de- 
 grees of digestibility, of equal food value. 
 
 61 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 " For example," says Professor Chittenden, 
 " roast mutton, cream cheese and dried peas 
 contain approximately the same amount of 
 proteid. Are we to infer that these three 
 foods have the same nutritive value so far as 
 proteid is concerned? Surely not, since no 
 account is taken of the relative digestibility 
 of the three foods. ... In a general way 
 it may be stated that with animal foods, 
 such as meats, eggs, and milk, about 97 per 
 cent, of the contained proteid is digested and 
 thereby rendered available for the body. 
 With ordinary vegetable foods, on the other 
 hand, as they are usually prepared for con- 
 sumption, only about 85 per cent, of the pro- 
 teid is made available. This is partially due 
 to the presence in the vegetable tissue of 
 cellulose, which in some measure prevents 
 that thorough attack of the proteid juices 
 which occurs with animal foods. With a 
 mixed diet, i. e.j with a variable admixture 
 of animal and vegetable foods, it is usually 
 considered that about 92 per cent, of the 
 proteid contained therein will undergo 
 digestion. 
 
 62 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 " Regarding differences in the availability 
 of fats, it may be stated that, as a rule, the 
 fatty matter contained in vegetable foods is 
 less readily, or less thoroughly, digested than 
 that present in foods of animal origin. In 
 the latter, about 95 per cent, of the fat is 
 digested and absorbed. This figure, how- 
 ever, is generally taken as representing ap- 
 proximately the digestibility or availability 
 of the fat contained in man's daily dietary, 
 since by far the larger proportion of the fat 
 consumed is of animal origin. Carbo- 
 hydrates, on the other hand, are much more 
 easily utilized by the body. Naturally, 
 sugars, owing to their great solubility and 
 ready difFusibility, offer little difficulty in 
 the way of easy digestion ; but starches like- 
 wise, though not so readily assimilable, are 
 digested, as a rule, to the extent of 98 per 
 cent, or more of the amount consumed." 4 
 
 Before food taken into the body can be 
 built up into living tissue or made to yield 
 its content of heat and energy, it must first 
 undergo the process of digestion. This pro- 
 
 * Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," pp. 12-13, 
 63 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 cess — contrary to the ideas of the old physi- 
 ologists who thought that digestion began in 
 the stomach — is now known to have its 
 inception in the mouth. Saliva — once be- 
 lieved to be chiefly useful in rendering foods 
 soft and moist enough to pass easily down 
 the esophagus — is now known to be one of 
 the most powerful digestive juices secreted 
 by the body; and the act of mastication — 
 once thought to serve the somewhat insig- 
 nificant purpose of breaking up the food into 
 particles small enough to be swallowed — is 
 now known to perform a number of impor- 
 tant offices in the work of digestion. The 
 first of these is to accelerate the flow of 
 saliva and to increase its digestive power by 
 heightening its alkalinity. 
 
 This is of the very highest importance to 
 the digestion of the whole great class of 
 foodstuffs known as carbohydrates. While 
 the saliva has no appreciable chemical effect 
 upon the fats and proteids, it is capable of 
 practically completing the digestion of the 
 starches and sugars — if they are retained in 
 the mouth long enough and subjected to 
 
 64 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 sufficient mastication — before they are swal- 
 lowed into the stomach. 
 
 " Need we comment, in view of the natural 
 brevity of this process," says Prof. Chitten- 
 den, "upon the desirability for purely 
 physiological reasons of prolonging within 
 reasonable limits the interval of time the food 
 and saliva are commingled in the mouth 
 cavity? It seems obvious, in view of the re- 
 latively large bulk of starch-containing foods 
 consumed daily, that habits of thorough mas- 
 tication should be fostered, with the purpose 
 of increasing greatly the digestion of starch 
 at the very gateway of the alimentary tract. 
 It is true that in the small intestine there 
 comes later another opportunity for the 
 digestion of starch ; but it is unphysiological, 
 as it is undesirable, for various reasons, not 
 to take full advantage of the first oppor- 
 tunity which Nature gives for the prepara- 
 tion of this important foodstuff for future 
 utilization. Further, thorough mastication, 
 by a fine comminution of the food particles, 
 is a material aid in the digestion which is to 
 take place in the stomach and intestine. 
 
 65 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Under normal conditions, therefore, and 
 "with proper observance of physiological 
 good sense, a large proportion of the in- 
 gested starchy foods can be made ready for 
 speedy absorption and consequent utilization 
 through the agency of salivary digestion." 
 
 Dr. Harry Campbell 6 of the North- West 
 London Hospital says : 
 
 " The saliva has apparently no effect on 
 fats ; whether it acts on proteids seems more 
 doubtful, though by some authorities the 
 penetration of these by the alkali of this fluid 
 is said to aid in their subsequent digestion; 
 on starch, however, the saliva acts very 
 potently, and hence mastication plays a 
 special part in promoting the digestion of 
 starchy foods. Indeed, if only mastication 
 be persisted in long enough, starch may be 
 wholly converted into maltose (a form of 
 sugar) within the mouth. . . . Provided 
 they be sufficiently insalivated, there are few 
 starchy foods that are indigestible, not even 
 
 e Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," p. 23. 
 e Campbell: Lecture quoted in "The A. B. — Z. of Our 
 Own Nutrition," pp. 101-102. 
 
 66 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 excepting the proverbially indigestible new 
 potato." 
 
 The chief factors in the production of 
 salivary flow — aside from the mechanical 
 movements of chewing — are the thought, 
 taste, sight and smell of tempting food. 
 " The secretory center may be stimulated, 
 and likewise inhibited, in impulses which 
 have their origin in higher nerve centers in 
 the brain," says Professor Chittenden. . . • 
 " The thought and the odor of savory food 
 cause the mouth to water. Similarly fear, 
 embarrassment, and anxiety frequently cause 
 a dry mouth and parched throat. . . . The 
 application of these facts to our subject is 
 perfectly obvious, since they suggest at once 
 how the production of an important diges- 
 tive fluid — upon which the utilization of a 
 given class of foodstuffs may be quite de- 
 pendent — is controlled and modified through 
 the nervous system by a variety of circum- 
 stances. We might reason that the appear- 
 ance, odor, and palatability of food are 
 factors of prime importance in its utilization 
 by the body ; and that the aesthetics of eating 
 
 67 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 are not to be ignored since they have an im- 
 portant influence upon the flow of the diges- 
 tive secretions. A peaceful mind, pleasur- 
 able anticipations, freedom from care and 
 anxiety, cheerful companionship, all form 
 desirable table accessories which play the part 
 of true psychical stimuli in accelerating the 
 flow of the digestive juices and thus pave the 
 way for easy and thorough digestion." 7 
 
 In the stomach the saliva continues its 
 digestive activity until it is brought in con- 
 tact with the gastric juice. This fluid, being 
 an acid, promptly neutralizes the effect of 
 the alkaline saliva, and checks temporarily 
 the further digestion of the starchy foods. 
 Therefore it is easy to understand that, as 
 Dr. Harry Campbell 8 points out : 
 
 " Mastication increases the amount of 
 alkaline saliva passing into the stomach, and 
 this not only prolongs the period of starch 
 digestion within this organ, but, by its in- 
 fluence upon the reaction of the gastric con- 
 
 7 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 18-19. 
 s Campbell: Lecture quoted in "The A. B.— Z. of Our 
 Own Nutrition," p. 102. 
 
 68 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 tents, influences all the digestive processes 
 taking place there." 
 
 When the action of the saliva has been 
 ended, the gastric juice takes up the work 
 of digesting the fats and proteids. As in 
 the case of saliva, the scientists have been 
 finding out some new things in regard to this 
 fluid which have greatly modified their ideas 
 in regard to the whole subject of nutrition. 
 It was formerly thought that the secretion 
 of gastric juice was caused by the contact of 
 the food with the stomach walls. A short 
 time ago, however, Professor J. P. Pavlov, 
 director of the Department of Experimental 
 Physiology in the Russian Military School 
 of Medicine at St. Petersburg, by a series of 
 experiments upon dogs, established posi- 
 tively that the flow of gastric juice was 
 caused primarily, not by contact of the food 
 with the stomach-walls, but by a keen desire 
 for food and by the pleasure of eating it — 
 that is, by appetite and taste. 
 
 " Pavlov has clearly shown," says Profes- 
 sor Chittenden, "that the gastric juice is 
 started by impulses which have their origin 
 
 69 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 in the mouth and nostrils; the sensation of 
 eating, the smell, sight, and taste of food 
 serving as psychical stimuli, which call forth 
 a secretion from the stomach glands, just as 
 the same stimuli may induce an outpouring 
 of saliva. These sensations, as Pavlov has 
 asserted, affect secretory centers in the brain, 
 and impulses are thus started which travel 
 downward to the stomach through the vagus 
 nerves, and as a result gastric juice begins 
 to flow." 9 
 
 The first and mightiest exciter of the secre- 
 tory nerves of the stomach, therefore, is the 
 appetite. After appetite, the chief agent for 
 the production of gastric juice is a keen sense 
 of the pleasant taste of food. As the finer 
 degrees of appreciation can be achieved only 
 when food is finely divided, subjected to the 
 transforming action of saliva, and passed 
 slowly over the " taste-buds " in the mouth, 
 it can readily be seen that mastication plays 
 an important part in this process. 
 
 " The mere chewing of food," says Dr. 
 Daniel S. Sager, " is sufficient to cause an 
 
 ©Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 23-24. 
 70 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 abundant flow of gastric juice. The longer 
 the food is held in the mouth, the greater the 
 impression made on the nerves of taste. 
 Through these nerves the appetite center is 
 stimulated, and from this center are sent out 
 to the stomach powerful nervous impulses 
 which excite the glands to activity whereby 
 powerful appetite juice is produced. When 
 food is swallowed quickly, its various flavors 
 are little appreciated. The excitation pro- 
 duced is of no consequence, and the amount 
 of juice secreted will be very small; whereas 
 if the food is retained in the mouth and mas- 
 ticated until every particle of sapid sub- 
 stance is extracted from it, there is an abund- 
 ant flow of juice and the greatest good is 
 derived from it. When food is eaten in the 
 ordinary hasty manner, the taste is swal- 
 lowed with it, the palate is stimulated only 
 to a very moderate extent, very little appetite 
 juice is produced, and digestion fails in con- 
 sequence." 10 
 
 Dr. Harry Campbell says : " It is now 
 known that mastication acts reflexly upon 
 
 10 Sager: " The Art of Living in Good Health," pp. 23-24. 
 
 71 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 the stomach, promoting the flow of gastric 
 juice, and thus preparing the stomach for 
 the entrance of the food into it. Food intro- 
 duced into the stomach, unaccompanied by- 
 mastication, is less effective in promoting the 
 gastric flow. It is probable that the influ- 
 ence of mastication on the flow of gastric 
 juice is largely produced through the 
 medium of psychic influences, for the more 
 efficient the mastication, the more is the sense 
 of taste affected." " 
 
 As in the case of saliva, the gastric secre- 
 tions are stimulated by pleasure and checked 
 by distress. Through observations on ani- 
 mals by means of the Rontgen Ray, scien- 
 tists have been able actually to watch this law 
 at work. By mixing with the food a small 
 quantity of subnitrate of bismuth, a tasteless 
 and practically harmless substance which is 
 opaque to the Rontgen Ray, Dr. W. B. 
 Cannon, of the physiological laboratory of 
 the Harvard Medical School, showed by 
 ocular demonstration, that as long as the sub- 
 
 11 Campbell: Lecture quoted in "The A. B— Z. of Our 
 Own Nutrition," pp. 102-103. 
 
 72 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ject of the experiment, a female cat, was 
 kept happy and comfortable, the food passed 
 rapidly and rhythmically along the digestive 
 tract, but as soon as the cat was hurt or an- 
 noyed, the movements stopped short and the 
 food remained stationary until the cat was 
 once more made comfortable or restored to a 
 good humor. 12 
 
 As food is brought into proper condition 
 by the stomach, it is permitted to pass gradu- 
 ally into the small intestine where digestion 
 is completed and the absorption of the pre- 
 pared food material into the blood is begun. 
 
 " The intestine," says Professor Chitten- 
 den, " is a much more important part of the 
 alimentary tract " (than the stomach) ; " it 
 is likewise far more sensitive to changing 
 conditions than the stomach, and undoubt- 
 edly one function of the latter organ is to 
 protect the intestine and preserve it from in- 
 sult. The stomach may be compared to a 
 vestibule or reservoir, capable of receiving 
 without detriment moderately large amounts 
 
 12 See Lectures of Dr. W. B. Cannon: " The A. B.— Z. 
 
 of Our Own Nutrition," pp. 285-388. 
 
 73 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 of food, together with fluid, in different 
 forms and combinations, with the power to 
 hold them there until by action of the gastric 
 juice they are so transformed that their on- 
 ward passage into the intestine can be per- 
 mitted with perfect safety. Then, small por- 
 tions of the properly prepared material may 
 be discharged from time to time through the 
 pylorus without danger of overloading the 
 intestine, and in a form capable of under- 
 going rapid and complete digestion. Fur- 
 ther, the stomach as a reservoir is very useful 
 in bringing everything to a proper and con- 
 stant temperature before allowing its entry 
 into the intestine. . . . The great bulk of the 
 digested food material is absorbed from the 
 small intestine, and there are two pathways 
 open through which the absorbed material 
 can gain access to the blood. The one path 
 leads directly to the liver, and substances 
 taking this course, are exposed to the action 
 of this organ, before they enter into the gen- 
 eral circulation. The other path is through 
 the lacteal or lymphatic system, and con- 
 stitutes a roundabout way for substances to 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 enter the blood stream, since they must first 
 pass through the thoracic duct before enter- 
 ing the main circulation. As a general truth, 
 it may be stated that fats are absorbed 
 through the latter channel, while carbo- 
 hydrates and proteids follow the first path. 
 The innumerable blood capillaries in the villi 
 of the intestine take up the products result- 
 ing from the digestion of proteids and carbo- 
 hydrates, through which they are passed into 
 the portal vein, and thereby distributed 
 throughout the liver. This means that both 
 carbohydrates and proteids — or their decom- 
 position products — are exposed to a variety 
 of possible changes in this large glandular 
 organ, before they can enter into the tissues 
 of the body." 13 
 
 The residue of the food material that 
 reaches the large intestine is made up chiefly 
 of waste-products, which are more or less 
 a source of danger to the body, since, before 
 being excreted, they are attacked by bacteria 
 and broken down by the process of putrefac- 
 tion into poisonous or " toxic " substances. 
 
 13 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 30-45. 
 
 75 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 These substances, passing into the blood and 
 lymph through the walls of the intestine, are 
 distributed throughout the entire system, 
 where they give rise to the condition known 
 as " auto-intoxication " or self -poisoning. 
 Scientists nowadays are giving a great deal 
 of attention to this phenomenon. Elie Met- 
 chnikoff, of the Pasteur Institute at Paris, 
 has actually suggested the possible advan- 
 tage of removing some eighteen feet of the 
 intestine by surgical operation to save the 
 body from the evil effects of the decompos- 
 ing waste products stored in its convoluted 
 folds; or, since this seems hardly a practical 
 measure, the drinking of sour milk, which, it 
 seems, is endowed with certain properties 
 that are capable of killing off the intestinal 
 bacteria. 14 Physicians, recognizing the 
 truth of Metchnikoff 's claims for sour milk, 
 but knowing also that they could never get 
 their patients to adopt it as an article of diet, 
 have learned how to take the bacteria-killing 
 principle out of the milk and put it into cap- 
 
 i* Elie Metchnikoff : " The Nature of Man," p. 70. G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons, New York. 
 
 76 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 sules, that can be administered as medicine. 
 The leaders of modern medicine and modern 
 physiology alike seem to be impressed with 
 the dangers to the body arising from the 
 waste products in the lower intestines and 
 with the necessity of finding some means of 
 doing away with these dangers. 
 
 After having been digested and absorbed, 
 food must be " metabolized " — that is to say, 
 built up into living tissue or broken down 
 into excretory products with liberation of 
 heat and energy. 
 
 The digested food material, after having 
 been absorbed into the blood and lymph, is 
 circulated throughout the entire body. As 
 it passes along, the tissues seize upon what- 
 ever they need of proteid, carbohydrates or 
 fats — and proceed to build it up into living 
 tissue. However, even after the tissues have 
 taken up all the materials they need both 
 for repairs and for growth, a certain amount 
 of food material is still left floating about 
 in the blood and lymph. This material com- 
 ing into contact with the oxygen furnished 
 to the blood by the lungs, is " oxydized " — 
 
 77 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 that is to say it is literally burned up, and as 
 it burns it gives off the heat and energy 
 that result from any form of combustion. 
 
 The first of these processes is known as 
 " anabolism," or building up, and the sec- 
 ond as " katabolism," or breaking down; but 
 they are both comprehended under the 
 broad term "metabolism " — which is applied 
 to all the chemical changes that take place 
 in living tissue. 
 
 During this process certain decomposi- 
 tion products are formed which must be ex- 
 creted through the lungs, skin or kidneys or 
 they become a menace to the well-being of 
 the organism. Professor Chittenden says, 
 " v The human body is a maelstrom of chemi- 
 cal changes; chemical decompositions are 
 taking place continuously at the expense of 
 the proteids, fats and carbohydrates of the 
 tissues and of the food, the stored-up energy 
 of these organic compounds being thereby 
 transformed into the active, or kinetic, 
 forms of heat and motion; while carbon 
 dioxide, water, urea and some few other 
 nitrogenous substances are being continu- 
 
 78 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ally formed as the normal waste products 
 of these tissue changes, and constantly or 
 intermittently excreted. In other words, 
 the body is in a perpetual condition of chem- 
 ical oscillation, constantly consuming its 
 own substance, rejecting the waste products 
 which result, and giving off energy in the 
 several forms characteristic of living 
 beings." 15 
 
 It is therefore of the highest importance 
 that the body should maintain an even bal- 
 ance between its income and its outgo. If 
 it continually pays out more than it takes 
 in, its stores become exhausted and it starves. 
 If, on the other hand, it takes in more than 
 it gives out, the excess of food material is 
 deposited in the tissues as cumbersome fat, 
 or else the whole bodily organism is whipped 
 up to abnormal exertions to get the over- 
 supply out of the way. In either event, the 
 body suffers — from overfeeding even more 
 than from underfeeding. 
 
 " It is self -evident," says Professor Chit- 
 tenden, "that the smallest amount of food 
 
 is Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 77-78. 
 79 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 that will serve to keep the body in a state of 
 high efficiency is physiologically the most 
 economical and hence the best adapted to 
 the needs of the organism." 16 
 
 For many years the dietary standard of 
 Carl Voit, the famous Munich physiologist, 
 has been accepted as giving the minimum 
 food requirements for a healthy man. This 
 standard calls for 118 grams or 4 ounces of 
 proteid, 56 grams or two ounces of fat, and 
 500 grams or 16f ounces of carbohydrates 
 with a total fuel value of 3,055 large calo- 
 ries 17 daily for a man doing moderate work. 
 For a man doing hard work, the daily re- 
 quirement is increased to 145 grams or 4§i 
 ounces of proteid, 160 grams or 5 J ounces 
 of fat, and 450 grams or 15 ounces of car- 
 bohydrates with a fuel value of 3,370 large 
 calories. 
 
