ch_pic5TEN REASONS FOR AFLESHLESS DIET
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byA. W. TRUMAN, A.B., M.D.Superintendent of Loma Linda Sanitarium, LomaLinda, California; Professor of Neurology, LomaLinda College
1. The Strength Delusion
Every movement we make, every thought we think, and every heart throb, involves waste and the expenditure of energy. There is a constant breaking down of our tissues; and the food ingested is the source of the material for repair. By its oxidation, digestion, and assimilation, energy is liberated for life's varied activities.
The primary object of taking food is, in the words of the wise man, "for strength, and not for drunkenness." Any one who makes the pleasure of eating the chief requisite will some day find, by a disordered stomach and a clogged liver, that eating has ceased to be a pleasure.
The idea has long been current that superior qualities of body and mind come from eating flesh food; butthe verdict of science, after long observation and careful investigation and various experiments, is rapidly reversing this opinion.
The experiments of Prof. Russell H. Chittenden, president of the American Physiological Society, and director of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, are convincing. His elaborate investigations, extending over long periods of time, prove that persons of widely varying habits of life, temperament, occupation, and constitution, can maintain and even heighten their mental and physical vigor while subsisting upon a diet containing but one half the usual amount of protein, and in which the flesh is reduced to a minimum or is entirely absent.
The subjects of the first experiment were three physicians, three professors, and a clerk,—men of sedentary and chiefly of mental occupation. For a period of six months, they were required to reduce the amount of meat and other protein food about one half. "Their weight remained stationary; but they improved in general health, and experienced a quite remarkable increase of mental clearness and energy."
Chittenden's Researches
For his next experiment, Professor Chittenden used a detachment of twenty soldiers from the hospital corps of the United States army, "representing a great variety of types of different ages, nationality, temperament, and degrees of intelligence." For a period of six months, these men lived upon a ration in which the proteid was reduced to one third the usual amount, and the flesh to five sixths of an ounce daily. There was a slight gain in weight, "the general health was well maintained, and with suggestions of improvement that are frequently so marked as to challenge attention." "Most conspicuous, however," remarks Professor Chittenden, "was the effectobserved on the muscular strength of the various subjects.... Without exception, we note a phenomenal gain in strength which demands explanation." There was an average gain in strength for each subject of about fifty per cent.
For the third experiment, Professor Chittenden secured as subjects a group of eight leading athletes of Yale, all in training trim. For five months, they subsisted upon a diet comprising from one half to one third the quantity of protein food they had been in the habit of eating. "Gymnasium tests showed in every man a truly remarkable gain in strength and endurance."
Fisher's Experiments
Dr. Irving Fisher, professor of political economy of Yale University, concluded a series of experiments testing the endurance of forty-nine persons, about thirty of the number being flesh abstainers. The first endurance test was that of "holding the arms horizontally." The flesh eaters averaged ten minutes. The flesh abstainers averaged forty-nine minutes. The longest time for a flesh eater was twenty-two minutes. The maximum time for a flesh abstainer was two hundred minutes. The second endurance test was that of "deep knee bending." The flesh eaters averaged three hundred eighty-three times, the flesh abstainers eight hundred thirty-three times. Professor Fisher explains the results on the basis that "flesh foods contain in themselves fatigue poisons of various kinds, which naturally aggravate the action of the fatigue poisons produced in the body."
Dr. J. Ioteyko, head of the laboratory at the University of Brussels, compared the endurance of seventeen vegetarians with that of twenty-five carnivores, students of the University of Brussels. "Comparing the two sets of subjects on the basis of mechanical work, it is found thatthe vegetarians surpassed the carnivores on the average by fifty-three per cent."
Professor Fisher remarks, "These investigations, with those of Combe of Lausanne, Metchnikoff, and Tisier 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."
Tests in Germany
Professor Rubner, of Berlin, "one of the world's foremost students of hygiene," read a paper before the recent International Congress of Hygiene and Demography on the "Nutrition of the People," in which he said: "It is a fact that the diet of the well-to-do is not in itself physiologically justified; it is not even healthful; for on account of the false notions of the strengthening effect of meat, too much meat is used by young and old, and this is harmful."
In the long distance races in Germany, the flesh abstainers have invariably been easy victors. Upon this point, Professor Von Norden, in his monumental work on "Metabolism and Practical Medicine," says: "In Germany at least, in these competitive races, the vegetarian is ahead of the meat eater. The non-vegetarian cannot compete with the vegetarian in the matter of endurance in these long distance walks. The vegetarian is ahead in the matter of rapid pedestrian feats."
