HINTS FOR WOULD BE VEGETARIANS


HINTS FOR WOULD BE VEGETARIANS. The objection to flesh, fish and and fowl is not fanciful. The present age is the age of constipation. Flesh, fish and fowl putrefy in a stagnant bowel and poison the body. Instinct warns us against putrefaction. We are horrified by putrid meat, while mouldy bread and fruit or milk which has turned sour doses not perturb us. In thousands of cases of apparently incurable disease a fleshless diet has restored the sufferer to health.


THE articles of Dr. M.Hindhede, a vegetarian, probably the leading dietician living, which were published in this journal in July, August and September, have brought numerous enquiries from would-be vegetarians. Vegetarianism is an unfortunate word. It causes people to believe that it is possible to live on vegetables and fruit alone. Such a diet may be suitable for caterpillars, but it will prove injurious to human beings. I speak with experience. I have not touched flesh, fish, fowl or anything made of them for ten years, and can easily do a walk of thirty miles, although I am over sixty.

Dr. Hindhede has exposed the protein superstition. However, we require a considerable quantity of concentrated food and we can get it in the form of eggs, milk, butter, cheese, etc. After all, milk is fluid beef and eggs are concentrated chicken.

The objection to flesh, fish and and fowl is not fanciful. The present age is the age of constipation. Flesh, fish and fowl putrefy in a stagnant bowel and poison the body. Instinct warns us against putrefaction. We are horrified by putrid meat, while mouldy bread and fruit or milk which has turned sour doses not perturb us. In thousands of cases of apparently incurable disease a fleshless diet has restored the sufferer to health. The largest sanatorium in the world, the Battle Creek Sanatorium, of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, is managed on strictly vegetarian lines. It has treated more than 100,00 patients during the last few decades, and it has produced the most remarkable curative results.

Would-be vegetarians frequently fail in their attempt to reform their diet by acting without guidance. They leave out flesh, fish and fowl, lose their strength and blame vegetarianism. They should reproach not vegetarianism but their rashness. People cannot keep health and strength on a diet consisting of de- vitaminised, de mineralised and chemically bleached and adulterated flour, bread, cakes and breakfast foods, reinforced by vegetables which have been deprived of their vitamins and mineral elements by the use of soda, sulphur-poisoned dried fruits, de-mineralised and de-vitaminised white sugar, etc. Besides plain vegetables poorly cooked become nauseous. Marmite, richest in vitamin B and tasting like extract of beef, makes an excellent flavouring.

Those who would be vegetarians should first of all convince themselves that a good cook can supply innumerable dainty, tasty, and strengthening fleshless dishes. They should go to a good vegetarian restaurant and they will be amazed by the wide selection of dainty foods provided for them. It was different in the olden days. Twenty or thirty years ago there were in London a number of dingy vegetarian restaurants.

They smelt of staleness and bad fat, and large messy dishes could be obtained for a few pence. Now there are a considerable number of really excellent meals at Eustace Miles REstaurant, 40 Chandos Street, two minutes walk from Charing Cross Station, and at the Vitamin Cafe, 419 Oxford Street opposite Selfridges. Of course there are vegetarian dishes which I find uneatable. There are other excellent vegetarian restaurants in London and in leading provincial towns with which I am acquainted.

Those who would follow a fleshless diet should abandon the use of white bread, white flour and white sugar. They should rely on genuine wholemeal bread, which is a complete food in itself, as Hindhede has shown, for he and his assistants have lived during many months exclusively on wholemeal bread and a little margarine. Unfortunately bakers are allowed to sell as wholemeal bread, bread which is made of de-vitaminised, de-mineralised and chemically bleached and injurious white flour to which a little bran is added, but from which the important germ of the wheat has been removed.

Therefore, wholemeal bread should be obtained from reputable makers, who guarantee that they use the whole of the grain and do not add chemical. I personally prefer rye to wheat. I have lived for sixty years on rye wholemeal bread, the so- called black bread of the continent, which is exactly the same colour as wholemeal wheat bread, and I get it from Zeller;s of 26 Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square, who supplied with it the late King Edward. Queen Alexandra also lived on rye bread.

