Eat Fruit Sugar Not Candy

Sugar is a most wholesome article of food, but not so ordinary cane or granulated sugar. Sugar in the form of sweet fruits is harmless. Diabetics can use apples and most other fruits freely without injury as they are able to appropriate natural sugars found in these substances, whereas they can not take even a small quantity of cane sugar or even a very small quantity of starch without showing a decided increase in the amount of sugar daily discharged through the kidneys. This important fact, well-known to physicians, has great significance, for it indicates that we should look for our gratification of sweets to sweet fruits rather than to candies, bon-bons, etc.

One who has formed an appetite for sugar might think considerable self-denial would be involved in giving up the use of sugar, but the gratification of the sweet tooth without the attendant miseries which are sure to follow this sugar indulgence may be splendidly attained by eating raisins, currants, figs, prunes, and dates. There is also "Meltose," prepared from malted barley, which answers this purpose to good' advantage. It may seem rather humiliating to one who has always used sugar to be compelled to forego its use, but better do this than suffer its evil effects. An offset to sugar is raisins - the older the better; containing in this condition more fruit sugar than when fresh. One can readily make a meal solely from raisins

The Raw Food Question

A DIETETIC theory, of which we hear a great deal, is the "raw food" theory. From a theoretical standpoint it is easy to reason that the natural food of man is that of nuts, fruits, grains, and vegetables - a "raw" diet. The claim is made that the natural foods of man are the unchanged products of nature - fruits, nuts, seeds, and grains, the green leaves that grow in the sunlight, and possibly milk, cream, and eggs. The strongest argument of the "raw food" advocates is that certain important elements of natural foods (the salts) are so altered by heat as to be quite useless to the body. The claim is made that cooked food is deficient in these elements, and that a body fed wholely, or largely, upon cooked foods must suffer from malnutrition. This argument is perfectly logical and holds good.

We should always bear in mind that we can never improve on Nature, and that everything we can relish in its natural and raw state is best adapted for the nourishment of our body. While the most delicious products of the soil, the fruits, do not possess the high nutritive value of the more concentrated foods, the}" are nevertheless indispensable for maintaining health and vitality.

"More than other products of the soil, fruits enjoy "a free and uninterrupted exchange of the influences "of light, heat, and air, by which the electrical forces "of the sun are transmitted. Vital energy is thus "stored up in the fruits in a higher degree, and while "we cannot grasp or determine this subtle power by "chemical analysis, we can feel its enlivening effects "through our whole system."

Jacques Loeb, in his recent physiological searches, likewise comes to the conclusion that the energy of food stuffs, and the motion of the heart, are not only due to the production of heat, but also to the chemical energy in electrically charged molecules. "Evidently," he says, "the chief role of food is not to be digested "and 'burned' in the muscles and organs, as present-"day physiology assumes, but to supply electrical "'ions.' The heat developed is a by-product. The "chief action is the production of electricity. The "body is in some sort a dynamo. Food, then, is of "value according to the amount and kind of elec-"tricity it affords."

This electrical vitality we can only enjoy in uncooked fruits, nuts, and grains, as they come from the hand of nature, prepared by the rays of the heavenly light, filled with life and vigor, unblemished by the hand of man. Raw food must therefore be declared as the ideal diet of man, and the unperverted appetite demands nothing else.

Scientific investigations have shown that cooking effects a radical change in the chemical composition of all food materials. The albuminous matter, for instance, is coagulated by boiling and thus rendered indigestible; the starchy foods, on the other hand, become too pappy and soft, and the system is overloaded with matter which causes an excess of unhealthy and fatty deposits in the tissues.

Some enthusiasts on raw diet seem to think that all the ills to which human flesh is heir to, can be cured by a raw, or natural, diet. Raw food in its place cannot be excelled nor even equalled, yet there are many questions of a dietary character that are not solved either by the use of raw food, vegetarianism, predigested foods, or many other of the so-called health-getting methods.

It is interesting to note that the chief vegetable albumin, gluten, is rendered very much more easily digestible by cooking, whereas animal proteids in the form of eggs and meat are rendered less digestible. In other words, if man would use grains, he should see that they are thoroughly cooked, and if flesh foods, he ought to take them raw for digestibility's sake.

Here are some raw food theories: -

"All disease is the result of disobedience of "Nature's laws. It is a crime against Nature to eat "the food she provides in any other condition than "that in which she provides them. Nature does not "err."

"No one can improve upon Nature, yet that's "what man attempts to do when he subjects his food "to the heat of the fire, destroying its vitality and "changing its chemical constituents. The products "of mother earth, given us for sustenance, are un-"cooked save by the heat of the sun - the source of "all energy."