A few years ago, a well-known athlete, Dr. Deighton, walked from the southernmost point of England to the northernmost point of Scotland, a distance of almost a thousand miles, in twenty-four days and four hours. His chief subsistence en route was a much advertised meat juice. Mr. George Allen, who for a number of years had subsisted upon a strict non-flesh diet, undertook the sametask, which he accomplished in a little less than seventeen days, that is, in seven days less time.
As in the heat engine, energy for light, heat, or power does not come from burning copper, lead, or iron filings, but from carbonaceous materials, as coal, coke, fuel oils, etc., so in the human body, energy for warmth and muscular effort comes not from oxidizing the metal repair foods, the proteins, but from those foods which are rich in carbon, the starches and the sugars, called the carbohydrates.
2. Flesh Food a Stimulant
Whence then come these "illusions," these "false notions of the strengthening effect of meat"? They come from the fact that foods of this class are stimulating. A stimulant is a counterfeit for strength. It is a physical deceiver. It makes a person believe he is strong because he "feels" strong, when it is not true at all. That which is interpreted as strength is only nervous excitement. A stimulant never builds up; it only stirs up. While pretending to contribute energy, it actually robs the body of strength. The resort to stimulants to whip up the flagging energies of the body is an effort to trick nature in playing the game of life. It is like borrowing money. Some day the principal must be returned with interest to a relentless creditor.
Beef tea contains less than one per cent nourishment, but one can get the same kind of exhilaration from a cup of beef tea as from a cup of brandy. This is due to the drug effect of the beef tea, which is a solution of the waste products, the poisonous extractives, of the meat. Every animal organism is constantly throwing off these extractives, such as urea, uric acid, creatinine, etc. The kidneys have no other function than the removal of poisons. If an animal is deprived of the use of its kidneys, it will dieof self-poisoning in a few days. When an animal is slaughtered and the blood ceases to circulate, this stream of urinary products on its way to the kidneys for excretion stops in the tissues, and is devoured by the consumer with the flesh.
Friedenwald and Ruhrah, in their book "Diet in Health and Disease," say: "The extractives are probably of no value either as a source of energy or in the formation of tissues. They act as stimulants and appetizers, and it has been stated that the craving some individuals have for meat is in reality a desire for the extractives."
Armand Gautier, the eminent French dietitian, says on this point, "Like the opium smoker, the individual who accustoms himself to meat, feels that he misses it when he does not take the usual excess."
If the poisonous waste products be removed from meat, it is insipid, and is no more stimulating than the same amount of bread.
3. Ptomaine Poisoning
The seeds of death and decay are in every animal organism; and just as soon as the heart ceases to throb, and the arteries cease to pulsate, and the spark of life leaves the animal, decomposition begins. These putrefactive changes often result in the formation of violent poisons, called ptomaines. The word "ptomaine" comes from a Greek word meaningcarcass, orcadaver; and the poisons are variously called putrefactive alkaloid, animal alkaloid, etc. The presence of fatal amounts of these poisons in flesh may not be betrayed by any change in appearance, odor, or taste. The common practice of keeping meat until it becomes tender, or "ripens," is simply waiting for decomposition to advance until the meat fiber is softened by the process of decay. Canned meats are especially liable to contain the poisonous ptomaine.
4. Unbalances the Diet
It is of primary importance that one should guard against consuming excessive quantities of any kind of food material, but there is a difference. Should we take an excess of starches or sugars, provision has been made for storing a certain amount in the form of fat, or as glycogen in the liver and the muscles; but no provision is found for storing an excess of protein. An excess of this food element is of particular injury to the body. The extensive experiments of Professors Chittenden, Fisher, and other scientific workers, have shown that for efficient nutrition, we require that only one tenth of the daily intake of food should be of the structure-building, tissue-repairing protein. In the laboratory of nature, the food elements have been so combined by the plants, that the protein element is very low; and thus a diet selected from the natural products of the earth is not only free from uric acid and other waste products, but is already balanced. The addition of flesh food—which does not contain any starch—to the menu, at once raises the protein constituent too high.
5. Bright's Disease and High Blood Pressure
The waste products in the blood arising from excess of protein are a leading cause of Bright's disease, auto-intoxication, arteriosclerosis, and high blood pressure. These maladies are often associated in the same individual, and frequently have a common origin. Sir William Osler, in his "Principle and Practice of Medicine," writes: "I am more and more impressed with the part played by overeating in inducing arteriosclerosis." "There are many cases in which there is no other factor." Dr. Alexander Haig, of London, states that uric acid makes the blood "collaemic" or viscous, and then the heart has difficulty to pump it through the capillaries. Hence theblood pressure increases. Isaac Ott, in his textbook on physiology, says on this point, "Burton-Opitz has shown that hunger reduces viscosity, and meat diet raises it to a great height, whilst carbohydrates and fat diet give average values to it."