An excellent guaranteed 100 per cent wholemeal bread is Dr. Allinsons which can be obtained all over England. The Allinson company also sell excellent wholemeal four. A perfect wholemeal bread is made by Pitmans Health Food Company, Vitaland, Four Oaks, Birmingham, who do their own milling, and who sell their bread and guaranteed wholemeal biscuits of every kind to suit every taste through more than a thousand retailers all over the country.

They produce twenty or thirty varieties of wholemeal biscuits and sent out sample tins of eighteen different makes for IS. Some of these are delicious. This company also sells bran, the most valuable of health foods. There are various wholemeal breakfast foods, such as the well-known Shredded Wheat, which can be obtained at every grocer, and there are some excellent whole wheat, whole barley and whole rye breakfast cereals made by the Pitman Health Food Company.

Mr. Eustace Miles, the well-known athlete, is a food reformer, an enthusiast. He has published energy and a most prolific publicity. He had published a veritable library on nutrition, sport, the training of body and mind, and 150 booklets at 6d. each on all the subjects in which health seekers are interested. He has a dietetic policy which is all his own. apparently he does not believe in the use of roughage. He had developed a special system of feeding and training and has apparently achieved remarkable results among many thousands.

The basis of the foods he had evolved is Emprote, which stands for Eustace Miles Protein, a special mixture of body-building energy foods, which is incorporated in many of his tasty and sustaining productions. He is a nutritional artist and a philosopher. I bought the other day a large parcel of his productions at Chandos Street and found them delicious, except a few.

The nation owes a debt of gratitude to a number of enthusiastic vegetarians and food reformers, who have carried out in a practical manner the health teachings of Florence Nightingale, who advocated the use of wholemeal bread in her Notes to Nurses, of Silvester Graham, John Harvey Kellogg, Sir Arbuthnot Lane, Sir Bruce Bruce-Porter and of all the other eminent supporters of the New Health Society.

Among the leaders have been Mr. Eustace Miles, who founded the restaurant and food company named after him, Mr. J.H. Cook, of the Pitman Health Food Company, Mr. Edgar J.Saxon, of the Health Centre, 70 Welbeck Street, Mr. W.B. Shearn, of Shearns, Ltd., Tottenham Court Road, and others. All these enthusiasts not only opened reform food restaurants, but started manufacturing attractive health foods devoid of the chemicals which are currently used. Besides these practical reformers desired to teach would-be vegetarians how to manage and they published books, pamphlets, booklets and leaflets without number to suit every taste and every pocket.

Those who wish to follow a fleshless diet should visit Eustace Miles restaurant, the Health Centre, Shearns or some similar establishment and obtain literature and samples, or they should write to the Pitman Health Food Company. Unfortunately the novice will be somewhat bewildered by the enormous choice offered to him. The Pitman Health Food Company, for instance, produces more than one hundred specialities.

Mr. Saxons Health Centre, in Welbeck Street, specialises apparently in the most attractive delicacies for the well-to-do. The other enterprises mentioned cater for all classes and all purses, and they supply not only extremely attractive foods of every kind, delicious soups, and ready-to-eat dishes, but also all the implements which are needed in fleshless cookery.

Samuel Hahnemann was one of the earliest food reformers. He warned against the use of coffee partly because he had noticed its injuries effect upon patients, partly because coffee is apt to counteract the effect of homoeopathic medicines. Homoeopaths will not doubt be glad to learn that the various enterprises mentioned sell palatable substitutes for coffee.

Among these Slippery Elm Food and Dandelion coffee are most popular. Dandelion is well-known to every homoeopath under the name Taraxacum. It is a valuable liver medicine, while coffee is apt to upset the liver. The Pitman Health Food Company manufactures an excellent Dandelion coffee in the powdered form, and also in the form of an essence, I personally much prefer the powdered form to the essence.

Readers who wish to follow a fleshless diet may be greatly benefited in health, but they should not make the change without expert advice and they should either rely on the guidance of a reliable vegetarian friend, or they should get into communication with the managers of one of the various enterprises mentioned, or of some other health food store, of which there are now a large number throughout the country.

M Hindhede