 A more recent investigator, Professor W, 
 O. Atwater, places the daily requirement 
 for proteid at 125 grams or 4<t ounces, with 
 
 i6 Chittenden: "Physiological Economy in Nutrition," 
 p. 8. 
 
 17 Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," pp. 98-99. 
 
 80 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 sufficient fats and carbohydrates to give a 
 total fuel value of 3,500 large calories for 
 a man doing moderate work; while for a 
 man at hard work he increases the daily diet 
 to 150 grams or 5 ounces of proteid, with 
 fats and carbohydrates to yield a total fuel 
 value of 4,500 large calories. 
 
 Through his experiments Professor Chit- 
 tenden has shown conclusively that mental 
 and bodily vigor are maintained and even 
 tend to be greatly increased on a much 
 smaller quantity of all classes of foods, but 
 of proteid foods in particular, than are 
 called for by these standards. Further- 
 more, he has shown that not only is there no 
 advantage in the consumption of these 
 quantities of food, but that their presence in 
 the body may be directly injurious. 
 
 In the first place, Professor Chittenden's 
 experiments indicate that, contrary to gen- 
 eral opinion, the body cannot lay up flesh — 
 that is, lean meat — by the consumption of 
 large quantities of proteid. " It is generally 
 considered as a settled fact," he says, " that 
 in man it is impossible to accomplish any 
 
 81 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 large permanent storing or deposition of 
 flesh by overfeeding. Similarly, it is under- 
 stood, that the muscular strength of man 
 cannot be greatly increased by an excessive 
 intake of food. The only conditions under 
 which there is ordinarily any marked and 
 permanent flesh deposition are such as are 
 connected with the regenerative energy of 
 living cells. Thus, as van Noorden has 
 stated, an accumulation or storing of tissue 
 proteid is seen especially in the growing 
 body, where new cells are being rapidly con- 
 structed ; also in the adult where growth may 
 have ceased, but where increased muscular 
 work has resulted in an hypertrophy or en- 
 largement of the muscular tissue ; and lastly 
 in those cases where, owing to previous in- 
 sufficient food or to the wasting away of the 
 body, incidental to disease, the proteid con- 
 tent of the tissues has been more or less di- 
 minished, and consequently an abundance of 
 proteid food is called for and duly utilized 
 to make good the loss." 18 
 
 The experiments seem to prove conclu- 
 
 i« Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," p. 131. 
 82 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 sively that the intake and outgo of nitrogen 
 — the important element of proteid — tend 
 to run in exactly parallel lines — that is to 
 say, that " increase of proteid income is fol- 
 lowed at once by an increase in the metabol- 
 ism of proteid with a corresponding outgo 
 of nitrogen." 19 
 
 "A meal rich in proteid leads at once — 
 within a few hours," — he says, " to an excre- 
 tion of urea equivalent to full 50 per cent, 
 of the nitrogen of the ingested proteid, 
 while a few hours later finds practically all 
 the nitrogen of the intake eliminated from 
 the body. Further, it is to be remembered 
 that in a general way this occurs no matter 
 what the condition of the body may be at 
 the time and no matter how large or small 
 the amount of proteid consumed. In other 
 words, there is practically no appreciable 
 storing of nitrogen or proteid for future 
 needs, — at least none that is proportional to 
 the increase in nitrogen intake, even though 
 the body be in a condition approximating to 
 nitrogen starvation." 
 
 19 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," p. 151. 
 83 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Therefore all but the very small quantity 
 of proteid food that is required by the tis- 
 sues for development or repairs, is left float- 
 ing in the blood along with the other food 
 material which is to be oxidized for the fur- 
 nishing of heat and energy. Professor 
 Chittenden questions whether this can be 
 regarded as an advantage. " We all recog- 
 nize that an excessive accumulation of fat 
 is distinctly disadvantageous to the welfare 
 of the body," he says, " and there is, physi- 
 ologically speaking, equally good ground 
 for considering that the storage of unorgan- 
 ized proteid in amounts beyond all possible 
 requirements of the body may be equally 
 undesirable. Because less tangible to the 
 eye, the accumulation of unnecessary proteid 
 is not so easily recognizable, but this fact 
 does not diminish the possible danger which 
 such accumulation may constitute." 20 
 
 Formerly it was thought that the combus- 
 tion of proteid matter in the blood was the 
 main source of energy for muscle work, but 
 it is now known that while proteid matter is 
 
 20 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," p. 131. 
 84 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 capable of yielding a certain amount of heat 
 and energy in oxidation, it is inferior for 
 this purpose to the fats and carbohydrates, 
 and also that proteid, in burning, yields cer- 
 tain deleterious products which may be a 
 serious evil to the body and which throws 
 upon the liver and kidneys an amount of 
 unnecessary labor that is likely to weaken 
 and throw them open to the attacks of 
 disease. 
 
 "Therefore," says Professor Chittenden, 
 " in the nourishment of the body for vigor- 
 ous muscular work, there is reason in a diet 
 which shall provide an abundance of carbo- 
 hydrate and fat ; proteid being added thereto 
 only in amounts sufficient to meet the or- 
 dinary requirements of the body for nitro- 
 gen and to furnish, it may be, proper 
 pabulum for the development of fresh mus- 
 cle fibres, where, as in training, effort is 
 being made to strengthen the muscle tissue 
 and so enable it to do more work. Increase 
 in proteid food may help to make new tissue, 
 but the source of the energy of muscle work 
 is to be found mainly in the breaking down 
 
 85 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 of the non-nitrogenous materials, carbo- 
 hydrate and fat." 21 
 
 Furthermore, Professor Chittenden also 
 points out that proteid decomposition prod- 
 ucts are a constant menace to the well-being 
 of the body. "Proteid foods," he says, 
 "when oxidized, yield a row of crystalline 
 nitrogenous products which ultimately pass 
 out of the body through the kidneys. Prior 
 to their excretion, however, these products 
 — frequently spoken of as toxins — float 
 about through the body and may exercise 
 more or less of a deleterious influence upon 
 the system, or, being temporarily deposited, 
 may exert some specific or local influence 
 that calls for their speedy removal. Hence, 
 the importance of restricting the production 
 of these bodies to the minimal amount, ow- 
 ing to their possible physiological effect and 
 the part they are liable to play in the causa- 
 tion of many diseased conditions. Further, 
 the elimination of excessive amounts of 
 these crystalline nitrogenous bodies through 
 
 21 Chittenden: "Physiological Economy in Nutrition," pp. 
 16-17. 
 
 86 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 the kidneys places upon these organs an un- 
 necessary burden which is liable to endanger 
 their integrity and possibly result in serious 
 injury, to say nothing of an early impair- 
 ment of function. 22 
 
 " Gastro-intestinal disturbance, indiges- 
 tion, intestinal toxaemia, liver troubles, bil- 
 ious attacks, gout, rheumatism, to say noth- 
 ing of many other ailments, some more and 
 some less serious, are associated with the 
 habitual overeating of proteid food." 23 
 
 " The minimal proteid requirement of the 
 healthy man under ordinary conditions of 
 life is far below the generally accepted di- 
 etary standards, and far below the amount 
 called for by the acquired taste of the gen- 
 erality of mankind," is Professor Chitten- 
 den's conclusion. "Expressed in different 
 language, the amount of proteid or albumi- 
 nous food needed daily for the actual physi- 
 ological wants of the body is not more than 
 one-half that ordinarily consumed by the 
 
 22 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," p. 269. 
 
 23 Chittenden: " Physiological Economy in Nutrition," p. 
 475. 
 
 87 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 average man. Body- weight (when once ad- 
 justed to the new level), health, strength, 
 mental and physical vigor, and endurance 
 can be maintained with at least one-half of 
 the proteid food ordinarily consumed; a 
 kind of physiological economy which, if 
 once entered upon intelligently, entails no 
 hardship, but brings with it an actual bet- 
 terment of the physical condition of the 
 body. It holds out the promise of greater 
 physical strength, increasing endurance, 
 greater freedom from fatigue, and a condi- 
 tion of well-being that is full of suggestion 
 for the betterment of health." 24 
 
 For a man of average weight, Professor 
 Chittenden declares that 60 grams or two 
 ounces of proteid food a day are ample to 
 meet all the needs of the body. A larger 
 man requires somewhat more, since it is ob- 
 vious that he has more proteid tissue to 
 nourish. 
 
 " The long-continued experiments on 
 many individuals, representing different de- 
 grees of activity," says Professor Chitten- 
 
 24 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 227-228. 
 88 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 den, " all agree in indicating that equilibrium 
 can be maintained indefinitely on these 
 smaller quantities of food, and that health 
 and strength can be equally well-preserved, 
 to say nothing of possible improvement. 
 The lifelong experience of individuals and 
 of communities affords sufficient corrobora- 
 tive evidence that there is perfect safety in 
 a closer adherence to physiological needs in 
 the nutrition of the body, and that these 
 needs, so far as proteid food is concerned, 
 are in harmony with the theory of an en- 
 dogenous metabolism, or true tissue metabol- 
 ism, in which the necessary proteid exchange 
 is exceedingly limited in quantity. There 
 are many suggestions of improvement in 
 bodily health, of greater efficiency in work- 
 ing power, and of greater freedom from 
 disease, in a system of dietetics which aims 
 to meet the physiological needs of the body 
 without undue waste of energy and unneces- 
 sary drain upon the functions of digestion, 
 absorption, excretion, and metabolism in 
 general; a system which recognizes that the 
 smooth running of man's bodily machinery 
 
 89 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 calls for the exercise of reason and intelli- 
 gence, and is not to be intrusted solely to 
 the dictates of blind instinct or to the lead- 
 ings of a capricious appetite." 25 
 
 These facts — particularly the ones which 
 represent the most recent discoveries in the 
 physiology of nutrition — would seem to con- 
 stitute a sound scientific basis for the the- 
 ories of the layman, Mr. Horace Fletcher. 
 If it is true — and there seems to be no longer 
 any dispute about it — that the starches and 
 sugars are capable of being almost wholly 
 digested by the action of the saliva alone, it 
 is clear that the degree in which these foods 
 can be utilized by the body must be in pro- 
 portion to the mouth-treatment they receive. 
 
 In his insistence upon the importance of 
 appetite and taste, Mr. Fletcher seems only 
 to have forestalled the scientists. Before 
 Professor Pavlov was awarded the Nobel 
 Prize for discovering that primarily it was 
 the appetite for and the taste of food that 
 caused the secretion of gastric juice in the 
 stomach, Mr. Fletcher was being laughed at 
 
 25 Fletcher : " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 144-145. 
 
 90 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 for his appeals to his f ellowmen not to eat 
 until they were hungry and not to swallow 
 their food until they had extracted every 
 vestige of taste from it. To-day all up-to- 
 date physicians and physiologists recognize 
 the fact that the thoroughness with which 
 normal digestion is effected depends pri- 
 marily upon the keenness of the desire for 
 food, and the zest with which it is eaten. 
 While the fact that sick people without ap- 
 petites and lunatics with insane fears of 
 food can be kept alive by forced feeding in- 
 dicates that the mere presence of food in 
 the stomach will cause enough gastric secre- 
 tion to insure some sort of digestion, it does 
 not affect the argument that the secretion 
 necessary to perfect digestion is secured only 
 through the operation of appetite and taste. 
 Dogs whose stomachs have been removed 
 have been known to live and even flourish, 
 but no sane person would conclude from this 
 fact that he could get along just as well 
 without a stomach as with one. 
 
 When Mr. Fletcher launched his dictum: 
 " Never eat when you are mad or sad ; only 
 
 91 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 when you are glad," he was unknowingly 
 applying the scientific truth, proved by Dr. 
 Cannon through the Rontgen Ray experi- 
 ments previously alluded to, that pleasure 
 accelerates and distress inhibits all the diges- 
 tive secretions. 
 
 The observations and experiments upon 
 Mr. Fletcher have given convincing demon- 
 tration that his method of eating produces 
 naturally the aseptic condition in the lower 
 intestines which the physicians and physi- 
 ologists have been trying to effect by artifi- 
 cial means. His excretions, when analyzed, 
 were found to be made up of an inoffensive 
 deposit of dry cellulose and other unabsorb- 
 able matter, that was absolutely free from 
 the slightest trace of bacterial decomposi- 
 tion, and that was collected in the lower in- 
 testines so slowly and in such extremely 
 small quantities as to require release only 
 once in every eight or ten days. 
 
 " One of the most noticeable and signifi- 
 cant results of economic nutrition gained 
 through careful attention to the mouth- 
 treatment of food, or buccal-digestion, is," 
 
 92 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 says Mr. Fletcher, "not only the small 
 quantity of waste framed, but its inoffen- 
 -siveness. Under best test-conditions the 
 ashes of economic digestion have been re- 
 duced to one -tenth of the average given as 
 normal in the latest text-books on physi- 
 ology. The economic digestion-ash forms 
 in pillular shape, and when released these are 
 massed together, having become so bunched 
 by considerable retention in the rectum. 
 There is no stench, no evidence of putrid 
 bacterial decomposition, only the odour of 
 warmth, like warm earth. Test examples of 
 excreta, kept for more than five years, re- 
 main inoffensive, dry up, gradually disin- 
 tegrate and are lost." 26 
 
 Last, and by no means least, as has been 
 pointed out before, Mr. Fletcher's practice 
 seems to have furnished a natural and auto- 
 matic method for reducing the amounts of 
 food demanded by the appetite — particu- 
 larly proteid food — to amounts which Pro- 
 fessor Chittenden has shown to be in accord 
 with true physiological needs. 
 
 26 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 176-177. 
 
 9S 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Topics: The principles of Mr. Fletcher's theories. 
 Appetite, true and false. Taste, the guardian of 
 the digestive tract. Nature's Food Filter. The Art 
 of Mastication. Inutility of Gladstone's rule. In- 
 hibitive effect of excess of attention. Influence of 
 the mental and emotional state. Objections to the 
 system considered. Results. Testimony of the 
 rejuvenated. 
 
 ALTHOUGH Professor Chittenden has 
 -*^ shown that restriction of diet through 
 the use of the reason alone is productive of 
 great good to the human organism, the 
 author's belief is that the easiest, surest, and 
 simplest method of reaping all the benefits 
 of the new discoveries in dietetics is through 
 the practice of Fletcherism. The average 
 man cannot work out a physiologic ration 
 for himself, nor is it wholly desirable that he 
 should attempt to do so. Although there is 
 not as yet sufficient proof to satisfy physi- 
 ologists, from a strictly scientific point of 
 view, it does seem that a healthy, normal 
 
 94 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 appetite is practically the surest guide to a 
 properly balanced diet. Perhaps the most 
 valuable feature of Mr. Fletcher's theories is 
 the fact that it restores even diseased ap- 
 petites to a healthy and normal state. The 
 experiments upon Mr. Fletcher and Dr. Van 
 Someren, and the testimony of many persons 
 who have adopted the new plan of diet, 
 indicate that the practice of prolonged mas- 
 tication automatically reduces the food de- 
 manded by the appetite to the quantities and 
 proportions which Professor Chittenden has 
 shown to be in harmony with the real needs 
 of the body. 
 
 The first rule for the practice of Mr. 
 Fletcher's theories is, therefore, to wait for 
 an appetite before eating, and to make sure 
 that it is a real and not a false one. 
 
 There is a vast difference between these 
 two things. Normal appetite is manifested 
 in a specific physical sensation, described 
 literally by the old-fashioned phrase " a 
 watering of the mouth." It asserts itself 
 only when the body is in actual need of fuel, 
 or material for growth or repairs. False ap- 
 
 95 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 petite, on the other hand, is expressed in a 
 general feeling of restlessness — often quite 
 as much of the mind as of the body ; or in a 
 sense of actual discomfort, described vari- 
 ously as emptiness, faintness, dizziness, all- 
 goneness, etc. 1 
 
 None of these sensations is an indication 
 of a real need of the body for food. The 
 restless craving is due merely to habit — 
 the fact that the body has been accustomed to 
 receiving certain quantities of food at cer- 
 tain hours — and if food is not available, it 
 soon passes away and does not reappear 
 again until the next meal-time; while all pos- 
 
 i " Study Normal Appetite and heed its invitation. It 
 prescribes wisely. Its mark of distinction, to differentiate 
 it from False Appetite, is * watering of the mouth ' for 
 some particular thing." — Fletcher: " The New Glutton or 
 Epicure" p. 107. 
 
 False Appetite is a general discontent of the body, in- 
 definite of description. It is often expressed by " allgone- 
 ness," or stomach craving, and calls for something, ant- 
 thing! to smother the discomfort of present or recent 
 indigestion. It is like the thirst which follows a debauch. 
 
 " Ignore false appetite, and wait for a return of normal 
 appetite. It will come as soon as body repairs have been 
 effected by natural agencies and more material is required. 
 No one was ever injured by intelligently and calmly waiting 
 for an appetite. No one ever starved to death for lack of 
 
 96 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 itively disagreeable sensations arise from un- 
 healthy conditions somewhere in the diges- 
 tive tract. Persons who complain of a sense 
 of emptiness in the stomach are suffering, 
 not from lack of food, but from habitual 
 overeating. Their stomachs have become dis- 
 tended to accommodate abnormal quantities ; 
 and, therefore, as soon as the food passes 
 out into the intestines, the walls of the 
 stomach collapse and give rise to the un- 
 pleasant sensations that are usually inter- 
 preted as a need for another meal. 
 
 appetite. Most human ills come from forcing appetite, 
 anticipating appetite, abuse of appetite in some form. 
 
 " In its normal state, appetite is a perfect indicator of 
 the bodily need of nutriment and moisture. Both as to 
 quality and as to the chemical elements required at the 
 moment."— Fletcher: " The A. B.—Z. of Our Own Nutri- 
 tion," p. 6. 
 
 " Appetite craves the kind of nourishment the body 
 needs, invites to eating, gives enjoyment during the whole 
 time needed for the fluids of the mouth and the stomach to 
 do their part of the digestive process ... If consulted 
 and obeyed, Taste and Appetite prevent indigestible matter 
 from entering the system to burden and clog the lower in- 
 testines, form deposits in bone, cartilage, and kidneys, 
 inflame the tissues, and otherwise create conditions favora- 
 ble to the propagation of the microbes of disease." — 
 Fletcher: " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 152-153. 
 
 97 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 The perfectly healthy person is indiffer- 
 ent to the thought of food except at such 
 times as the organism sends in a sharp and 
 unmistakable demand for fuel, for material 
 for growth or repairs. As has been said, this 
 demand should be expressed, not by the 
 stomach, but by the mouth, and should take 
 the form of a keen desire for some particular 
 article of food. 
 
 As far as possible a call of this kind 
 should always be heeded, because it means, 
 according to Mr. Fletcher, that the organism 
 is in actual need of some element contained 
 in the food desired. When the appetite is 
 not absolutely diseased, the wisest as well as 
 the pleasantest course is to eat what one likes 
 and as much as one likes. 
 
 Here someone is sure to protest that when- 
 ever instinct alone is followed in the matter 
 of food, it always has led and always will 
 lead to gluttony. In support of their argu- 
 ment, they instance the case of the horse 
 when he gets into the oat-bin or the cow when 
 she gets into the meal-barrel; or, turning to 
 history, they point out that the dietary habits 
 
 98 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 of man himself, in all ages and among all 
 races, have been far from temperate. 
 