In the colon, flesh foods rapidly undergo decomposition, giving rise to numerous poisons, which are absorbed into the blood, and are toxic to the nervous system, and cast an additional burden upon the liver and the kidneys. These are a sort of dietetic clinkers, which throw nature's delicate machinery out of adjustment, and produce various symptoms of auto-intoxication. Bouchard found that the fecal and urinary excrement of carnivorous animals is twice as poisonous when injected into rabbits as that from a herbivorous animal. The former also emits a strong odor, and the fecal discharges are offensively repulsive. Dr. Haig, before quoted, also asserts that "Bright's disease is the result of our meat-eating and tea-drinking habits; and as these habits are common, so also is the disease."
6. Tuberculosis, Ulcer, Cancer, and Appendicitis
While it is true that tuberculosis is more frequently contracted through the use of tuberculous milk than from tuberculous meat, the latter source of infection cannot be ignored. Numerous cases of tuberculosis have been reported where the infection could be directly traced to the flesh of tuberculous animals.
Dr. E. C. Shroeder, of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture, says: "That ten per cent of the dairy cattle in the United States are affected with tuberculosis impresses me as a very conservative estimate. In New York State, about thirty-three per cent of all cattle tested were found to be tuberculous." Dr. Julius Rosenberg, of New York City, writes:"Cattle tuberculosis is rapidly increasing. There is scarcely a dairy herd without a number of infected animals. It is an ever growing menace. The health department of Boston estimates the percentage of tuberculous animals producing the city's milk supply to be from twenty to twenty-five per cent. Conservative estimate places the number of cows dying yearly from tuberculosis at one million, were they permitted to die a natural death; but they are killed before drawing the last gasp, and served as prime beef." In one year in the United States, the entire carcasses of thirty-five thousand one hundred three cattle were condemned because of generalized tuberculosis. In the same year, a portion of the carcass of ninety-nine thousand seven hundred thirty-nine more were rejected because of local tuberculosis.
Professor Ravenal, of the University of Wisconsin, says that of the thirty-five million hogs killed for food annually in the United States, seven million are found to be infected with tuberculosis. Some one has said that meat would sell for a dollar a pound if all the diseased meat were eliminated.
Ulcer of the stomach is one of our most common diseases. Leading surgeons have shown that it is ten times as frequent as was formerly supposed. It is clearly of dietetic origin, and is usually associated with too high consumption of protein, and especially of meat. Starches, sugars, and fats are not digested in the stomach, and require no acid. Proteins, on the other hand, are digested within the stomach, and require for their digestion a high percentage of hydrochloric acid. The excessive production of acid within the stomach, stimulated by too much protein, is probably the chief cause of the formation of ulcers. In 1908, Dr. Fenton B. Turck, of Chicago, said before the American Medical Association: "Ulcer of the stomach is not found in those countries where the inhabitantseat rice. It is evidently a meat eater's disease. The zone of ulcer is in the meat eater's zone."
Cancer is a disease of modern civilization. It is the one major unsolved problem in the field of medical science to-day. From theJournal of the American Medical Associationof June 14, 1913, we quote: "That cancer has increased in recent years is perhaps a commonplace, but the extent of the increase is not generally realized. Under existing conditions, one in seven women and one in eleven men die of cancer." In theMedical Record, issue of May 15, 1915, Dr. W. G. Mayo is quoted as saying: "Cancer of the stomach forms nearly one third of all cancers of the human body.... Is it not possible that there is something in the habits of civilized man, in the cooking or other preparation of his food, which acts to produce the precancerous condition?... Within the last one hundred years, four times as much meat is taken as before that time. If flesh foods are not fully broken up, decomposition results, and active poisons are thrown into an organ not intended for their reception, and which has not had time to adapt itself to the new function."
Dr. L. Duncan Bulkley, senior physician to the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital, says on this point, "Analyzing the various data obtained, we find that cancer has increased in proportion to the consumption of four articles, meat, coffee, tea, and alcohol."
One is hardly up to date who does not present an abdominal scar caused by an offending appendix. At the fifteenth International Congress of Hygiene and Demography held in Washington, D. C., Dr. Henning contributed a paper dealing with "statistics upon the increase of appendicitis and its causes." He said: "A meat diet is of great influence in the development of appendicitis. This diet leads to constipation. In most instances, too long retention of intestinal contents in the cæcum causes slightinflammation in that region, the results of which are to weaken the appendix, and to render it nonresistant against later infection." When Dr. Lorenz, the celebrated Vienna surgeon, was in the United States, he called attention to the relatively greater prevalence of appendicitis in this country as compared with Europe, and attributed it to the greater consumption of cold storage meats here, which he said rendered Americans unduly septic, and especially prone to infection of the appendix. Nicholas Senn was told by the hospital surgeons in Africa that they had never seen a case of appendicitis in a vegetable-eating African.