 It seems as if there were a certain justifica- 
 tion for this belief. It is undoubtedly true 
 that gluttony has never been confined to the 
 beasts. In Taine's " History of English 
 Literature," for instance, we find the follow- 
 ing vivid picture of the voraciousness of our 
 own ancestors, the Saxons: 
 
 " Huge, white bodies, cool-blooded, with 
 fierce blue eyes, reddish flaxen hair ; ravenous 
 stomachs, filled with meat and cheese, heated 
 by strong drinks; of a cold temperament, 
 slow to love, homestayers, prone to brutal 
 drunkenness. . . . 
 
 ' They are more gluttonous, carving their 
 hogs, filling themselves with flesh, swallow- 
 ing down deep draughts of mead, ale, spiced 
 wines, all the strong coarse drinks which they 
 can procure, and so they are cheered and 
 stimulated. . . . 
 
 " The ancient historians tell us that they 
 had a great and coarse appetite. . . . Henry 
 of Huntingdon, in the twelfth century, 
 lamenting the ancient hospitality, says that 
 
 99 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 the Norman kings provided their courtiers 
 with only one meal a day, while the Saxon 
 kings provided four. To shout, to drink, 
 to caper about, to feel their veins heated and 
 swollen with wine, to hear and see around 
 them the riot of the orgy, this was the first 
 need of the barbarians. The heavy human 
 brute gluts himself with sensations and with 
 noises." 2 
 
 But after all, is it the workings of natural 
 appetite that we see pictured here? Is it not 
 rather greed — man's passionate desire to 
 get, reinforced by his love of pleasure — 
 manifesting itself in a wild celebration of 
 its emancipation from the checks originally 
 imposed upon it by nature? 
 
 It must be remembered that food was 
 available to primitive man only in an ex- 
 tremely inacessible form, or at the expense 
 of hard work. The berries, nuts, roots, 
 grains, and saps upon which he was forced 
 to subsist for long periods of time Were 
 often scarce, and furthermore, the nutri- 
 
 2 H. A. Taine: " History of English Literature." Henry- 
 Holt and Company, New York. 
 
 100 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ment had to be extracted from them by 
 means of a jaw treatment before which even 
 a Fletcherite would quail. Animal food was 
 even more difficult to obtain because of the 
 inadequacy of the primitive weapons of the 
 chase. The primitive man was restrained 
 perforce from eating before the physical 
 sensation of appetite had asserted itself, be- 
 cause, in the case of vegetable food, he never 
 could get enough, and in the case of animal 
 food, a feast was won only at the expense of 
 exertion that in itself was sufficient to create 
 an appetite. The perpetual scarcity of food 
 implanted in the race those powerful im- 
 pulses to eat as much as possible that we see 
 surviving to-day in civilized man. When 
 man's increasing power over nature gave 
 him access to increasingly large quantities 
 of food, it was inevitable that this old in- 
 stinct, born of the time when he could never 
 get enough and nourished by his desire for 
 pleasure, should assert itself and lead him 
 into excess. 
 
 However, the unbridled gratification of 
 this impulse brought its own punishment. 
 
 101 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Centuries of excess in eating imposed upon 
 mankind, not only disease and premature old 
 age, but the curse of satiety. When man 
 fell into the practice of eating for pleasure 
 alone, he found that his pleasure was gone. 
 Now, therefore, he is beginning to learn that 
 he can win back the old primitive delight in 
 eating only by waiting for the old physical 
 need for food. For the natural checks im- 
 posed upon the savage, he is beginning to 
 substitute the checks of reason and intelli- 
 gence. He has realized at last that he must 
 ignore the promptings of greed and direct 
 his attention solely to satisfying the physical 
 sensations of true appetite. In doing this 
 he has developed a new instinct, which, for 
 want of a better name, may be called the in- 
 stinct for physiological economy, since it 
 manifests itself in a keen desire to save the 
 body from the labor of taking care of un- 
 necessary quantities of food. 
 
 In acquiring this instinct he has been 
 helped greatly by the sense of taste. As 
 natural appetite is man's surest guide as to 
 when to eat, taste is his guide as to what and 
 
 102 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 how much to eat. Taste, asserts Mr. 
 Fletcher, is the infallible sign by which we 
 may know that the body needs and can use 
 the food we are sending into it. When food 
 has no taste the body does not need it and 
 cannot use it. When food tastes bad, it 
 is bad. 
 , "There is now no doubt," says Mr, 
 Fletcher, "but that taste is evidence of a 
 chemical process going on that should not 
 be interrupted or transferred to the interior 
 of the body. 
 
 " Taste is evidence of nutrition. 
 
 "Whatever does not taste, such as glass 
 or stone, is not nutritious. 
 
 "" Taste is excited by the dissolving of 
 food in the mouth, and while it lasts a neces- 
 sary process of preparation for digestion is 
 going on. 
 
 " The juices of the mouth have the power 
 to transform any food that excites taste into 
 a substance suitable for the body. 
 
 . "Nothing that is tasteless, except water> 
 should be taken into the stomach. 
 
 " If we swallow only the food which ex- 
 
 103 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 cites the appetite and is pleasing to the sense 
 of taste, and swallow it only after the taste 
 has been extracted from it, removing from 
 the mouth the tasteless residue, complete 
 and easy digestion will be assured and per- 
 fect health maintained. 3 
 
 " Taste," he adds, " is the faithful servant 
 of appetite; the sentinel of the stomach, of 
 the intestines, of the tissues and of the brain, 
 whose guidance and warning, if heeded, will 
 give heretofore unknown enjoyment of eat- 
 ing, and at the same time perfect health and 
 a maximum of strength. 4 
 
 " How many men," asks Mr. Fletcher, 
 " can honestly say that they taste their food? 
 As a matter of fact, they taste the sauce and 
 bolt their meat; they taste the butter and 
 swallow their bread whole; they taste the 
 sugar and their pie goes down at a gulp ; as 
 for liquids, it may be safety said that the 
 average man never achieves so much as a 
 speaking acquaintance with his drinks — his 
 coffee, his tea, his high-balls, his cocktails, 
 
 3 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 109-110. 
 * Fletcher: " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 152. 
 
 104 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 his wine and his beer. If he did — and this is 
 no theory, but a well-authenticated fact — 
 he would have no such thing as a tea or 
 coffee habit, and he not only never would 
 be, but never could be a drunkard. In order 
 to give the monitor of the mouth a chance to 
 do its work, the solid foods must be divided 
 into small particles by the teeth, and botK 
 solids and liquids must pass slowly and in 
 small quantities over the taste-buds on the 
 tongue and both must be thoroughly satur- 
 ated with saliva. This means mastication — ■ 
 not the ' thorough chewing ' of parental com- 
 mand and medical advice — but mastication 
 to a point of such completeness that the food 
 is literally tasted out of existence and taken 
 into the stomach by an involuntary swallow- 
 ing impulse." 5 
 
 According to Mr. Fletcher's theories, if a 
 man follows this practice — not with rigid 
 conscientiousness, but with zest and enjoy- 
 ment — he need never go to a doctor to find 
 out what is "good for him" to eat. Any- 
 
 s Frances Maule Bjorkman: The Scrap Book, New York, 
 November, 1907. 
 
 105 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 thing that tastes good is good. If he pays 
 attention to the physical sensations in his 
 mouth and retains every morsel of food as 
 long as it continues to minister to these sen- 
 sations, he can never eat anything that is 
 bad for him, never overeat and, if he treats 
 liquids in the same way, he can never over- 
 drink. 
 
 In fact, Mr. Fletcher contends that in 
 time he will develop in his throat a contriv- 
 ance that will throw back into his mouth any- 
 thing he attempts to swallow that has not 
 first been made perfectly acceptable to the 
 body by thorough mastication. Mr. Fletcher 
 has given to this contrivance the picturesque 
 and suggestive name of " Nature's Food 
 Filter." Dr. Van Someren describes its 
 workings as follows: 
 
 " Food, as it is masticated, slowly passes 
 to the back of the mouth, and collects in the 
 glosso-epiglottidean folds, where it remains 
 in contact with the mucous membrane con- 
 taining the sensory end-organs of taste. If 
 it be properly reduced by the saliva it is 
 allowed to pass the faucet — a truly involun- 
 
 106 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 tary act of deglutition occurring. Let the 
 food, however, be too rapidly passed back 
 to these folds, i. e., before complete reduc- 
 tion takes place, and the reflex muscular 
 movement above referred to occurs . . . 
 The late contents of the glosso-epiglottidean 
 folds are returned to the front of the mouth 
 for further reduction by the saliva prepara- 
 tory to deglutition." 6 
 
 " The Food Filter, when rightly perform- 
 ing its protective function, is impervious to 
 anything except pure water at the right tem- 
 perature for admission to the stomach and 
 to nutriment which has been properly dis- 
 solved and chemically converted by saliva- 
 tion (mixture with saliva) into a substance 
 suitable for further digestion." 7 
 
 The tasteless residue that is rejected by 
 the Food Filter is invariably composed of 
 matter that is unprofitable if not actually in- 
 jurious to the body, and should therefore, 
 be rejected. To the objection that it is im- 
 possible to remove this residue from the 
 
 6 Fletcher: "A. B— Z. of Our Own Nutrition," pp. 32-33. 
 
 7 Fletcher: " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 110-111. 
 
 107 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 mouth without violating the canons of good 
 form, Mr. Fletcher replies : 
 
 "Do you not remove cherry pits, grape 
 skins, the shell of lobster, bone, etc., when 
 you encounter them? Then why not remove 
 the fibrous matter found in tough, lean meat, 
 the woody fibre of vegetables, or anything 
 rejected by instinctive desire to discard it 
 after taste has been exhausted, and which is 
 a protection provided by beneficent Na- 
 ture? ... If fibre is found in the food, 
 it can be put upon the fork in the same man- 
 ner that a cherry pit is usually handled and 
 transferred to the plate without obser- 
 vation. 
 
 " There is nothing more pronounced than 
 . . . the impulsive desire to spit out of the 
 mouth anything that seems unprofitable to 
 the senses. 
 
 " Muscles have been provided for this pur- 
 pose that are more facile than those of an 
 elephant's proboscis . . .If you acquire 
 the habit of practicing only involuntary 
 swallowing in eating you will find that these 
 muscles are very discriminating, and will in- 
 
 108 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 stinctively assist in the rejection of unprofit- 
 able matter. 
 
 " Their sense of touch will soon discrimin- 
 ate against unprofitable food even when the 
 sense of taste is fooled by some alluring 
 sauce or condiment." 8 
 
 "When food is filtered into the body 
 after having become liquefied and made al- 
 kaline, or at least neutral, by saliva," con- 
 tinues Mr. Fletcher, " the appetite is given 
 a chance to measure the need of the body 
 and to discriminate against excess. As soon 
 as the point of complete saturation of any 
 one deficiency is reached, the appetite is cut 
 off, as short as possible to imagine, with no 
 indication of stomach fullness. 
 
 " The appetite satisfied by the infiltering 
 process is a sweetly appeased appetite, calm, 
 rested, contented, normal. There is no 
 danger from the flooding of intemperance, 
 for there is not even toleration of excess 
 either of more food, or more drink, and this 
 contented appetite will remain in the condi- 
 tion of contentment until another need has 
 
 a Fletcher: " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 117-123. 
 
 109 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 really been earned by evaporation or destruc- 
 tive katabolism." 9 
 
 " The normal sensitiveness of taste can be 
 recovered," he declares, " if already lost, in 
 the course of a week, or two weeks at most, 
 by means of the stimulating and regenerat- 
 ing influence of natural body repair, if the 
 method of taste and appetite cultivation re- 
 commended in this book is followed." 10 
 
 As Professor Irving Fisher has said, " It 
 is fortunate for the ordinary man that the 
 taste instinct can be so easily revived, for it 
 would be out of his power to prescribe for 
 himself each day the exact quantity of food 
 necessary for that day's work — the proper 
 proportions of proteid, fat, starch and sugar, 
 and the amounts needed of the fifteen odd 
 mineral salts, to say nothing of acids and 
 enzymes, for each of which only one definite 
 amount is ideally correct. 
 
 " The loss of the delicate food instinct in 
 the ordinary man has been aggravated not 
 only by the habit of food bolting, but the 
 
 » Fletcher: "A". B— Z. of Our Own Nutrition," p. 95. 
 10 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," p. 153. 
 
 110 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 habit of eating what is set before us by 
 others, instead of choosing our food for our- 
 selves. In the experiment at Yale none of 
 the men were served anything until they had 
 looked over the menu and made their own 
 choice. While this procedure is not always 
 practicable at home or in boarding houses, 
 it is nevertheless within the power of the 
 ordinary individual to use his power of choice 
 more than he does at present. If he will do 
 so, he will usually be rewarded in a few 
 months by reaching a condition of physical 
 and mental efficiency of which he had 
 scarcely dared to dream. The instinct to 
 eat was given us for the purpose of enabling 
 us to adapt our daily food to our varying 
 daily needs. The realization that we have let 
 this valuable instinct atrophy by disuse is the 
 needed incentive to restore it to activity." " 
 In adopting the practice of Mr. Fletcher's 
 system, however, it is well not to be too con- 
 scientious in regard to the mere mechanical 
 act of chewing. " Excess of attention," says 
 
 11 Professor Irving Fisher: The Independent, New York, 
 August, 190T. 
 
 Ill 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Dr. C. W. Saleeby, "interferes as mark- 
 edly as carelessness with the performance 
 of many subconscious or semi-automatic 
 acts." 12 
 
 There is no doubt that too much thought 
 directed upon the act of eating has a tend- 
 ency to inhibit the digestive secretions. It 
 is a perfectly healthy instinct that prompts 
 the average man to think as little about his 
 food as possible, and to demand only that it 
 taste good. 
 
 " He who counts his chews or makes hard 
 work of mastication, by attending only to 
 the mechanical act of chewing," says Prof. 
 Irving Fisher, " will receive more harm than 
 good from the practice. The food should be 
 chewed and relished with no thought of swal- 
 lowing. There should be no more effort to 
 prevent than to force swallowing. It will be 
 found that if we attend only to the agreeable 
 task of extracting the flavors from our food, 
 Nature will take care of the swallowing, 
 which will become, like breathing, involun- 
 
 12 Dr. C. W. Saleeby: "Worry, the Disease of the Age," 
 p. 34. 
 
 112 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 tary. It will also be found that taste will 
 grow more discriminating and can be de- 
 pended upon to guide us, both in respect to 
 the kind of food, and also to the amount." 13 
 
 " Above all things don't strain to be care- 
 ful. Strain inhibits — paralyzes — all of the 
 glandular functions and deranges the nerv- 
 ous nicety of adjustment. Just eat slowly, 
 deliberately, small morsels, and sip and taste 
 small quantities of liquids and observe what 
 happens. 14 
 
 " Numbers of mastications . . . are no 
 guide to be relied upon. 
 
 " Gladstone's dictum. ' Chew each morsel 
 of food at least thirty-two times,' was of 
 little value except as a general suggestion. 
 Some morsels of food will not resist thirty- 
 two mastications, while others will defy 
 seven hundred." 15 
 
 Therefore, needless to say, there should 
 be no attempt to " count the chews." Even 
 Gladstone did not carry out in his own case 
 
 is Professor Irving Fisher: The Independent, New York, 
 August, 1907. 
 
 14 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," p. 126. 
 is Fletcher; " New Glutton or Epicure," p. 127. 
 
 113 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 his advice to his children to chew each mouth- 
 ful thirty-two times. Dr. Hubert Higgins 
 says 16 that an interested observer in the 
 strangers' gallery at a public dinner in Cam- 
 bridge took pains to count the jaw move- 
 ments of the great statesman to each mouth- 
 ful of food, and found that the number was 
 usually as many as sixty or seventy. Even 
 if counting the chews did not have this tend- 
 ency to check the flow of the digestive juices, 
 the practice could be of no value as a guide 
 to the amount of chewing required because 
 each food demands a mouth-treatment all its 
 own. Furthermore, because of the differ- 
 ence in the supply and the alkalinity of the 
 saliva in individuals, no two persons can be 
 sure of disposing of a morsel in the same 
 number of mastications. " One person," 
 says Mr. Fletcher, " may dispose of a morsel 
 of bread in thirty mastications so that the 
 last vestige of it has disappeared by involun- 
 tary process into the stomach. Another per- 
 son, of similar general health appearance, 
 selecting as nearly as possible an equal mor- 
 
 i« Dr. Hubert Higgins: " Humaniculture," p. 101. 
 
 114 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 sel of bread, may require fifty acts of masti- 
 cation before the morsel has disappeared. 
 . . . The dissimilarity lies in the difference 
 of the copiousness and strength of the secre- 
 tions at the time of trial." 17 
 
 It should be noted in this connection, how- 
 ever, that, just as the strength of the arm is 
 increased by exercise, so the vigorous use of 
 the mechanism of mastication increases its 
 efficiency. The secretion of saliva is not only 
 increased, but is rendered more alkaline. 
 Despite the popular idea, Mr. Fletcher him- 
 self is a fast eater. Having made a vigorous 
 and persistent use of his masticatory appara- 
 tus for ten years, he is now able to keep pace 
 with the average eater and yet fulfill all the 
 conditions of complete mastication. The 
 actual time that he spent over his two daily 
 meals during the Yale tests was from twelve 
 to fifteen minutes each. From this it will 
 readily be seen that there are no grounds for 
 the common belief that it is necessary for a 
 follower of Mr. Fletcher to spend an un- 
 usual length of time over his meals. 
 
 it Fletcher: " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 125-126. 
 
 115 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 And right here it should be emphasized 
 that all that has been said in regard to the 
 importance of mastication and insalivation 
 applies to fluid as well as to solid food. As 
 Mr. Fletcher points out, liquid food is a 
 form of sustenance invented by civilization 
 that Mother Nature did not count with when 
 she planned the human body. The only fluid 
 food provided by Nature is milk, the natural 
 method of procuring which is by sucking, a 
 process exactly analogous to chewing. The 
 wisdom of this arrangement can well be un-* 
 derstood when it is remembered that milk, 
 when taken into the stomach, is transformed 
 into a thick curd, and must undergo diges- 
 tion as a solid. Naturally, the stomach can 
 handle a number of these small curds much 
 more easily than it can one large one. 
 
 In order that soups and beverages may be 
 submitted to the digestive action of saliva, 
 it is necessary that they should be given care- 
 ful mouth treatment before being swallowed 
 into the stomach. " Food (drunk without 
 mixing it with saliva) is a sort of nutritive 
 self-abuse," says Mr. Fletcher, " and the 
 
 116 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 only way to avoid the ill effect is to give it 
 the same chance to encounter saliva that the 
 constituent ingredients would have had in a 
 more solid state. . . . Anything that has 
 taste, even soup, wine, spirits or whatsoever 
 is tried, will resist numerous mastications be- 
 fore being absorbed by Nature's Food 
 Filter. Above all things, milk, wines, etc., 
 should be sipped and tasted to the limit of 
 compulsory swallowing." 18 
 
 Mr. Fletcher declares (and the testimony 
 of all the people who have tested his theory 
 uphold him) , that when tea, coffee, and alco- 
 holic liquors are thoroughly insalivated be- 
 fore being swallowed, the appetite will re- 
 fuse to receive them except in extremely 
 small quantities, if it does not refuse to re- 
 ceive them at all. 
 
 "When the body will tolerate spirits 
 tasted into it — not poured into it — at all," 
 says Mr. Fletcher, " which is not often when 
 the nutrition is normal (only in damp or 
 cold weather, as a general thing and then, 
 in the case of the writer, only at rare inter- 
 
 18 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," p. 112. 
 117 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 vals, say two or three times a year), the 
 spirit will mix quickly with the saliva and 
 become neutralized sufficiently to excite the 
 swallowing impulse. Continue sipping the 
 spirit for a time and you will note that 
 there comes a point where the saliva and 
 the spirit do not mix, do not neutralize; 
 the mouth becomes unduly full of liquid 
 wdthout any relaxation or invitation of the 
 swallowing impulse, and the really instinc- 
 tive inclination will be to spit it out. It 
 is a clear indication that the body toleration 
 has been fully taxed ; there is no longer any 
 bodily need for alcohol — in fact, there is no 
 longer natural toleration — and the secretion 
 sent down into the mouth is evidently mu- 
 cous for a washing-out process, and is not 
 alkaline saliva for assisting in a utilization 
 function. 
 
 " It will be difficult to convince the advo- 
 cate of total abstinence that any whiskey can 
 be taken in a seemingly harmless form, but 
 it is true that thorough insalivation of beer, 
 wine or spirits, until disappearance by in- 
 voluntary swallowing, robs them of their 
 
 118 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 power to intoxicate, partly because appetite 
 will tolerate but little. 
 
 " As a matter of fact, whiskey taken in 
 this analytical way is a sure means of break- 
 ing up desire for it, and is an excellent pro- 
 tection in drinking as well as in eating. 
 Many of our test subjects have been steady 
 and some heavy drinkers, but persistent at- 
 tention to Buccal-Thoroughness has cured 
 all of them of any desire for alcohol, and in 
 time surely leads to complete intolerance of 
 it." 19 
 
 There has been a good deal of contro- 
 versy among those who follow Mr. Fletcher's 
 practice as to whether conversation at meals 
 is likely to interfere with the process of 
 mastication. Mr. Fletcher himself declares 
 that it does not. He is a generous enter- 
 tainer and is extremely fond of having his 
 friends with him at table. 
 
 " It is true," says Mr. Fletcher, "that one 
 cannot converse freely with large morsels of 
 food in the mouth. It is also true that it is 
 
 is Fletcher: " A. B.— Z. of Our Own Nutrition," pp. 93- 
 94; " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 128-129. 
 
 119 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 nothing less than a gluttonous custom to 
 greedily take a big mouthful of food, and, 
 if accosted with a question, to bolt it in order 
 to answer. 
 
 " It will be found easy to carry on conver- 
 sation without disagreeable interruptions 
 and yet follow Nature's demands in prop- 
 erly masticating food by taking small mor- 
 sels into the mouth. It will be found also 
 to add to the real pleasure of eating, and 
 eventually will become a habit by choice." 20 
 
 On the other side, Dr. Daniel S. Sager 
 says : " Despite the commonly accepted idea, 
 conversation is apt to interfere seriously with 
 the proper mastication of food and to dimin- 
 ish the pleasure of eating, which should be 
 all-absorbing for the time. The Hindu 
 sages of antiquity considered eating a kind 
 of sacrament to be engaged in abstemiously 
 and silently. The Pythagorean sect ate in 
 profound silence. Shakers never speak at 
 the table, except in receiving or in passing 
 food. At all events, whether the meal is 
 eaten with merry conversation or with Qua- 
 
 20 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," p. 119. 
 120 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ker-like silence, the essential thing is com- 
 plete mastication of the food. Throughout, 
 one should be intent upon the pleasure of 
 eating and the gratification of the sense of 
 taste. ... If one would enjoy food to 
 its fullest possible extent, it is accomplished 
 to perfection by a concentration of the mind 
 upon the tip and sides of the tongue, and 
 by thinking and feeling how extraordinarily 
 good the food tastes." 21 
 
 To most people " mirth and merry com- 
 pany " at table are too valuable as aids to 
 digestion to be lightly banished; and if, as 
 Mr. Fletcher says, the food is taken in 
 small mouthfuls, there seems to be no reason 
 why they should not indulge their desires 
 in this respect as much as they wish. 
 
 The adoption of Mr. Fletcher's system 
 results immediately and invariably in cer- 
 tain marked changes in the dietary habits. 
 If a man conscientiously " waits for an ap- 
 petite," he will find that it registers a de- 
 mand for food not more than twice a day. 
 As an ordinarily good digestive apparatus 
 
 2iSager: "Art of Living in Good Health," pp. 24-25. 
 
 121 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 cannot dispose of an average meal in less 
 than six hours, and as the digestive appara- 
 tus should be permitted a certain amount of 
 rest, it would seem that there was every rea- 
 son why the prompting of the appetite 
 should be followed. Crato, one of the 
 physicians of antiquity, said, "Eat but twice 
 a day and put seven hours betwixt dinner 
 and supper ; " and since his time the wisest 
 physicians of all periods have been pleading 
 with their patients not to send food into 
 their stomachs until the previous meal had 
 been disposed of. 
 
 In most cases, the meal most easily elim- 
 inated is breakfast. In the early morning 
 when the body has been lying inert for sev- 
 eral hours, with the utilization of heat and 
 energy and the breaking down of tissue re- 
 duced to a minimum, there can be no genu- 
 ine need for food. The common declaration 
 of the average man that he has to have a 
 square meal as soon as he gets up "to work 
 on " is not based on physiological principles. 
 It is obvious that no man works on the food 
 that is in his stomach. Food in the stom- 
 
 122 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ach, or in any other part of the digestive 
 tract, takes energy rather than gives it. 
 Food becomes available only when it has 
 been digested and assimilated. 
 
 There is, therefore, no doubt that the 
 heavy American breakfast is a most un- 
 wholesome institution. If any food is to be 
 taken at all in the morning it should be lim- 
 ited to the Continental breakfast of rolls 
 and coffee, or something equally light. Mr. 
 Fletcher, himself, has for years made it his 
 custom not to eat at all until he has finished 
 his day's work. Many instances might be 
 given of great men who have followed this 
 plan because personal experiment had 
 shown that the brain is clearest when the 
 stomach is empty. 
 
 On no account, however, should any 
 marked reduction of food be made sud- 
 denly. The best plan is not to change the 
 dietary at the start at all, but merely to be- 
 gin the practice of mastication — giving at- 
 tention to the taste of the food and not to 
 the jaw movements — and let appetite be the 
 guide. 
 
 123 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 It will be found much easier to resist the 
 old impulse to hurry down masses of un- 
 tasted food if only small portions are placed 
 on the table and served on the plate. With 
 only a small amount of food before him, a 
 man will make the most of it, just as a child 
 will make a small piece of candy last as long 
 as a big piece if he knows that the small 
 piece is all that he is going to get: whereas, 
 if the man is given a large portion, his ten- 
 dency is to bolt it down without submitting 
 it to the discriminations of taste, just as a 
 child would bolt down candy as long as he 
 knows there is more coming. 
 
 A very few weeks of complete mastica- 
 tion will lead, however, to an automatic re- 
 duction of the diet to true physiologic needs, 
 and also to a great simplification of tastes. 
 Under the old way of eating the tendency 
 is towards number and variety of complex, 
 highly flavored foods; the practice of ana- 
 lytical tasting leads to a preference for one 
 or two dishes of simple and delicate flavor 
 uncomplicated by sauces and condiments. 
 The experience of almost everyone who has 
 
 124. 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 adopted the new plan is that the taste for 
 stimulating foods of every character gradu- 
 ally disappears. No one need try to give 
 up meat, condiments, tea, coffee, alcohol and 
 tobacco, because if he continues to masticate 
 conscientiously for several months, he will 
 have no desire to indulge in them to any 
 harmful extent. 
 
 The man who has developed the delicate 
 instincts of taste and appetite that Mr. 
 Fletcher has shown to be latent in every 
 human being can restrict his diet to exact 
 physiological requirements without impos- 
 ing upon himself anything like self-denial. 
 He no longer feels any temptation to in- 
 dulge in the pernicious practice of eating to 
 kill time* because he not only has no desire to 
 eat except when there is a physiological de- 
 mand for food, but he actually cannot make 
 himself eat. When, however, in answer to 
 the call of genuine appetite, he does sit down 
 to his meal, he enjoys his food as he never 
 did before. 
 
 The adoption of the new system is ex- 
 tremely likely to be followed by a sudden 
 
 125 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 and a very considerable loss of weight. 
 This should not, however, be cause for alarm 
 to anyone. The latest discoveries of science 
 have proved conclusively that we know 
 nothing whatever in regard to the relation 
 of a man's weight to the state of his health. 
 The tables prepared by life insurance com- 
 panies purporting to give the number of 
 pounds that a man should weigh in propor- 
 tion to his height and age are mere guesses 
 based on their observation of the fact that 
 healthy men of given heights and ages tend 
 to tip the scales at the same point. This 
 proves that these men have these weights, 
 not that they should have them. Scientific 
 authorities do not presume to say how many 
 pounds a man needs to carry to be in perfect 
 health, because they do not know. Experi- 
 ence tends to prove, however, that the old 
 idea that fat people are the healthiest, is a 
 fallacy, and that, as a matter of fact, it is 
 the thin, wiry people who are likely to live 
 longest and enjoy the best health. The ex- 
 perience of most of us is, probably, that the 
 best health we have ever enjoyed was in the 
 
 126 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 " spindling " period of our youth, when our 
 extreme leanness often made us a butt for 
 the humorous remarks of our friends. 
 
 Professor Chittenden says that obesity is 
 a condition which is distinctly undesirable 
 and may prove decidedly injurious. " Un- 
 due accumulation of fat," he says, " is not 
 only a mechanical obstacle to the proper ac- 
 tivity of the body as a whole, but it inter- 
 feres with the freedom of movement of such, 
 muscular organs as the heart and stomach, 
 thereby interposing obstacles to the normal 
 action of these structures. Further, when- 
 ever undue fat formation is going on in the 
 body, there is the ever present danger that 
 the lifeless fat may replace the living proto- 
 plasm of the tissue cells and so give rise to 
 a condition known as ' fatty degenera- 
 tion.' " 22 
 
 " Let any actuary of life insurance," says 
 Dr. Edward Curtis, "be asked his experi- 
 ence with heavyweight risks, where the 
 waist measures more than the chest, and the 
 long-drawn face of the business man, at 
 
 22 Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," p. 270. 
 127 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 memory of lost dollars, will make answer 
 without need of words. Then let it be noted 
 the physique of the blessed ones that attain 
 to green old age, and, in nine cases out of 
 ten, spry old boys — no disparagement, but 
 all honor in the phrase — will be found to be 
 modelled after the type of octogenarian 
 Bryant or nonogenarian Bancroft — the 
 white-faced, wiry and spare, as contrasted 
 with the red-faced, the pursy, and the stout. 
 It is true, as has already been mentioned, 
 that in old age much of an adventitious 
 obesity is absorbed and disappears, but the 
 Bryant-Bancroft type is that of a subject 
 who never has been fat at all. And just 
 such is pre-eminently the type that rides 
 easily past the fourscore mark, reins well in 
 hand, and good for many another lap in the 
 race of life." 23 
 
 " Thorough repair of an impaired body 
 may not be effected immediately," says Mr. 
 Fletcher, " although wonderful results — 
 almost miraculous — have been obtained in 
 
 23 Dr. Edward Curtis: "Nature and Health," p. 70. 
 Henry Holt & Co., New York. 
 
 128 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 three months; but a week's faithful and at- 
 tentive study of the possibilities of Epicure- 
 anism, with right alimentation as its basic 
 requirement, in adding to the comfort and 
 enjoyment of life, will result in right eating 
 being made physiologically and religiously 
 habitual, and will give a backbone of Epi- 
 curean character that will not easily suc- 
 cumb to gluttonous impetuosity." 24 
 
 ' The result, in all cases of my observa- 
 tion, has been an immediate response of nat- 
 urally increased energy; approach of weight 
 toward the normal, whether the subject was 
 overweight or underweight; a great falling 
 off of the waste to be discharged by the 
 avenue of the lower intestines and also 
 through the kidneys ; relief of bleeding hem- 
 orrhoids and catarrh; emancipation from 
 headaches ; clearing of the tongue of yellow 
 deposit; and return of the energy for work 
 which all men and women should have, and 
 which finds expression in healthy children in 
 the form of great energy for play." 25 
 
 24 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," p. 131. 
 
 25 Fletcher: " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 174-175. 
 
 129 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 The following statements of the experi- 
 ence of Dr. Hubert Higgins and Dr. Ernest 
 Van Someren are of particular value from 
 the fact that, as physicians, they have been 
 able to make unusually exact and scientific 
 observations upon themselves and therefore 
 to arrive at particularly valuable conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 " The best period of health that I can 
 remember in my life," writes Dr. Higgins, 
 " was that between seventeen and twenty- 
 one, during the time I was preparing for the 
 medical profession. I had a small break- 
 fast at about 7.30 A. M. and then went up 
 to London to St. George's Hospital, which 
 was about fourteen miles from my home. 
 My parents gave me 2s. 6d. for my midday 
 meal, but I fortunately economized and only 
 spent 6d. to lOd. of it on food. After fin- 
 ishing my work I usually arrived home at 
 5.30 and had a * meat tea ' ; this allowed me 
 to devote six hours to reading. During the 
 whole of this period I was in excellent men- 
 tal and physical condition. I was made 
 house surgeon at twenty-one, obtained my 
 
 130 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 degree in under four years, besides obtaining 
 several valuable prizes. 
 
 " After this I lived in the hospital, where 
 three meat meals were provided. These I 
 conscientiously ate ' to keep up my strength ' 
 during the performance of my exhausting 
 duties. I consider that this period was the 
 commencement of my degeneration. I put 
 on twenty-four pounds in weight and lost 
 much of my mental energy. 
 
 " My strong hereditary tendency to gout, 
 with the excessive meat eating, the hurried 
 eating, during some three and one-half 
 years at St. George's Hospital, London, and 
 at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, re- 
 sulted in constant suffering from headache, 
 lumbago, rheumatic pains, and all those dis- 
 tressing symptoms known under the generic 
 name of ' goutiness.' After seven or eight 
 years I weighed two hundred and twenty- 
 four pounds and complained of increasing 
 symptoms of gout. I then became a pa- 
 tient of Dr. H of London, whose sys- 
 tem requires one to abstain from meat, fish, 
 poultry, beans, tea, coffee, in other words, 
 
 131 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 from foods containing uric acid or its equiv- 
 alent. For about five years, till the end of 
 1901, when I first met you, I fluctuated con- 
 siderably in health, on the whole I am bound 
 to say, in a steadily downward direction, till 
 I was overloaded with the excessive weight 
 of two hundred and eighty-two pounds. 
 
 " I commenced, under your advice, masti- 
 cating my food thoroughly at the end of De- 
 cember, 1901. After practising this method 
 till the present September, 1903, I have lost 
 one hundred and four pounds in weight and 
 consider that I have gained very considera- 
 bly in mental and physical fitness. I prefer 
 to divide this period into two parts: (a) 
 The first eight months. During this time I 
 followed my appetite, but with a strong 
 mental bias in favour of keeping up as 
 nearly as possible to the daily ' physiological 
 ration ' of nitrogenous food. I lost, not- 
 withstanding, some sixty-four pounds in 
 weight in spite of having an inordinate appe- 
 tite for butter, and generally taking two 
 pints of milk daily. During this period I un- 
 dertook some very severe work in the Lab- 
 
 132 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 oratory of Physiological Chemistry, with 
 the object of trying to devise some method 
 of measuring the extent of a person's de- 
 parture from their optimum health. This 
 led almost unconsciously to a stronger men- 
 tal bias in favour of prescribing the amount 
 of food one should eat, and to a certain 
 number of experiments in feeding. To- 
 wards the end of this period I got rather 
 exhausted in consequence of my severe work 
 and complained of occasional headaches. 
 Following the suggestions of some friends, 
 I added fifty grams of casein to my daily 
 diet for two or three weeks. This was fol- 
 lowed by a return of rheumatism and con- 
 siderable sickness and inability to work, 
 (b) The subsequent six months. I resolved 
 to devote this period to a careful study of 
 my desires for food — to take no notes — to 
 make no experiments — in short, to allow my 
 body to run itself, and to try to make my 
 brain interpret the wants of the body. I 
 had moved for the purpose of this experi- 
 ment into a small house, with a boy and a 
 woman, who came daily to clean the house — 
 
 133 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 (I mention these details because practically 
 one finds that a woman has usually such 
 quick sympathy about matters concerning 
 food that their agitation and fears are 
 enough in themselves to cause you to mod- 
 ify your diet.) I only kept bread, butter, 
 and milk in the house, all other foods I was 
 obliged to send for, and if I required a dish 
 to be cooked, I first learned how to do it 
 myself and then taught the boy. I had no 
 fixed times for meals, and did not have a 
 table laid, my food always being brought 
 up on a tray; usually I did not interrupt the 
 work I was doing. I deliberately adopted 
 all these precautions because I had become 
 aware by experience of the extraordinary 
 influence suggestion, and other mind influ- 
 ences, such as habit, had in one's selection of 
 food and the amount one ate. During the 
 first two months in conscientiously eating 
 what I wished* as much of it as I wanted 
 and when my appetite demanded food, my 
 desires were very irregular, ranging over 
 meats and fish (occasionally), chocolate, 
 sweets, cream, cheese, butter, milk, bread. 
 
 134 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 potatoes, oranges, bananas, sugar, etc., but 
 during the final period my desires were much 
 more simple and regular, confining them- 
 selves to bread, Gruyere cheese, butter, 
 cream, bananas, occasionally milk. During 
 and subsequent to this period I have become 
 convinced that provided you eat your food 
 slowly and follow your appetite, without 
 guidance from any other knowledge what- 
 ever, you get marked preference for simple 
 foods with increasing health and happiness, 
 the contentment that comes from the ines- 
 timably valuable possession of simple de- 
 
 sires." 26 
 
 " Three years ago, when I first met you," 
 writes Dr. Van Someren to Mr. Fletcher, 
 " though under thirty years of age, and my- 
 self a practising physician and surgeon, I 
 was suffering from gout, and had been un- 
 der the regime of a London specialist for 
 the treatment of that malady. Though 
 vigorously adhering to the prescribed diet, 
 I suffered from time to time. My symp- 
 toms were typical — paroxysmal pain in my 
 
 26 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 226-235. 
 
 135 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 right great toe and in the last joints of both 
 little fingers, the right one being tumefied 
 with the well-known ' node.' From time to 
 time, generally once a month, I suffered 
 from incapacitating headaches. Frequent 
 colds, boils on the neck and face, chronic 
 eczema of the toes, and frequent acid dys- 
 pepsia were other and painful signs that the 
 life I was leading was not a healthy one. 
 Yet I was accounted a healthy person by my 
 friends, and was, withal, athletic. I fenced 
 an hour daily, took calisthenic exercises 
 every morning, forcing myself to do them, 
 and I rowed when I obtained leisure to do 
 so. In spite of this exercise and an inher- 
 ent love of fresh air, which kept all the win- 
 dows of my house open throughout the year, 
 I suffered as above. Worse still, I was los- 
 ing interest in life and in my work. . . . 
 
 " In three months after the practice of 
 these principles my symptoms had disap- 
 peared. Not only had my interest in my life 
 and work returned, but my whole point of 
 view had changed, and I found a pleasure 
 in both living and working that was a con- 
 
 136 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 stant surprise to me. For this, my dear 
 Mr. Fletcher, I can never repay you. My 
 only desire has been, and is, to try and do 
 for others in my practice what you did 
 for me. 
 
 "Now I have since that time Had occa- 
 sional colds, headaches, and gouty pains; 
 but, whereas formerly I could not explain 
 their causes, I can now invariably trace them 
 to carelessness in the buccal digestion of my 
 food, and can soon shake them off." 27 
 
 The following paragraph, taken from the 
 " testimonial " of one of Mr. Fletcher's lay 
 " patients " is valuable as corroborating Mr. 
 Fletcher's claim that his system works auto- 
 matically to reduce the food tojtrue physio- 
 logical needs. 
 
 :< I have for some time been chewing a la 
 Fletcher and find it of great advantage. It 
 is getting to be automatic and is losing its 
 irksomeness. Indeed it already seems nat- 
 ural and produces some results ' set down in 
 the book.' For instance, I have no desire 
 for meats and foods which do not lend 
 
 27 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 10-17. 
 
 137 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 themselves to the Fletcher method. This in 
 itself is a great advantage. 
 
 " By the way, I have not eaten meat 
 since the 20th of last October (nearly a 
 year) , and I find I have gained greatly. I 
 only desire two meals a day, except when the 
 exigencies of travel make a light breakfast 
 agreeable and desirable. By these means I 
 have gained nerve force wonderfully and 
 my muscular strength and endurance have 
 increased so that I walk long distances and 
 climb mountains easily. In fact, I do now 
 with pleasure and avidity what I could not 
 formerly do at all. They are the sort of 
 things that are supposed to require a ' strong 
 meat diet,' but which under such a diet were 
 impossible to me. Mastication and thor- 
 ough mouth- treatment seem to allow the ap- 
 petite to prescribe what my body needs, and 
 this is the essence and substance of your dis- 
 covery. . . . There is no doubt in my 
 mind but what there is a natural protection 
 given us which has been lost by perver- 
 sion." 28 
 
 28 Fletcher: " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 213-215. 
 
 138 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Topics: True food requirements. Reduction of pro- 
 teid. The question of meat-eating. Vegetable 
 proteid. Amount of fuel-foods necessary. Speci- 
 men dietaries. Tables indicating proteid and fuel 
 value of common foods. The question of stimulants 
 and condiments. Physiological value of sugar. 
 Inutility of foods as specifies. General principles. 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Tp VEN when the regulation of the dietary 
 ■*-^ has been handed over to an appetite 
 made normal by the practice of slow eating 
 and analytical tasting as recommended by 
 Mr. Fletcher, there is a certain advantage 
 in knowing what amounts and proportions 
 of the various classes of foods are necessary 
 — according to the new principles enunci- 
 ated by Professor Chittenden — to make up 
 a well-balanced ration. 
 
 It will be remembered that Professor 
 Chittenden fixes the proteid requirement 
 per day for a man of average — say 154 
 pounds — weight at 60 grams, about two 
 
 139 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ounces a day. A man with more muscular 
 tissue to nourish will require more proteid, 
 and a man with less muscular tissue will not 
 need so much. 1 Taking into consideration 
 the fact that 60 grams or 2 ounces of pro- 
 teid are contained in half a pound of lean 
 beef, seven-eighths of a pound of bacon, 
 half a pound of fresh American cheese, two 
 quarts of milk, nine eggs, one pound of 
 baked beans, or two-thirds of a pound of 
 almonds; it will readily be seen that the 
 average man with his two or three meat 
 meals a day — often reinforced with proteid 
 in the form of cheese, milk, eggs, nuts, beans 
 or peas — is getting a great deal more of this 
 particular food element than he needs or 
 than he can use with advantage. 
 
 Since meat is the form in which proteid 
 is consumed in the largest quantities, it is 
 obvious that the quickest and surest way of 
 reducing the excess of proteid is by cutting 
 down the consumption of flesh food. 2 This 
 
 1 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 271-279. 
 
 2 Under flesh foods are included all meats and " stock " 
 soups. It has been shown that although these extracts of 
 meat contain a large amount of nitrogen, it is not in the 
 
 140 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 should not, however, be taken as a recom- 
 mendation for a sudden and absolute elim- 
 ination of meat from the diet. If there is 
 one point which the discoverers of the new 
 principles in dietetics insist upon more than 
 another, it is that all changes in the dietary 
 should be made gradually. In regard to the 
 matter of meat reduction Professor Fisher 
 says : 
 
 " The sudden and complete exclusion of 
 meat is not always desirable, unless more 
 skill and knowledge in food matters are em- 
 form of proteid which can be utilized, but only of waste 
 nitrogen which must be excreted. Apparently the sole 
 virtue of such soups is that they supply the " peptogenic " 
 stimulus. 
 
 Irving Fisher, Ph. D.: "The Effect of Diet on Endur- 
 ance." Publications of Yale University, pp. 44-45. New 
 Haven, Conn. 
 
 It is well known that Liebig came to repudiate the idea 
 that the extractives of meat were nutritious, and that inves- 
 tigation has shown them to be poisonous. Recently, Dr. 
 F. B. Turck has found that dogs, mice, and rats fed on 
 meat extractives exhibit symptoms of poisoning, and often 
 die. The poisonous effect is aggravated by intestinal bac- 
 teria, which find in these extractives as excellent culture 
 medium. 
 
 Irving Fisher, Ph. D.: "Diet and Endurance at Brus- 
 sels," Science, N. S., vol. xxvi, No. 669, pp. 561-563. Oc- 
 tober 25, 1907. 
 
 141 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ployed than most persons possess. On the 
 contrary, disaster has repeatedly overtaken 
 many who have made this attempt. Pavlov 
 has shown that meat is one of the most and 
 perhaps the most ' peptogenic ' of foods. 
 Whether the stimulus it gives to the stomach 
 is natural, or in the form of an improper 
 goad or whip, certain it is that stomachs 
 which are accustomed to this daily whip have 
 failed, for a time at least, to act when it was 
 withdrawn. 
 
 " Nor is it necessary that meat should be 
 permanently abjured, even when it ceases 
 to become a daily necessity. The safer 
 course, at least, is to indulge the craving 
 whenever one is 'meat hungry,' even if, as 
 in many cases, this be not oftener than once 
 in several months. The rule of selection 
 employed in the experiment was merely to 
 give the benefit of the doubt to the non- 
 flesh food; but even a slight preference for 
 flesh foods was to be followed." 3 
 
 3 Irving Fisher, Ph. D.: "The Effect of Diet on Endur- 
 ance," Publications of Yale University, pp. 44-45. New 
 Haven, Conn. 
 
 142 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 " It goes without saying that any change 
 in diet, unless it be a change in amount only, 
 should be gradual. Thus, if a person has 
 been accustomed to excessive proteid, his 
 stomach has probably become adjusted to 
 this condition and secretes a large amount of 
 gastric juice. When the reduction of pro- 
 teid is sudden, the gastric juice will not at 
 first decrease in proportion, and a large part 
 of this secretion will therefore remain un- 
 used. This uncombined acid interferes with 
 the digestion of starch and the person feels 
 a ' sour stomach.' A gradual reduction of 
 proteid, on the other hand, will avoid this 
 difficulty. The reduction may be more 
 rapid (for the hyperacid) if the proportion 
 of fat be increased, as fat tends to restrain 
 the gastric secretion." 4 
 
 All the leaders of the movement are still 
 divided in their opinion as to whether a com- 
 plete exclusion of meat, even when effected 
 gradually, is to be recommended. Profes- 
 sor Chittenden's opinion is that " man is an 
 
 * Irving Fisher, Ph. D.: "A Graphic Method in Practical 
 Dietetics." New Haven, Conn. 
 
 143 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 omnivorous animal and Nature never in- 
 tended him to subsist solely on any specific 
 form of food to the exclusion of all others." 
 . # . " Vegetarianism may have its vir- 
 tues," he says, " as too great indulgence in 
 flesh foods may have its serious side, but 
 there would seem to be no sound physiologi- 
 cal reason for the complete exclusion of any 
 one class of food stuffs, under ordinary con- 
 ditions of life." 5 He is emphatic in declar- 
 ing, however, that " a diet which conforms 
 to the true nutritive requirements of the 
 body must necessarily lead toward vegeta- 
 ble foods. In no other satisfactory way can 
 excess of proteid be avoided and at the same 
 time proper calorific value be obtained. 
 This, however, does not mean vegetarianism, 
 but simply a greater reliance upon foods 
 from the plant kingdom, with a corre- 
 sponding diminution in the typical animal 
 foods." 6 
 
 To this discussion Professor Fisher has 
 
 6 Chittenden : " Physiological Economy in Nutrition," p. 
 470. 
 
 e Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," pp. 291-292. 
 
 144 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 contributed a summary of a monograph by 
 Mile. Dr. J. Ioteyko, head of the laboratory 
 at the University of Brussels, and Mile. 
 Varia Kipiani, student in science, setting 
 forth the results of their recent investigation 
 of the relative merits of a vegetarian and a 
 meat diet. 
 
 " The authors have become convinced," 
 says Professor Fisher, " that the vegetarian 
 regime is for the most part a more rational 
 one than the highly nitrogenous diet ordi- 
 narily prevailing in Western Europe and 
 America. The authors quote, in behalf of 
 their conclusions, the eminent French diet- 
 ician, Armand Gautier, ' who without him- 
 self being a vegetarian, praises the good 
 effects of the vegetarian regime.' The au- 
 thors quote Gautier as follows : 
 
 " * The vegetarian regime, modified by 
 the addition of milk, of fat, of butter, of 
 eggs, has great advantages. It adds to the 
 alkalinity of the blood, accelerates oxida- 
 tion, diminishes organic wastes and toxins; 
 it exposes one much less than the ordinary 
 regime to skin maladies, to arthritis, to con- 
 
 145 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 gestions of internal organs. This regime 
 tends to make us pacific beings and not 
 aggressive and violent. It is practical and 
 rational/ 
 
 " The authors, while apparently classify- 
 ing themselves as advocates of vegetarian- 
 ism, admit that in certain cases it is necessary 
 to prescribe meat as a * medicament ' — ' just 
 as one prescribes sometimes alcohol and other 
 poisons.' The authors also observe that the 
 transition to a vegetarian diet should be 
 gradual. 
 
 " The personal history is traced of forty- 
 three vegetarians of Brussels. Among 
 other interesting observations is the follow- 
 ing: ' 
 
 " * For the most part the vegetarians ap- 
 pear' younger than their age; notably the 
 ladies are distinguished by their clear and 
 fresh complexion.' 
 
 ' The experiments conducted by Miles, 
 loteyko and Kipiani are restricted to vege- 
 tarians who have been such for several 
 years. The experiments were, for the most 
 part, comparisons of strength and endur- 
 
 146 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 ance. So far as strength is concerned very 
 little difference was discovered between veg- 
 etarians and ' carnivores.' In endurance, 
 on the other hand, a very remarkable differ- 
 ence was found, the vegetarians surpassing 
 the carnivores from 50 to 200 per cent., 
 according to the method of measurement. 
 
 " This result agrees with the " (Professor 
 Fisher's) "experiment on nine Yale stu- 
 dents described in Science. These subjects, 
 by dint of thorough mastication, gradually 
 lost their taste for flesh foods. At the end 
 of five months, while not becoming vegetari- 
 ans, they had reduced their consumption of 
 flesh foods to one-sixth of the amount to 
 which they had originally been accustomed. 
 Their strength remained practically station- 
 ary, but their endurance, according to the 
 gymnasium tests, was increased on an aver- 
 age by over 90 per cent. 
 
 " The authors compared the endurance of 
 seventeen vegetarians, six men and eleven 
 women, with that of twenty-five carnivores, 
 students of the University of Brussels. 
 Comparing the two sets of subjects on the 
 
 147 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 basis of mechanical work, it is found that the 
 vegetarians surpassed the carnivores on the 
 average by 53 per cent. Comparing the 
 two groups on the basis of the number of 
 contractions — or, what amounts to the same 
 thing, the length of time during which the 
 ergograph could be continuously operated — 
 it was found that the vegetarians could work 
 on the ergograph two or three times as long 
 as the carnivores before reaching the exhaus- 
 tion point. 
 
 : ' This last result corresponds to conclu- 
 sions of the present writer in an experiment 
 in which forty-nine subjects, about half of 
 whom were flesh-eaters and half flesh- 
 abstainers, were compared. It was found 
 that the flesh-abstainers had more endurance 
 as measured by gymnasium tests than the 
 flesh-eaters, to the extent of from two to 
 three fold. 
 
 " The Brussels investigators found also 
 that the vegetarians recuperated from fa- 
 tigue far more quickly than the meat-eaters, 
 a result also found in the Yale experiment. 
 
 "The authors conclude by advocating a 
 
 148 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 vegetarian regime as a proper system for 
 workingmen, and believe that its use would 
 reduce the accidents on railways and in in- 
 dustry which come from over-fatigue, in- 
 crease the productivity of labor, as well as 
 have other economic benefits. 
 
 " These investigations, with those of 
 Combe of Laussanne, Metchnikoif and Tis- 
 sier of Paris, as well as Herter and others in 
 the United States, seem gradually to be 
 demonstrating that the fancied strength 
 from meat is, like the fancied strength from 
 alcohol, an illusion. The ' beef and ale of 
 England ' are largely sources of weakness, 
 not strength. Whether in moderation they 
 are harmful may still be a matter of con- 
 jecture. While the trend of recent experi- 
 ments is distinctly against the excessive use 
 of flesh foods, there are still needed many 
 more experiments — medical, athletic, and in- 
 dustrial — before the economics of diet can 
 be established on a secure basis." 7 
 
 7 Irving Fisher, Ph. D. : " Diet and Endurance at Brus-i 
 sels," Science, N, S., vol. xxvi, No. 669, pp. 561-563, October 
 25, 1907. 
 
 149 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 In another place, Professor Fisher con- 
 cludes : 
 
 " The users of low-proteid and non-flesh 
 dietaries have far greater endurance than 
 those who are accustomed to the ordinary 
 American diet. ... It may be said 
 that, whatever the explanation, there is 
 strong evidence that a low-proteid non-flesh 
 or nearly non-flesh dietary is conducive to 
 endurance. . . . 
 
 " The question of the extent to which 
 flesh foods can be used advantageously is 
 still open, but there can now be little ques- 
 tion, in view of the facts which have come to 
 light during the last few years, that the 
 ordinary consumption of those foods is ex- 
 cessive." 8 
 
 The endurance-giving qualities of a non- 
 flesh dietary are, however, attributed by 
 Miles. Ioteyko and Kipiani, not to its low 
 proteid values, but to toxins present in ani- 
 mal tissue. The chemical processes that go 
 on in the bodies of all living creatures gen- 
 
 8 Irving Fisher, Ph. D.: "The Influence of Flesh-eating 
 on Endurance," Yale Medical Journal, March, 1907. 
 
 150 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 erate substances which, in character and 
 effect, are true poisons. These poisons serve 
 their own good purposes in the bodily econ- 
 omy, and, in the healthy organism, are 
 readily transformed into harmless sub- 
 stances or excreted. There is no moment in 
 the life of a creature, however, when its tis- 
 sues are wholly free from them. Therefore, 
 when an animal is slaughtered for food and 
 the chemical processes which would other- 
 wise have disposed of its toxins are suddenly 
 arrested, the poisons remain in the tissues 
 and are devoured by the consumer along 
 with the meat. 
 
 A person in vigorous health can usually 
 manage to dispose of toxins taken into his 
 body in this fashion as well as the poisons 
 generated by his own organism, but only at 
 the expense of a great deal of hard work. 
 Persons who have a tendency to manufac- 
 ture more poisons than they can manage 
 conveniently — for instance, gouty and rheu- 
 matic persons who have a tendency to manu- 
 facture an excess of uric acid — are, how- 
 ever, almost sure to suffer unless their use 
 
 151 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 of meat is limited to extremely small quan- 
 tities. 
 
 Allied with these facts is the discovery 
 that meat-eating apparently tends to in- 
 crease the number and virulence of the bac- 
 teria in the lower intestines. 9 In view of 
 Elie MetchnikofFs recent declaration 10 
 that it is primarily the presence of these or- 
 ganisms in the colon that causes the human 
 body to break down or wear out before its 
 time, this fact alone would seem to add con- 
 siderable weight to the argument for re- 
 duced consumption of flesh food. 
 
 In defense of their uncompromising con- 
 demnation of meat-eating, vegetarian dog- 
 matists usually bring out the argument that 
 the most spiritual and intellectual men of all 
 ages have discouraged the use of animal- 
 flesh for food; or quote from the Scriptures 
 to prove that they have inspired authority; 11 
 
 9 Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," pp. 292-293. 
 
 10 Elie Metchnikoff: "The Nature of Man," "The Pro- 
 longation of Life." G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 
 
 ii A favorite reference of the kind occurs in the first 
 chapter of the book of Daniel, where it is related how the 
 budding prophet, after having rejected the meats and wines 
 
 152 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 but the leaders of the new movement have 
 considered the subject from a purely physio- 
 logical view-point. On this point Professor 
 Fisher says : 
 
 "Vegetarian fanaticism has done much 
 to defeat its own ends. From the premise — 
 often bolstered up by theological dogma 
 — that flesh-eating is wrong, the inference 
 is drawn that it must be unhygienic. This 
 reasoning is so utterly at variance with the 
 methods of modern science as to stamp 
 those who use it as victims of bigoted prej- 
 udice, and to prevent any genuine scientific 
 investigation. At present the tendency of 
 such investigations as those of Chittenden, 
 Mendel, Folin, MetchnikoiJ^ Caspari, Le 
 Fevre, Fauvel and others have a distinct 
 trend towards a fleshless dietary. And yet, 
 such are the associations of the term ' vege- 
 tarian,' that many are loath to grant even 
 what is due to the tenets of ' vegetarianism.' 
 
 of the king's "table and subsisted on pulse and water for 
 ten days, was found " fairer and fatter in flesh than all 
 the children that did eat of the king's meat," and " ten 
 times better than all the magicians and astrologers that 
 were in all the realm." 
 
 153 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 The proper scientific attitude is to study the 
 question of meat-eating in precisely the 
 same manner as one would study the ques- 
 tion of bread-eating." 12 
 
 It is quite possible to overeat on proteid 
 without making use of meat at all. The 
 old-fashioned vegetarians who substituted 
 for meat an equivalent of proteid derived 
 from nuts, peas, beans, lentils — or, in the 
 case of the so-called " lacto-vegetarians," 
 eggs, and milk and the milk-products — were 
 probably not deriving as much benefit from 
 their abstention from meat as they should 
 have done if they had not been so careful to 
 replace it with non-flesh proteid — particu- 
 larly as the non-flesh sources of proteid have 
 many of the disadvantages of meat. Uric 
 acid exists in large quantities in all the 
 legumes. Eggs contain a substance known 
 as xanthin, which is closely allied to uric 
 acid. The decomposition products of the 
 " ripe " cheeses, so highly prized by epicures, 
 are only less dangerous than those of meat. 
 
 12 Irving Fisher, Ph. D., " The Influence of Flesh-eating 
 on Endurance," Yale Medical Journal, March, 1907. 
 
 154 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Milk is so extremely susceptible to contam- 
 ination by bacteria that some persons have 
 gone so far as to condemn it as an article of 
 food except for nursing infants. Accord- 
 ingly the restrictions in the use of meat may 
 be applied with advantage to the meat-sub- 
 stitutes as well. 
 
 In addition to the 60 grams or two ounces 
 of proteid, enough carbohydrate food should 
 be taken every day to make up a total fuel 
 value of from 2000 to 3000 calories, accord- 
 ing to the degree of bodily activity. " The 
 man whose work is mainly mental," says 
 Professor Chittenden, " has no real need for 
 high fuel values in his daily ration. For 
 such a man, a high potential energy in the 
 daily intake of food is an incubus and not a 
 gain. Body equilibrium can be maintained 
 on far less than 3000 calories per day by the 
 brain worker. . . . Moreover, as our 
 experiments have clearly indicated, even the 
 man who is called upon to perform consid- 
 erable physical work has no apparent need 
 for a fuel value in his food of 3000 calories 
 per day. No doubt, the man who works at 
 
 155 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 hard labor for ten or twelve hours a day will 
 require a larger intake of fats and carbohy- 
 drates, sufficient to yield even more than 
 3000 calories, but this is not true of the mod- 
 erate worker, nor of the average man whose 
 work is in large measure mental rather than 
 physical." 13 
 
 The following dietary, outlined by Pro- 
 fessor Chittenden, will give the reader a 
 general idea of the kind and amount of food 
 required for the proper proportions of pro- 
 teid and carbohydrate food, and will furnish 
 him with a basis for working out a balanced 
 ration for himself. 
 
 Breakfast. 
 
 Proteid Calories 
 
 One shredded wheat biscuit 3.15 grams 106 
 
 30 grams or 1 ounce. 
 
 One teacup of cream 3.12 206 
 
 120 grams or 4 ounces. 
 
 One German water roll 5.07 165 
 
 57 grams or 2 ounces. 
 
 Two one-inch cubes of butter 0.38 284 
 
 38 grams or 1£ ounces. 
 
 Three-fourths cup of coffee 0.26 
 
 100 grams or 3^ ounces. 
 
 One- fourth teacup of cream 0.78 51 
 
 30 grams or 1 ounce. 
 
 One lump of sugar 38 
 
 10 grams or ^ ounce. 
 
 \ ounce approx.=12. 76 grams 850 
 
 i3 Chittenden: "Physiological Economy in Nutrition," p. 
 476. 
 
 156 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Lunch. Proteid Calories 
 
 One teacup homemade chicken soup .. 5.25 grams 60 
 
 144 grams or 4§ ounces. 
 One Parker-house roll 3.38 110 
 
 38 grams or 1^ ounces. 
 Two one-inch cubes of butter 0.38 284 
 
 38 grams or 1-J ounces. 
 One slice lean bacon 2.14 65 
 
 10 grams or ^ ounce. 
 One small baked potato 1 .53 55 
 
 60 grams or 2 ounces. 
 One rice croquette 3.42 150 
 
 90 grams or 3 ounces. 
 Two ounces maple syrup 166 
 
 60 grams or 2 ounces. 
 
 One cup of tea with one slice lemon 
 
 One lump of sugar 38 
 
 10 grams or ^ ounce. 
 
 J ounce approx.=16.10 grams 928 
 
 Dinner. Proteid Calories 
 
 One teacup cream of corn soup 3.25 grams 72 
 
 130 grams or 4^ ounces. 
 
 One Parker-house roll 3.38 110 
 
 38 grams or 1£ ounces. 
 
 One-inch cube of butter 0.19 142 
 
 19 grams or § ounce. 
 One small lamb chop, broiled lean meat 8.51 92 
 
 30 grams or 1 ounce. 
 
 One teacup of mashed potato 3.34 175 
 
 167 grams or 5| ounces. 
 Apple-celery lettuce salad with mayon- 
 naise dressing . 62 75 
 
 50 grams or If ounces. 
 One Boston cracker, split, 2 inches di- 
 ameter 1.32 47 
 
 12 grams or £ ounce. 
 One half-inch cube American cheese. . . 3.35 50 
 
 12 grams or £ ounce. 
 One-half teacup of bread pudding.... 5.25 150 
 
 85 grams or 3 ounces. 
 
 One demitasse coffee 
 
 One lump of sugar 38 
 
 10 grams or £ ounce. ■ 
 
 1 ounce approx.=29.21 951 
 
 157 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 " The grand totals for the day, with this 
 dietary, amount to 58.07 grams of proteid 
 (2 oz. approx.) and 2729 calories. It is of 
 course understood that these figures are to 
 be considered as only approximately cor- 
 rect, but the illustration will suffice, perhaps, 
 to give a clearer understanding of the actual 
 quantities of food involved in a daily ration 
 approaching the requirements for a man of 
 70 kilograms (154 pounds) body- weight. 
 Further, there may be suggested by the fig- 
 ures given for proteid and fuel value of the 
 different quantities of foods, a clearer con- 
 ception of how much given dietary articles 
 count for in swelling the total value of a 
 day's intake. Moreover, it is easy to see 
 how the diet can be added to or modified in a 
 given direction. If a little more proteid is 
 desired without changing materially the fuel 
 value of the food a boiled egg can be added 
 to the breakfast, for example. An average- 
 sized egg of 53 grams (2 oz.) contains 6.9 
 grams of proteid, while it will increase the 
 fuel value of the food by only 80 calories. 
 Or, if more vegetable proteid is wished for, 
 
 158 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 a soup of split-peas can be introduced, with- 
 out changing in any degree the calorific 
 value of the diet. Thus, one teacup of split- 
 pea soup (144 grams, or 4§ oz.) contains 
 8.64 grams of proteid, while the fuel value 
 of this quantity may be only 94 calories. 
 The addition of one banana (160 grams, 
 5 J oz.) will increase fuel value 153 calories, 
 but will add only 2.28 grams of proteid. If 
 it is desired to increase fuel value without 
 change in the proteid-content of the food, 
 recourse can always be had to butter, fat of 
 meat, additional oil in salads, or to syrup 
 and sugar. 
 
 " Such a menu as is roughly outlined, 
 however, has perhaps special value in em- 
 phasizing how largely the proteid intake is 
 increased by food other than meats, and 
 which are not conspicuously rich in proteid 
 matter. All wheat products, for example, 
 while abounding in starch, still show a large 
 proportion of proteid. Thus, shredded 
 wheat biscuit (1 ounce), which is a type of 
 many kindred wheat preparations, from 
 bread and biscuit to the many so-called 
 
 159 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 breakfast foods, yields about 3 grams of 
 proteid per ounce and approximately 100 
 calories. Even potato, which is conspicu- 
 ously a carbohydrate food owing to its large 
 content of starch, yields of nitrogen the 
 equivalent of at least three-fourths of a 
 gram of proteid per ounce. If larger vol- 
 ume is desired without much increase in real 
 food value, there are always available green 
 foods, such as lettuce, celery, greens of 
 various sorts, fruits, such as apples, grapes, 
 oranges, etc. Too great reliance on meats 
 as a type of concentrated food, on the other 
 hand, augments largely the intake of proteid 
 food, and adds a relatively small amount to 
 the fuel value of the day's ration." 14 
 
 The following specimen meals, taken at 
 random from among the dietaries used by 
 the subjects of Professor Chittenden's ex- 
 periments, are given here as actual examples 
 of dietaries in which the proportions and 
 amounts of the various kinds of foods are 
 properly balanced. 15 
 
 14 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 280-282. 
 is The quantities of food in the specimen meals, which 
 
 160 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Professor Chittenden 16 
 
 Breakfast — 1 cup coffee (demitasse), £ teacup cream, 1 
 teaspoonful sugar. 
 
 Lttnch^-I shredded wheat biscuit, £ teacup cream, 1 teacup 
 tea, J teaspoonful sugar, I small piece of apple-pie, 2 
 wheat <jems, $-inch cube butter. 
 
 Dixxer — 1 teacup milk-celery soup, 1 slice bread, a dab of 
 butter, lettuce sandwich, small triangle of lemon-pie. 
 
 Per cent. Total 
 
 FOOD Grams. Nitrogen. Nitrogen. 
 
 Coffee, 3£ oz 100 X 0.042 0.042 grams 
 
 Cream, 4V 5 oz.. .25 + 118 =143 X 0.43 0.615 
 
 Sugar, V* oz. .8 + 7 + 10 = 25 X 0.00 0.000 
 
 Shredded wheat biscuit, 1 oz. 29 X 1.76 0.510 
 
 Wheat gems, 2 oz 60 X 1.17 0.702 
 
 Butter, £ oz 8+1= 9 X 0.10 0.009 
 
 Tea, 6f oz 100 + 100=200 X 0.048 0.096 
 
 Apple pie, 3£ oz 102 X 0.75 0.765 
 
 Milk-celery soup, 4§ oz 140 X 0.42 0.588 
 
 Bread 1 oz 15 X 1.36 0.204 
 
 Lettuce sandwich, 2 oz 62 X 1 . 02 . 632 
 
 Lemon pie, 3f oz 109 X 0.82 0.894 
 
 Total nitrogen in food 5 . 057 
 
 Fuel value of the food, 1594 calories. 
 
 were indicated by Professor Chittenden by their weight in 
 grams, have been weighed out for this book into portions 
 that can be more readily estimated by the average man. As 
 the food used for this purpose was not that used by Pro- 
 fessor Chittenden, the estimates must be understood to be 
 mere approximations. — G. B. 
 
 is Chittenden: "Physiological Economy in Nutrition," p. 
 38. 
 
 161 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Professor Mendel 
 
 17 
 
 Breakfast — 2 thin slices bread (average baker's loaf), 2\ 
 teaspoonfuls sugar, 1 teacup coffee. 
 
 Lunch — 6 slices bread, 1 large sweet potato, 1 glass milk, 
 1 teaspoonful sugar, 1 small saucer peach preserve. 
 
 Dinner — 6 slices bread, 1 potato, 1 teacup tomato puree, 
 1 tablespoon ful baked beans, 1 small triangle lemon pie, 
 1 teacup coffee, 3 teaspoonfuls sugar. 
 
 Per cent. Total 
 
 FOOD Grams. Nitrogen. Nitrogen. 
 
 Bread, 7* oz.40 + 95 + 90= 225 X 1.75 3.94 grams 
 
 Sugar, 1§ oz..20 + 7 +21 = 48 X 0.00 0.00 
 
 Coffee (breakfast), 7 oz 210 X 0.096 0.20 
 
 Sweet potato, 4£ oz 130 X 0.31 0.40 
 
 Milk, 8£oz 250 X 0.51 1.27 
 
 Peach preserve, 3 oz 93 X 0.09 0.08 
 
 Potato,3£oz 100 X 0.36 0.36 
 
 Tomato puree, 4^ oz 135 X 0.33 0.45 
 
 Baked beans, 2\ oz 75 X 1.30 0.98 
 
 Lemon pie, 3| oz 110 X 0.61 0.67 
 
 Coffee (dinner), 7 oz ,...210 X 0.13 0.27 
 
 Total nitrogen in food 8.62 grams 
 
 Fuel value of the food, 1828 calories. 
 
 17 Chittenden : " Physiological Economy in Nutrition," p. 
 61. 
 
 162 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Mr. Beers 18 
 
 Breakfast — 2 saucers oatmeal, 1 inch-cube butter, £ teacup 
 cream, 5 teaspoonfuls sugar, 1 teacupful coffee. 
 
 Luxch — 5 thin slices bread, 1 inch-cube butter, 1 large 
 boiled potato, 1 glass milk. 
 
 Distner — 4 slices bread, 1 inch-cube butter, 1 heaping table- 
 spoonful baked beans, saucer cranberry sauce, 1 teacupful 
 coffee, 3 teaspoonfuls sugar. 
 
 Per cent. Total 
 
 FOOD Grams. Nitrogen. Nitrogen. 
 
 Oatmeal, 10 oz 229 X 0.60 1.794 grams 
 
 Butter, 1^ oz. 
 
 19 + 11 + 12= 42 X 0.088 0.036 
 
 Cream, 2^ oz 71 X 0.47 0.333 
 
 Sugar, 2 oz 41+21= 62 X 0.00 0.000 
 
 Coffee (breakfast), 7 oz 210 X 0.12 0.252 
 
 Bread, 4£ oz 79+56=135 X 1.65 2.227 
 
 Boiled potato, 5£ oz 155. 2X 0.39 0.605 
 
 Milk, 8^ oz 250 X 0.55 1.375 
 
 Baked beans, 3£ oz 100 X 1.40 1.400 
 
 Cranberry sauce, 5 oz 150 X 0.04 0.060 
 
 Coffee (dinner), 7 oz 210 X 0.11 0.231 
 
 Total nitrogen in food 8.313 grams 
 
 Fuel value of the food, 1723 calories. 
 
 18 Chittenden: " Physiological Economy in Nutrition," p. 
 115. 
 
 163 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 Mr. Oakman, member of the soldier detail 19 
 
 Breakfast — 1 saucer boiled rice, | glass milk, 3 teaspoonfuls 
 sugar, 1 large baked potato, 1 inch-cube butter, 1 coffee- 
 cup coffee. 
 
 Dixker — 2 heaping tablespoonfuls baked spaghetti, 5 slices 
 bread, 1 small saucer boiled tomato, 1 small triangle apple 
 pie, 2 average slices bacon, 1 coffeecup coffee. 
 
 Supper — 3 biscuit, 2 average slices fried bacon, 5 tablespoon- 
 fuls fried sweet potato, 1 inch-cube butter, 1 coffeecup tea. 
 
 Per cent. Total 
 
 FOOD Grams. Nitrogen. Nitrogen. 
 
 Boiled rice, 6 oz 175 X 0.34 0.595 grams 
 
 Milk, 4 oz 125 X 0.55 0.687 
 
 Sugar, 1 oz 25 X 0.00 0.000 • 
 
 Baked potato, 5 oz 150 X 0.34 0.510 
 
 Coffee (breakfast), 1 If oz.. 350 X 0.082 0.287 
 
 Butter, 1 oz 10+20= 30 X 0.16 0.480 
 
 Spaghetti, 8Joz 250 X 0.73 1 .825 
 
 Mashed potato, 8£ oz 250 X 0.30 0.750 
 
 Bread, 2£ oz 75 X 1.61 1.207 
 
 Tomato, 5 oz 150 X 0.16 0.240 
 
 Apple pie, 3f oz 112 X 0.46 0.515 
 
 Biscuit, 6 oz 175 X 1.21 2.117 
 
 Fried bacon, f oz 20 X 3.80 0.760 
 
 Fried sweet potato, 5 oz 150 X 0.22 0.330 
 
 Tea, llf oz 350 X 0.06 0.210 
 
 Coffee (dinner), 11§ oz 350 X 0.11 0.385 
 
 Total nitrogen in food 10.466 grams 
 
 Fuel value of the food, 2670 calories. 
 
 *9 Chittenden: "Physiological Economy in Nutrition," p. 
 224. 
 
 164 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Mr. Donahue, one of the Yale athletes 20 
 
 Breakfast — 1 banana, 1 saucer boiled Indian meal, \ teacup 
 cream, 2\ teaspoonfuls sugar, 4 thin slices bread, 1 inch- 
 cube butter. 
 
 Lunch — 4 thin slices bread, 1 inch-cube butter, 1 small lamb 
 chop, 1 heaping tablespoon potato-croquette, 1 large saucer 
 tomato, 1 saucer water-ice, 2£ teaspoonfuls sugar. 
 
 Dinner — £ teacup bean soup, 3| tablespoonfuls fried potato, 
 £ egg, 1 average slice bacon, 1 salad-plate lettuce, 1 cup 
 coffee (demitasse), i teacup cream, 2 £ teaspoonfuls sugar, 
 6 large stewed prunes and juice. 
 
 Per cent. Total 
 
 FOOD Grams. Nitrogen. Nitrogen. 
 
 Bread, 2 oz 59 X 1.65 0.964 grams 
 
 Butter, 1 oz 16 + 13= 29 X 0.15 0.044 
 
 Banana, 3J oz 106 X 0.23 0.244 
 
 Boiled Indian-meal, 5 oz.. 150 X 0.17 0.255 
 
 Sugar, 2 oz.21 + 14 +21— 56 X 0.00 0.000 
 
 Cream, 3£ oz 50+50= 100 X 0.43 0.430 
 
 Bread, 2 oz 55 X 1.82 1.001 
 
 Potato croquette, 3J oz 105 X 0.71 0.746 
 
 Lamb chops, 1£ oz 37 X 4.63 1.713 
 
 Tomato, 7 oz 213 X 0.17 0.367 
 
 Water-ice, 4f oz 143 X 0.012 0.017 
 
 Prunes, 8£ oz 247 X 0.16 0.395 
 
 Bean soup, 3£ oz 100 X 1.21 1.210 
 
 Fried potato, 3^ oz 100 X 0.60 0.600 
 
 Egg, § oz 22 X 2.27 0.499 
 
 Bacon, £ oz 10 X 3.05 0.305 
 
 Salad, 2 oz 63 X 0.21 0.132 
 
 Coffee, 3£ oz 100 X 0.06 0.060 
 
 Total nitrogen in food 8.992 grams 
 
 Fuel value of the food 2294 calories 
 
 20 Chittenden: " Physiological Economy in Nutrition," p. 
 379. 
 
 165 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Professor Chittenden adds to the speci- 
 men meals used in his own experiments the 
 following dietary, which was adopted by a 
 Scotch physician, Dr. Aran Coirce, as a test 
 of the low proteid theory. 
 
 Breakfast — Oatmeal cakes, bread and butter, about 1 cubic 
 inch of cheese or bloater paste, marmalade, and one 
 breakfast cup of tea. 
 
 Lunch — Same as breakfast, with occasionally a boiled egg, 
 sometimes coffee instead of tea. 
 
 Dinner — Thick soup containing vegetables, with bread, 
 followed by suet pudding or fruit tart; or vegetable stew, 
 containing 2 or 3 ounces of meat, with boiled potatoes, 
 followed by milk pudding and jam, and occasionally a 
 cup of black coffee. 
 
 " The result was that I was relieved of a 
 lifelong tendency to acid dyspepsia and oc- 
 casional sick headache," says Dr. Coirce, 
 "my fitness for work, my appetite and rel- 
 ish for food were increased, without any 
 diminution, but rather a slight increase in 
 weight. My practice extends over a wide 
 area of rough mountainous country involv- 
 ing long journeys on cycle, on foot, driv- 
 ing, and in open boats, in fair and foul 
 
 166 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 weather. The muscular exertion and en- 
 durance necessary for the work would seem 
 to require a large proportion of proteid and 
 a generous diet altogether, but since I began 
 to experiment I have suffered less than 
 formerly from fatigue, and seem to eat in 
 all a smaller quantity of food." 21 
 
 These weekly bills of fare in actual use 
 in two families which have adopted the new 
 plan of diet are given here as indicating the 
 wide range of variety possible in a diet that 
 has been brought into strict conformation 
 with true physiological needs. 
 
 SUNDAY^ 
 
 Breakfast 
 2 tablespoons of stewed tunny fish 
 1 piece of toast 
 1 potato cake 
 
 1 tablespoonful of oatmeal and cream 
 8 ounces of strong, black coffee and cream 
 
 Lunch 
 Nothing 
 
 Tea 
 4 small crackers 
 
 1 cup of tea 
 
 2i Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," pp. 285-286. 
 22 Goodwin Brown: "The Secret of Efficiency," The New 
 Yor\ Times, June 16, 1907. 
 
 167 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Dinner 
 
 1 very small piece of roast lamb 
 
 1 sauceplate of macaroni 
 
 1 sauceplate of apple tapioca and cream 
 
 1 small piece of gingerbread 
 
 2 small cups of tea 
 
 Supper (11 P. M.) 
 
 1 plate of ice cream 
 1 small piece of cake 
 
 Monday 
 Breakfast 
 
 1 heaping tablespoonful stewed lamb 
 
 2 small buckwheat cakes 
 
 1 tablespoonful Scotch oatmeal and cream 
 8 ounces strong black coffee and cream 
 
 Lunch 
 4 crackers 
 
 2 small pieces of bread 
 
 2 very small codfish cakes 
 1 very small piece of ham 
 
 Dinner 
 
 1 heaping tablespoonful stewed lamb 
 
 \ sauce dish stewed corn 
 
 1 tablespoonful tapioca pudding 
 
 1 tablespoonful wine jelly and cream 
 
 2 cups of tea 
 
 Supper 
 1 milk cracker 
 1 small Deerfoot sausage 
 | piece mince pie 
 
 168 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Tuesday 
 
 Breakfast 
 5 small cubes fried liver 
 1 piece of toast 
 1 tablespoonful Scotch oatmeal and cream 
 
 Dinner 
 Plateful corn soup 
 
 1 heaping tablespoonful boiled codfish and 
 
 potatoes 
 
 2 tablespoonfuls wine jelly and cream 
 2 cups of tea 
 
 Wednesday 
 
 Breakfast 
 6 small cubes of fried liver 
 $ slice toast 
 1 small codfish ball 
 1 heaping tablespoonful Scotch oatmeal and 
 
 cream 
 8 ounces of strong coffee without cream 
 
 Dinner 
 5 raw oysters 
 1 plate clear turtle soup 
 I portion baked fish 
 
 1 small croquette 
 J French roll 
 
 2 olives 
 
 \ portion chicken salad 
 
 \ plate wine jelly 
 
 1 small portion ice cream 
 
 169 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Thursday 
 
 Breakfast 
 1 small piece of fried bacon 
 1 fried egg 
 1 buckwheat cake 
 
 \ sauceplate Scotch oatmeal and cream 
 8 ounces strong coffee with cream 
 
 Lunch 
 Nothing 
 
 Dinner 
 1 heaping tablespoonful cornbeef hash 
 1 heaping tablespoonful baked beans 
 1 portion of lettuce and onion salad 
 1 plate of stewed onions 
 1 slice bread and butter 
 
 1 sauce-plate of sliced onions 
 
 2 cups of tea 
 
 Friday 
 
 Breakfast 
 
 1 thin slice of bacon 
 
 5 small cubes of fried liver 
 
 2 small buckwheat cakes 
 
 1 heaping tablespoonful Scotch oatmeal 
 8 ounces strong black coffee with cream 
 
 Lunch 
 Piece of steak size of finger 
 1 tablespoonful mashed potato 
 | sauce-plate of stewed peas 
 1 plate of thin bean soup 
 1 cake 
 
 1 sauce-plate of ice cream 
 170 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Dinner 
 1 slice cold fried bacon 
 
 Saturday 
 Breakfast 
 1 slice of toast covered with stewed chopped 
 
 meat 
 £ sauce-plate Scotch oatmeal with cream 
 8 ounces strong coffee with cream 
 
 Dinner 
 7 small smoked Norway sardines 
 
 1 tablespoonful tunny fish 
 
 2 small crackers 
 
 SUNDAY23 
 
 Breakfast 
 Rolls and coffee 
 
 Lunch 
 
 Cereal and cream 
 
 Grapefruit 
 
 Dinner 
 
 Scrambled eggs 
 
 Lettuce salad 
 
 Corn muffins 
 
 Stewed rhubarb 
 
 Crackers and cheese 
 
 Monday 
 
 Breakfast 
 
 Rolls and coffee 
 
 23 Frances Maule Bjorkman: "A Practical Experiment 
 in Fletcherism," The World's Work, February, 1908. 
 
 171 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Lunch 
 Lettuce salad 
 .Wheat wafers 
 
 Orange 
 
 Dinner 
 
 Bacon and eggs 
 
 Stewed corn 
 
 Roils 
 Fruit salad 
 
 Tuesday 
 
 Breakfast 
 
 Oaten wafers and coffee 
 
 Lunch 
 
 Strawberries and cream 
 
 Corn muffins 
 
 Dinner 
 
 Poached eggs 
 
 Boiled onions 
 
 Graham gems 
 
 Bananas and cream 
 
 Wednesday 
 
 Breakfast 
 
 Oaten wafers and coffee 
 
 Lunch 
 
 Cereal and cream 
 
 Orange 
 
 Dinner 
 
 New asparagus in cream 
 
 Lettuce salad 
 
 Rolls 
 Stewed prunes 
 
 172 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Thursday 
 
 Breakfast 
 
 Coffee 
 
 Lunch 
 Cream cheese and bar le due jelly 
 
 Dinner 
 
 Baked beans 
 
 Brown bread 
 
 Tomato salad 
 
 Stewed rhubarb 
 
 Friday 
 
 Breakfast 
 
 Coffee 
 
 Lunch 
 
 Cereal and cream 
 
 Figs 
 
 Dinner 
 
 Baked beans 
 
 Stewed tomatoes 
 
 Brown bread 
 
 Fruit salad 
 
 Saturday 
 
 Breakfast 
 
 Nothing 
 
 Lunch 
 Strawberries and cream 
 
 Dinner 
 
 New asparagus in cream 
 
 Lettuce and cucumber salad 
 
 Rolls 
 
 Stewed apples 
 
 173 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 The following table, taken from Pro- 
 fessor Chittenden, 24 will give the reader a 
 general idea of where 60 grams or 2 ounces 
 of proteid are to be found : 
 
 Sixty Grams or 2 Ounces of Proteid 
 
 are Contained in Fuel Value 
 
 Calories. 
 
 One-half pound fresh lean beef, loin 308 
 
 Nine hen's eggs 720 
 
 Four-fifths pound sweetbread 660 
 
 Three-fourths pound fresh liver 432 
 
 Seven-eighths pound lean smoked bacon 1820 
 
 Three-fourths pound halibut steak 423 
 
 One-half pound salt codfish, boneless 245 
 
 Two and one-fifth pounds oysters, solid 506 
 
 One-half pound American pale cheese 1027 
 
 Four pounds whole milk (two quarts) 1300 
 
 Five-sixths pound uncooked oatmeal 1550 
 
 One and one- fourth pounds shredded wheat 2125 
 
 One pound uncooked macaroni , . . . . 1665 
 
 One and one-third pounds white wheat bread 1520 
 
 One and one-fourth pounds crackers 2381 
 
 One and one-third pounds flaked rice 2807 
 
 Three-fifths pound dried beans 963 
 
 One and seven-eighths pounds baked beans 1125 
 
 One-half pound dried peas 827 
 
 One and eleven-twelfths pounds potato chips 5128 
 
 Two-thirds pound almonds 2020 
 
 Two-fifths pound pine nuts, pignolias 1138 
 
 One and two-fifths pounds peanuts 3584 
 
 Ten pounds bananas, edible portion 4600 
 
 Ten pounds grapes 4500 
 
 Eleven pounds lettuce 990 
 
 Fifteen pounds prunes 5550 
 
 Thirty-three pounds apples 9570 
 
 a 
 
 The figures in this table are instructive 
 in many ways. First, it is to be noted that 
 
 24 "Nutrition of Man." 
 17* 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 the daily proteid requirement of sixty grams 
 can be obtained from one-half pound of lean 
 meat (uncooked), of which the loin steak 
 is a type. Subject to some variations in con- 
 tent of water, an equivalent weight of lean 
 flesh of any variety, lamb, veal, poultry, etc., 
 will furnish approximately the same amount 
 of proteid. With fish, such as halibut steak, 
 and with liver, three-quarters of a pound 
 are required; while with sweetbreads, four- 
 fifths of a pound are needed to furnish the 
 requisite amount of proteid. Of salt cod- 
 fish, one-half pound will provide the same 
 amount of proteid as an equivalent weight 
 of fresh beef; while with lean smoked bacon 
 the amount rises to seven-eighths of a 
 pound. Among the vegetable products, it 
 is to be observed that dried peas and beans, 
 almonds and pine-nuts, are as rich in pro- 
 teid as the above-mentioned animal foods, 
 essentially the same weights being called for 
 to provide the daily requirement of pro- 
 teid. The same is true of cheese, the variety 
 designated having such a composition that 
 one-half pound is the equivalent, so far as 
 
 175 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 the content of proteid is concerned, of a like 
 amount of fresh beef. We must not be 
 unmindful of the fact previously mentioned, 
 however, that there are differences in di- 
 gestibility among these various foodstuffs 
 which tend to lower somewhat the availa- 
 bility of the vegetable products, also of the 
 cheese, thereby necessitating a slight in- 
 crease in the amount of these foods required 
 to equal the value to the body of lean meat. 
 " Secondly, passing to the other extreme 
 in our list, we find indicated types of foods 
 exceedingly poor in proteid, such as the 
 fruits; notably, bananas, grapes, prunes, 
 apples, etc., also lettuce, and in less degree 
 potatoes. These are the kinds of food that 
 may legitimately attract by their palata- 
 bility, but do not add materially to our 
 intake of proteid even when consumed in 
 relatively large amounts. Thirdly, we see 
 clearly indicated a radical difference be- 
 tween the animal foods and those of veg- 
 etable origin, in that with the former the 
 fuel value of the quantity necessary to 
 furnish the sixty grams of proteid is very; 
 
 176 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 small, as compared with a like amount of 
 the average vegetable product. One-half 
 pound of lean meat, for example, with its 
 60 grams of proteid, has a fuel value of 
 only 308 calories, while two-thirds of a 
 pound of almonds has a fuel value of 2020 
 calories, and one-half pound of dried peas 
 827 calories. Naturally, this is mainly a 
 question of the proportion of fat or oil 
 present. With fat meat, as in bacon, the 
 calorific value rises in proportion to increase 
 in the amount of fat, the proteid decreasing 
 in greater or less measure. 
 
 " The main point to be emphasized in this 
 connection, however, is that a high proteid 
 animal food, like lean meat, eggs, fish, etc., 
 obviously cannot alone serve as an advan- 
 tageous food for man. We see at once the 
 philosophy of a mixed diet. Let us assume 
 that our average man of 70 kilograms body- 
 weight needs daily 2800 calories. On this 
 assumption, if he were to depend entirely 
 upon lean beef for his sustenance, he would 
 require daily four and a half pounds of 
 such meat, which amount would furnish 
 
 177 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 nine times the quantity of proteid needed 
 by his system. The same would be more or 
 less true of other kindred animal products. 
 On the other hand, certain vegetable foods 
 on our list, such as flaked rice, crackers, and 
 shredded wheat, contain proteid, with car- 
 bohydrate and fat, in such proportion that 
 the energy requirement would be met es- 
 sentially by the same quantity as served to 
 furnish the necessary proteid. Passing to 
 the other extreme among the vegetable 
 products, as in potatoes and bananas, for 
 example, we find fuel value predominating 
 largely over proteid content. The ideal diet, 
 however, is found in a judicious admixture 
 of foodstuffs of both animal and vegetable 
 origin. Wheat bread, reinforced T)y a little 
 butter or fat bacon to add to its calorific 
 value, shredded wheat with rich cream, 
 crackers with cheese, bread and milk, eggs 
 with bacon, meat with potatoes, etc.: the 
 common, every-day household admixtures 
 provide combinations which can easily be 
 made to accord with true physiological re- 
 quirements. The same may be equally true 
 
 178 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 of tHe more complicated dishes evolved by 
 the high art of modern cookery." 25 
 
 The following table, made out by Pro- 
 fessor Fisher, will indicate the amount of 
 carbohydrates necessary to bring the fuel 
 value of the food up to the amount re- 
 quired: 2S 
 
 Per cent of 
 
 PORTION OF FOOD Weight of , a , 
 
 CONTAINING 100 calories Carbo- 
 
 100 CALORIES Grams Ounces Proteid Fat hydrate 
 
 Clams (12 to 16 raw)... 210 7.4 56 8 36 
 
 Oysters (12 raw) 193 6.8 49 59 00 
 
 Beef soup 380 13 69 -14 17 
 
 Bean soup, very large pi. 150 5.4 20 20 60 
 
 Cream of celery soup (2) 180 6.3 16 47 37 
 
 Clam chowder (2 plates) 230 8.25 17 18 65 
 
 Beef boiled (small serving) 36 1.3 40 60 00 
 
 Roast beef (i serving) .. . 18.5 .65 12 88 00 
 
 Broiled lamb chop (small) 27 .96 24 76 00 
 
 Roast lamb (ord. serving) 50 1.8 40 50 00 
 
 Boiled ham (sm. serving) 20.5 .73 14 86 00 
 
 Baked ham (sm. serving) . 27 .96 19 81 00 
 
 Boiled eggs (1 large egg) 59 2.1 32 68 00 
 
 Omelet 94 3.3 34 60 6 
 
 Baked beans, sm. sidedish 75 2.66 21 18 61 
 
 Lima beans, large sidedish 126 4.44 21 14 75 
 
 Beets, 3 servings 245 8.7 2 23 75 
 
 Carrots, 2 servings 164 5.81 10 34 56 
 
 Corn, 1 sidedish 99 3.5 13 10 77 
 
 Onions, 2 large servings. 240 8.4 12 40 48 
 
 Peas, 1 serving 85 3 23 27 50 
 
 Baked potato, 1 large 86 3 23 27 50 
 
 Boiled potato, 1 large... 102 3.62 11 1 68 
 
 Mashed potato, 1 serving. 89 3.14 10 25 65 
 
 24 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 274-277. 
 
 25 Irving Fisher, Ph. D.: "A Graphic Method in Practical 
 Dietetics." 
 
 179 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIES 
 
 Per C6nt. of 
 
 PORTION OF FOOD Weight of , * — ■ » 
 
 CONTAINING 100 calories Carbo- 
 
 100 CALORIES Grams Ounces ProteidFat hydrate 
 
 Potato chips, \ serving... 17 .6 4 63 33 
 
 Sweet potato, \ a v. potato 49 1.7 6 9 85 
 
 Spinach, 2 ord. servings. 174 6.1 15 66 19 
 
 Tomatoes, fresh (4).... 480 15 15 16 69 
 
 Brown bread thick slice.. 43 1.5 9 7 84 
 
 Cornbread small square.. 38 1.3 12 16 72 
 
 White bread thick slice.. 38 1.3 13 6 81 
 
 Hominy large serving... 120 4.2 11 2 87 
 
 Macaroni ord. serving... 110 3.85 14 15 71 
 
 Oatmeal one-half serving 159 5.6 18 7 75 
 
 Rice ord. cereal dish 87 3.1 10 1 89 
 
 1 large Vienna roll 35 1.2 12 7 81 
 
 Shredded wheat 1 biscuit. 27 .94 13 4.5 82.5 
 
 Butter ordinary ball 12.5 .44 .5 99.5 00 
 
 Buttermilk 1£ glass 275 9.7 34 12 54 
 
 American cheese 1J cu. in.122 .77 25 73 2 
 
 Cottage cheese 4 cu. in.. 89 3.12 76 8 16 
 
 Cream cheese 1£ cu. in... 23 .82 25 73 2 
 
 Neufchatel 1£ cu. in.... 29.5 1.05 22 76 2 
 
 Swiss cheese lj cu. in.... 23 .8 25 74 1 
 
 Pineapple cheese 1£ cu. in. 20 .72 25 73 2 
 
 Cream I ord. glass 49 1.7 5 86 9 
 
 Milk small glass 140 4.9 19 52 29 
 
 Honey 4 teaspoonfuls 30 1.05 1 99 
 
 Olives green 7 32 1.1 1 84 15 
 
 Olives ripe 7 38 1,3 2 91 7 
 
 Sugar gran. 3 tablespoons 24 .86 100 
 Maple syrup, 4 table- 
 spoons 35 1.2 100 
 
 Chocolate layer cake £... 28 .98 7 22 71 
 
 Custard 1 ord. cup 122 4.29 26 56 18 
 
 Doughnuts £ 23 .8 6 45 49 
 
 Dates, 3 large 28 .99 2 7 91 
 
 Figs, 1 large 31 1.1 5 95 
 
 Prunes, 3 large 32 1.14 3 97 
 
 Apples, 2 206 7.3 3 7 90 
 
 Applesauce, ord. serving 111 3.9 2 5 93 
 
 Banana, 1 large 100 3.5 5 5 90 
 
 Oranges, 1 large orange. 270 9.4 6 3 91 
 
 Peaches, 3 290 10 7 2 91 
 
 180 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Per cent, of 
 
 PORTION OP FOOD Weight of , * » 
 
 CONTAINING 100 calories Carbo- 
 
 100 CALORIES Grams Ounces Proteid Fat hydrate 
 
 Pears, 1 large 173 5.40 4 7 89 
 
 Strawberries, 2 servings.. 260 9.1 10 15 75 
 
 Almonds, 8 15 .53 13 77 10 
 
 Brazil nuts, 3 14 .49 10 86 4 
 
 Peanuts, 13 18 .62 20 63 17 
 
 Pine nuts, 80 16 .56 22 74 4 
 
 Pecans, 8 13 .46 6 87 7 
 
 Walnuts, 6 Cal 14 .48 10 83 7 
 
 The attitude of the originators of the new 
 dietetics towards the articles of diet which 
 are not foods in the proper sense of the 
 term, but which are used for their stimu- 
 lating effects or for their flavoring quali- 
 ties, is indicated by the claim that the prac- 
 tice of the system tends to lead to their re- 
 jection by taste and appetite. The habitual 
 use of an artificial whip keeps the body 
 running at a higher speed that it can af- 
 ford and wears out the organs and tissues 
 before their time. However, no serious and 
 lasting evils of a positive character can be 
 attributed to a moderate use of tea, coffee, 
 and chocolate, except in the case of a few 
 persons upon whom they act as a poison. 
 
 Theine or caffeine, the active principle 
 in tea and coffee, is a powerful stimulant 
 
 181 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 to the heart, kidneys, and nervous system. 27 
 Fifteen grains will banish not only the de- 
 sire for but the possibility of sleep for a 
 whole night or more, and enable the user to 
 do the best mental work of which his brain 
 is capable for hours at a stretch. However, 
 besides this stimulant — which may be in- 
 valuable at times — tea and coffee contain a 
 certain amount of xanthin, a substance 
 closely allied to uric acid; and a great deal 
 of tannin, a substance which has a tendency 
 to interfere wth digestion by "tanning" 
 the proteids of the food exactly as tannic 
 acid tans leather. Most of the trouble aris- 
 ing from the excessive use of tea and cof- 
 fee spring, not from the stimulating quali- 
 ties they contain, but from their xanthin 
 and tannic acid. If they were always made 
 by the " drip " method and never permitted 
 to boil or to stand on their grounds, most 
 of these troubles would disappear. 
 
 Although chocolate is not generally recog- 
 nized as a stimulant, it contains a drug called 
 theo-bromine, similar in its effects to caf» 
 
 27 C. W. Saleeby, M. D., "Worry," p. 102. 
 182 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 feine and theine, but of a somewhat milder 
 character. 
 
 Authorities differed widely in the past as 
 to the position that alcohol should occupy in 
 the food scale. To-day there is hardly a 
 physiologist or physician who has a single 
 good word to say for its use. Many au- 
 thorities flatly class it as a poison. 
 
 But even if alcohol should have some 
 small food value, it is certain that alcoholic 
 liquors of every kind have none whatever 
 aside from the alcohol which they contain. 
 Even the highly advertised malt beers are 
 to be gauged for their food value by their 
 alcoholic percentages alone. Aside from 
 this, the qualities that differentiate one alco- 
 holic beverage from another are mere mat- 
 ters of flavoring. 
 
 All condiments are to be classed with 
 stimulants: their function is to accelerate 
 the digestive processes by means of an arti- 
 ficial goad. Therefore, while they may be 
 useful in cases of impaired digestion, they 
 are not only useless but positively injurious 
 to a perfectly healthy organism. 
 
 183 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 It is probable that there is a physiological 
 (demand for a certain amount of salt when 
 the diet consists chiefly of vegetables, owing 
 to the fact that the potassium salts existing 
 in most vegetable foods have a tendency to 
 withdraw sodium from the organism; but 
 there is no need for, and there may be de- 
 cided disadvantage in, the amounts of salt 
 ordinarily consumed. In a diet conforming 
 with the specimen meals given in the pre- 
 ceding pages, a few grams a day — say from 
 five to fifteen, according to the character 
 of the food— are enough to meet all real 
 needs. 28 
 
 Within the last year or two a great deal 
 has been written and said about the stimu- 
 lating properties of sugar, and there seems 
 to be no doubt that the higher forms of 
 sugar — and even the lower forms, if prop- 
 erly treated in the mouth — are absorbed 
 with less effort and give off their con- 
 tained energy more quickly than any other 
 form of food. It is now common knowl- 
 edge that an army can march farther and 
 
 28 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 299-300. 
 184 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 fight harder on candy than on beef, and in 
 recognition of this fact chocolate tablets 
 form an integral part of all regular ra- 
 tions. The United States Government, 
 recognizing the fact that the more candy 
 a man eats, the less whiskey he drinks, 
 makes a practice of shipping tons of pure 
 candy to its soldiers in the Philippines. 
 The readers of Bernard Shaw will recall 
 the use made of these facts in the comedy, 
 ''Arms and the Man." 29 A starving sol- 
 dier, taking refuge from pursuit by his ene- 
 mies in the room of a young girl, beseeches 
 her to give him some chocolate which he sees 
 on her table, and meets her scornful com- 
 ments on the effeminacy of his diet with 
 the declaration that all old campaigners can 
 be recognized by the fact that they carry 
 chocolate creams in their holsters instead of 
 pistols. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, the form in 
 which sugar is most commonly used, is 
 the particular form in which it is least 
 
 29 Bernard Shaw: "Arms and the Man." Brentano's, 
 New York. 
 
 185 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 acceptable to the body. The common do- 
 mestic product distilled from the cane, the 
 beet, and the maple — to which chemistry- 
 gives the name of sucrose — is, in fact, not 
 a food at all, but a food element. Before 
 it can be used by the body, it must undergo 
 the complete process of starch digestion. 
 The first step in this process is, as we have 
 seen, the conversion of the starch into mal- 
 tose by the action of saliva in the mouth. 
 Here is where the trouble comes in. Starchy 
 foods can be held in the mouth and chewed 
 until the change into maltose has been com- 
 pleted. Sugary foods on account of their 
 solubility are extremely likely to escape 
 from the mouth and slip down the throat 
 before they have been acted upon by the 
 saliva. Therefore, not having been prop- 
 erly prepared for the stomach, they are 
 almost sure to set up more or less fermenta- 
 tion when they reach it. 
 
 There are two ways out of this dilemma: 
 one is to take particular pains with the in- 
 salivation of sweets, and the other is to get 
 one's sugar in forms other than sucrose. 
 
 186 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 Malt sugar can now be purchased from 
 manufacturers of health foods, and glucose 
 — a readily assimilable form of sugar de- 
 rived from corn and used largely in the 
 adulteration of honey — is a common article 
 of commerce. Levulose, which approaches 
 closely the form of sugar found in the 
 blood, is contained in honey and all sweet 
 fruits. 
 
 Unquestionably the best form in which 
 sugar can be taken is in these gifts of na- 
 ture. Honey was the only sweet known to 
 the ancients, and was one of their great food 
 staples. In these modern times physicians 
 and physiologists have rediscovered its vir- 
 tues and many of them are attempting to 
 rescue it from the subordinate position to 
 which it has fallen by urging its use as a sub- 
 stitute for cane sugar. 
 
 Physicians and physiologists are agreed 
 that there is no article of food more valuable 
 than fruit. Professor Chittenden gives the 
 preference to oranges, grapes, prunes, dates, 
 plums and bananas. In a lesser degree he 
 recommends peaches, apricots, pear?, apples, 
 
 187 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 figs, strawberries, raspberries, and blueber- 
 ries. When carefully masticated or when 
 thoroughly cooked, apples may be placed in 
 the first rank, but when swallowed raw in 
 large pieces, they are likely to prove indiges- 
 tible. 30 
 
 The use of sucrose in excessive quantities 
 or without due attention to insalivation — 
 particularly in the case of sedentary people 
 — brings in its train a long series of ills, such 
 as catarrh of the mucous membranes of the 
 whole body, flatulence, insomnia, sour stom- 
 ach, obesity and biliousness ; and it may even 
 lead to serious disorders such as jaundice 
 and diabetes. Used with ordinary precau- 
 tion, however, it is undoubtedly one of the 
 most valuable of foods. 
 
 The old-fashioned theory that certain 
 foods contain special magical properties 
 that are " good for " specific purposes in the 
 bodily economy has no foundation in fact. 
 Carrots are not " good for " the complexion, 
 celery is not " good for " the nerves, fish is 
 not a brain food. As we have seen, all 
 
 so Chittenden: " Nutrition of Man," p. 291. 
 188 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 foods are made up of a relatively small 
 number of simple elements in varying pro- 
 portions. 
 
 A given food may contain more of cer- 
 tain elements than others, but hardly in suf- 
 ficient quantities to endow it with medici- 
 nal powers. The salts in carrots and celery 
 as well as in many other vegetables are 
 unquestionably useful in regulating and 
 controlling the processes by which food is 
 built up into healthy tissues, but they are 
 incapable of restoring diseased tissue. Fish 
 is supposed to be good for the brain because 
 both fish and brain tissue contain phos- 
 phorus. When it is remembered, however, 
 that before any substance becomes available 
 to the body, it must be changed into the par- 
 ticular form of that substance which the 
 body can use, it will readily be seen that the 
 phosphorus which the brain requires may 
 possibly be obtained more readily from 
 foods which contain less phosphorus than 
 fish. 
 
 In working out the dietary according to 
 the new principles, a number of factors be- 
 
 189 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 sides the character of the food and the 
 idiosyncrasies of the individual should be 
 taken into consideration. " The season of 
 the year, the climate, the degree of activity, 
 the state of health, all present special condi- 
 tions which demand particular dietetic treat- 
 ment," says Professor Chittenden. ' In 
 hot summer weather, for example, there is 
 plainly less need for food than in the cold 
 winter season, especially for fat with its high 
 calorific value. During the cold part of the 
 year, the lower temperature of the surround- 
 ing air, with the tendency toward greater 
 muscular activity, calls for more extensive 
 chemical decomposition in order to meet the 
 demand for heat and the energy of muscu- 
 lar contraction. There is perhaps no spe- 
 cial reason for any material change in the 
 amount of proteid food consumed in the 
 two seasons, except in so far as it seems de- 
 sirable at times to take advantage of the 
 well known stimulating properties of pro- 
 teid to whip up the general metabolism of 
 the body, in harmony with the principle that 
 all metabolic processes may need spurring 
 
 190 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 to meet the demands of a greatly lowered 
 temperature in the surrounding air. 
 
 " Fuel value, however, should be increased 
 somewhat during the winter months in our 
 climate. Fat promises the largest amount 
 of energy, but there is more of a tendency 
 to store excess of fat than of carbohydrate, 
 hence the latter foods have certain advan- 
 tages as a source of the additional energy 
 needed during cold weather. In warm 
 weather it should be our aim to diminish un- 
 necessary heat production as much as possi- 
 ble, though it must be remembered that the 
 body calls for an adequate amount of food. 
 Lighter foods, however, may be advanta- 
 geously employed, such as fruits, vegetables, 
 fresh fish, etc. Fats and fat meats espe- 
 cially are to be avoided, not only because 
 there is no specific need for them, but par- 
 ticularly on account of the greater sensitive- 
 ness of the gastro-intestinal tract during the 
 hot seasons of the year, that is liable to result 
 in a disturbance whenever undue quantity 
 of rich food or heavy food is taken. 
 Further, in hot summer weather we may ad- 
 
 191 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 vantageously live more largely on foods 
 served cold, and thereby avoid the heat ordi- 
 narily introduced into the body by hot fluids 
 and solids. . . . 
 
 " In old age, there is naturally a slowing 
 down of the metabolic processes, and both 
 nitrogen equilibrium and body equilibrium 
 can be satisfactorily maintained by a rela- 
 tively small intake of food and with gain to 
 the body ; but there is every reason to believe 
 that economy in proteid food can be more ad- 
 vantageously adopted than economy in non- 
 nitrogenous foodstuffs." 31 
 
 In conclusion it should be emphasized that 
 there is nothing in the new conception of 
 diet that requires a man to do or not to do 
 anything that sets him apart from his fel- 
 lows and marks him out as a crank. Man- 
 kind has probably risen to the commanding 
 position which it occupies to-day because it 
 has always been able to subsist on all classes 
 of food. Therefore, it seems hardly ra- 
 tional for man to cut himself off, absolutely 
 and uncompromisingly, from any one of the 
 
 si Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 296-297. 
 192 
 
SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED 
 
 great food staples of the race. There is no 
 article of diet — with the possible exception 
 of alcohol — that, taken in moderation, can 
 be a source of danger or disease. The 
 method which accords best with the truths 
 of science as well as with the promptings of 
 common sense, is to eat temperately of the 
 foods that individual experience have 
 proved to be most pleasing to the appetite 
 and acceptable to the system. As Professor 
 Chittenden puts it: 
 
 ' The master words which promise help 
 in the carrying out of an intelligent plan of 
 living are moderation and simplicity; mod- 
 eration in the amount of food consumed 
 daily, simplicity in the character of the diet- 
 ary, in harmony with the old saying that 
 man eats to live and not lives to eat. In so 
 doing there is promise of health, strength, 
 and longevity, with increased efficiency, as 
 the reward of obedience to Nature's laws." 32 
 
 32 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," p. 301. 
 
 193 
 
INDEX 
 
 A 
 
 Alcohol, 118, 183 
 
 Alcoholism, cure for, 119 
 
 Anabolism, 78 
 
 Anxiety, its effect on digestion, 68 
 
 Appetite as guide, 55, 98. 
 
 excites the secretory nerves, 70 
 
 primitive, 101 
 
 true and false, 95 
 Athletes, experimental meals of, 165 
 
 experiments on, 42 
 Atwater's dietary standard, 80 
 
 B 
 
 Beers' experimental meals, 163 
 Bowditch, Dr. Henry P., 25 
 "Bradyfagy," 16 
 Breakfast, easily eliminated, 122 
 
 C 
 
 Calorie, denned, 45 
 
 Campbell, Dr. Harry, 66, 68, 71 
 
 Cambridge University, experiments at, 23 
 
 Candy vs. whiskey, 185 
 
 Carbo-hydrates, 58, 63, 75 
 
 Chittenden, Prof. Russell H., iii, vii, viii, 10, 13, 73, 81, 160 
 
 experimental meals of, 161 
 Cold weather, food for, 190 
 Conversation at table, 119 
 Curtis, Dr. Edward, 6, 127 
 
 D 
 Dietary standards, 80 
 Diet for cold weather, 190 
 Diet for hot weather, 190 
 Digestion affected by emotions, 68 
 
 in the mouth, 92 
 Dogs, experiments on, 44 
 
 Eat, when to, 20, 91, 114 
 Eating, aesthetics of, 67 
 fast, 15 
 
 B 
 
 195 
 
INDEX 
 
 Eating, slow, 16, 114, 115 
 " Economic nutritition," 4 
 Endurance of Mr. Fletcher, 26 
 
 of vegetarians and carnivores, 147 
 Excesses of food, effects of, 3, 7, 12, 75 
 Excrement, inoffensive nature of, 22, 92 
 
 frequency of, 92 
 Experiences of a lay " patient," 137, 139 
 Experimental meals of athletes, 165 
 
 of Mr. Beers, 163 
 
 of Professor Chittenden, 161 
 
 of Professor Mendel, 162 
 
 of soldiers, 32, 35, 164 
 Experiments, of Professor Chittenden at Yale, 29, 50, 51, 52 
 
 F 
 
 Family, meals of a, 167, 173 
 Fats, 58 
 
 accommodation of, 127 
 
 bad effects of, 128 
 
 how absorbed, 75 
 
 unaffected by saliva, 66 
 Fish, 188 
 
 Fisher, Professor Irving, iii, vii, viii, 3, 10, 52 
 Flesh, impossibility of " storing up," 5, 81, 82 
 Fletcher, Horace, iii, vii, viii, 14, 15, 90, 91, 95, 97, 98-103 
 
 tested at Yale, 25-27 
 " Fletcherism " and science, 22 
 " Fletcherism," its beginnings, 18 
 Foods, chemical composition of some, 57, 60, 179 
 Food, cannot be " stored," 5, 81, 82 
 Food values, 156, 157, 174, 179-181 
 Foster, Sir Michael, 24 
 Fruit, value of, 87 
 
 Fuel value, increase of in winter, 191 
 Fuel values, a table of some, 179 
 
 G 
 
 Gastric secretions, causes of, 69, 71 
 
 checked by distress, 72 
 
 stimulated by pleasure, 72 
 Gautier quoted on vegetarianism, 145 
 
 II 
 Habit, no guide to needs, 12, 13 
 
 196 
 
INDEX 
 
 Higgins, Dr. Hubert, vii 
 
 experience of Dr. Hubert, 120 
 Hospitality, 8, 9 
 Hot weather, food for, 190 
 
 I 
 
 Inefficiency, from excess of food, 7 
 Intestinal bacteria, destruction of, 76, 15$ 
 Intestinal putrefaction, 76 
 Intestine, its importance, 73 
 
 J 
 
 James, Professor William, 9 
 
 K 
 Katabolism, 78 
 
 L 
 
 " Lancet," recognition of Fletcher by, 23 
 
 Levulose, 187 
 
 Liquids, sipping of, 116 
 
 Loss of weight, 125 
 
 M 
 
 Malnutrition and inefficiency, 4 
 
 Maltose, 186 
 
 Mastication, duration of, 16, 21 
 
 excitation of saliva by, 70 
 
 its nutritive value, 14, 70, 71 
 Meals, in Yale experiments, 32, 35, 161-165 
 Meals of a family, 167-173 
 Meat and endurance, 55, 140 
 Meat-eating and intestinal bacteria, 152 
 " Meat hungry," 142 
 Mendel, Professor L. B., viii 
 
 experimental meals of, 1G2 
 Metabolism, 78 
 
 in old age, 192 
 Metabolized food, 77 
 Metchnikofr, 14, 17 
 Milk, 76, 155 
 Mouth, digestion in the, 92 
 
 removal of residue from, 108 
 
 N 
 " Nature's Food Filter," 106 
 Nitrogenous equilibrium, 38, 88, 139 
 
 O 
 
 Old age, metabolism in, 192 
 
 197 
 
INDEX 
 
 Overeating, results of, 3, 12, 75 
 Oxidization of food, 87 
 
 P 
 Pavlov, 90 
 
 Poisoning from excess of food* 75, 76 
 Proteids, 5, 6, 57, 75 
 
 amount required, 88, 139 
 
 injurious effect of excessive, 85, 87 
 Proteid, reduction of, 34 
 
 R 
 
 Residue, removal of from mouth, 108 
 
 S 
 Sager, Dr. Daniel S., viii, 2, 120 
 Saliva, as digestive agent, 64, 65, 69, 71 
 
 excitation of, 67 
 Sample meals, 32, 35, 156, 157, 161-165 
 Self-denial unnecessary, 125 
 Sipping, 116 
 
 Slow eating, 16, 114, 115 
 Soldiers, experiments on, 30 
 
 experimental meals of, 164 
 Sour milk, 76 
 
 Starches digested by saliva, 65 
 Stomach as vestibule, or reservoir, 73 
 Strength increased, 40 
 Strength test at Yale, 39 
 Sucking analogous to chewing, 116 
 Sucrose, 186, 188 
 Summer diet, 190 
 
 T 
 " Taste buds," 105 
 
 and flow of gastric juice, 70 
 Taste as guide to body's needs, 103 
 
 V 
 Van Someren, Dr., 22 
 
 experience of Dr., 135 
 Vegetarianism, 144, 145 
 Vegetarianism, Gautier on, 145 
 Voit's dietary standard, 80 
 Voraciousness of Anglo-Saxons, 99 
 
 W 
 Waste products and their poisons, 75, 79 
 Weight, loss of, 125 
 
 of men in Yale experiments, 36 
 Winter diet, 191 
 
 198 
 
AUTHORITIES QUOTED IN THIS 
 
 WORK 
 
 Chittenden, Professor Russell H., PHYSI- 
 OLOGICAL ECONOMY IN NUTRITION, Fred- 
 erick A. Stokes Company, New York. $3.00 net, 
 postage 22c. THE NUTRITION OF MAN, 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York. $3.00 
 net, postage 22c, 
 
 Curtis, Dr. Edward, NATURE AND 
 HEALTH, Henry Holt $ Company, New York. 
 $1.25 net, postage 12c. 
 
 Fisher, Professor Irving, THE EFFECT OF 
 DIET ON ENDURANCE, Publications of Yale 
 University, New Haven, Connecticut. 
 
 Fletcher, Horace, THE A. B.-Z. OF OUR 
 OWN NUTRITION, Frederick A. Stokes Com- 
 pany, New York. $1.00 net, postage 12c. THE 
 NEW GLUTTON OR EPICURE, Frederick A. 
 
 Stokes Company, New York. $1.00 net, postage 
 12c. 
 
 199 
 
AUTHORITIES QUOTED IN THIS WORK 
 
 Higgins, Dr. Hubert, HUMANICULTURE, 
 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company ; New York. $1.20 
 net, postage 12c. 
 
 Mendel, Lafayette B., CHILDHOOD AND 
 GROWTH, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New 
 York. 60c net, postage 7c. 
 
 Metchnikoff, Professor Elie, THE NA- 
 TURE OF MAN, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New 
 York. $2.00 net, postage 16c. THE PRO- 
 LONGATION OF LIFE, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
 New YorJc. $2.50 net, postage 16c. 
 
 Sager, Dr. Daniel S., THE ART OF LIV- 
 ING IN GOOD HEALTH, Frederick A. Stokes 
 Company, New York. $1.35 net, postage 12c. 
 
 Saleeby, Dr. C. W., WORRY: THE DIS- 
 EASE OF THE AGE, Frederick A. Stokes Com- 
 pany, New York. $1.35 net, postage 12c. 
 
 Yale University Publications, New Haven, 
 Connecticut. A GRAPHIC METHOD IN 
 PRACTICAL DIETETICS. 
 
 200 
 
Date Due 
 
 ?"•?,' •-.: 
 
QP141 B81 
 
 1908 
 Brown 
 
 
 T r.lflft 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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