7. Trichinæ and Tapeworms
"A story is told of two of the most noted of Germans,—Bismarck, the statesman, and Virchow, the scientist. The latter had severely criticized the former in his capacity as chancellor, and was challenged to fight a duel. The man of science was found by Bismarck's seconds in his laboratory, hard at work at experiments which had for their object the discovery of a means of destroying trichinæ, then making ravages among animals in Germany. 'Ah,' said the doctor, 'a challenge from Prince Bismarck, eh? Well, well, as I am the challenged party, I suppose I have the choice of weapons. Here they are.' He held up two large sausages, which appeared to be exactly alike. 'One of these sausages,' he said, 'is filled with trichinæ. It is deadly. The other is perfectly wholesome. Externally, they can't be told apart. Let his excellency do me the honor to choose whichever of these he wishes and eat it, and I will eat the other.' No duel was fought, and no one accused Virchow of cowardice."
The trichina is a small, wormlike parasite found in the flesh of "measly pork," which, when eaten, burrows in the muscles of the human, producing an extremelypainful and often fatal affection. About two per cent of hogs, it is estimated, harbor this parasite.
Practically speaking, the human being becomes the host of a tapeworm only by eating underdone flesh containing the larvæ of the parasite. (Thoroughly boiled or fried tapeworm is a harmless diet.) The ox, the hog, and the fish frequently harbor the larvæ of tapeworms.
8. Poor Economy
In these days of increased destruction and decreased production of human foods, it is of great importance to know how to secure a maximum amount of nutrition from a minimum expenditure of money. The world is facing a food shortage that in some places has assumed the proportion of the gaunt specter of famine. In view of this fact, it is well to remember that flesh is the most costly source of food. Sixty-two per cent of the best beefsteak is water. Flesh foods contain but twenty-five per cent nourishment, and seventy-five per cent waste matter. The grains contain seventy-five per cent nourishment, and but twenty-five per cent waste. Now it does not require a knowledge of higher mathematics to determine that since ten pounds of grain, when fed to an animal, make but one pound of flesh, the latter becomes a very costly source of our food supply.
9. The Testimony of Anatomy and Physiology
Even a kindergarten study of the structure of the human body reveals the fact that man was not intended to be a carnivorous, a herbivorous, or an omnivorous animal, but rather a frugivorous creature. He does not possess the rough, raspy tongue of the cat family, the long, pointed canine teeth of the lion, the sharp claws of the tiger, or the talons and hooked beak of the eagle. In the carnivora, the alimentary canal is very short,being only three times the length of the body. In herbivora, as the sheep, it is thirty times the length of the body. In frugivora, such as apes, monkeys, and man, it is twelve times the body length. Baron Cuvier, a famous anatomist, writes, "The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears to consist principally of the fruits, roots, and other succulent parts of vegetables."
10. Flesh and Morals
The menu provided for man in the beginning did not include animal food. Not until one thousand six hundred fifty-six years of human history had passed was man permitted to eat flesh, and then only after every green thing had been destroyed by the Deluge. What we eat exercises a profound influence upon what we are, how we think, and how we feel. Let us divide the animal kingdom on the basis of diet and disposition. On the one hand, we have the lion, the tiger, the wolf, the bear, the leopard, the panther, etc.; all these are vicious, snarly, crabbed, ferocious beasts. What comprises their diet? We call them "beasts of prey." They feast upon the bloody, quivering flesh of their victims. On the other hand, we might mention the horse, the ox, the deer, the sheep, the elephant. Think of their dispositions, calm, quiet, pacific, easily domesticated. May it not be that their diet of cereals and herbs contributes to their peaceful temperament?
Dr. Curtis, the eminent physician to Mr. Garfield, said, "What parent is there who has not viewed with alarm how old Adam enters into the baby along with the first spoonful of chopped beef!" Gautier said, on this point: "The vegetarian régime, modified by the addition of milk, of fat of butter, of eggs, has great advantage. It adds to the alkalinity of the blood, accelerates oxidation, diminishes organic wastes and toxins. It exposesone much less likely than the ordinary régime to skin maladies, to arthritis, to congestions of internal organs. This régime tends to make us pacific beings, and not aggressive and violent."
To these we may add the testimony of Holy Writ, "Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh."