Seed when planted extracts from the air and the earth the minerals and combines them into a plant which grows and has for its object the making of seeds to reproduce and perpetuate itself.
The plant has life but it has no spiritual or mental equipment and therein vegetable life differs from the animal life. The animal eats vegetable and animal flesh. Through the vegetable he gets the mineral necessary for his body building. Through the animal food he gets the mineral from the flesh he eats, which flesh was first of all built up through the vegetables the animal ate.
These are definite facts; there is no theory about them.
The human body a.n.a.lyzed and separated into something like a dozen substances, among which are water, which is three-fourths of the body"s structure; carbon, lime, phosphorus, iron, pota.s.sium, salt and so on.
By reading a book on anatomy you can learn just exactly the proportions of the substances in the human body.
All these chemicals are formed in the shape of little cells, myriads of which are in the body. These cells are constantly being destroyed and new ones made to take their place.
Parts of the body are replaced every twenty-four hours, other parts less often.
Scientists tell us that the whole body is replaced every seven years.
Every move you make destroys cells which nature has to replace. Isn"t it reasonable then to conclude that if a man should fail to eat enough lime for his body-building, his bones would suffer. If he does not get enough iron his blood will suffer, and so on.
I am definitely convinced that most of the actual physical ailments are caused by a deficiency of the mineral elements in the body.
Phosphorus and potash are necessary to the human welfare. These elements are in the husk of the wheat and the husk is taken off in making flour, and the flour is mostly starch.
The person who lives mostly on white bread will suffer from lack of phosphorus and potash.
Phosphorus also is found in the skin of an apple, so if you peel an apple you do not get the phosphorus.
FOOD
The Food We Eat Is Fuel for the Human Engine
The practice of medicine in the past has been directed towards the curing of developed disease and physical ailments. The practice of medicine in the future is to be along the line of preventive practice.
Science is showing us how to prevent infection. Science is fighting the deadly microbe which comes to us in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat and the infected things we touch.
Nature has supplied the human body with a home guard of necessary bacteria and in the circulation system are phagocytes which fight the invading microbes and generally destroy them.
When the system is weakened through disease, through lack of exercise or through improper food, disease has an easy time.
The important thing to prevent disease is to keep yourself fit, and the golden prescription which I have given in PEP will serve to keep you in perfect health.
I want you to remember this golden prescription; it is composed of the following: Good Air, Good Water, Good Sunshine, Good Food, Good Exercise, Good Cheer, Good Rest and Good Thought. If you take this golden prescription you will make of yourself a giant in brain and brawn strength.
You can"t get health out of a bottle. You can"t get the system to absorb iron if you take it in the form of tincture of iron. You can eat a pound of rust, which is oxide of iron, and none of that iron will be absorbed in the system.
As I have explained in another chapter you must take the mineral in the system through the vegetable route. You will get iron, that will be a.s.similated, when you eat beefsteak. Beefsteak has blood, the blood has iron. You will also get iron when you eat spinach.
Every element necessary for your body is found in some vegetable or animal food; therefore, you should refrain from confining yourself to a very few articles of food.
Don"t pay any attention to the faddist who gives you a rigorous diet or unpalatable food. You simply make yourself miserable and you generate more worry and unhappiness by your discipline than the good you get from these freak fads.
We all eat too much, especially too much meat.
That a strict vegetarian diet is the necessary thing for good health I deny. The sheep, the cow, and horse are vegetarians and they are short lived. The eagle, the lion and man, eat animal food and they are long lived.
I may be prejudiced, but it does seem to me that the strict vegetarians are skinny, sallow looking lot of humans, speaking generally. I do find that the healthier specimens of vegetarians are those who eat plenty of eggs and drink plenty of milk, both of which are animal food, and both of which have nearly all the elements necessary to sustain life.
I don"t like the fads in the matter of eating. The amount a person should eat is in exact accord with the law of compensation.
The human body is a machine from a food standpoint. It is an engine that has work to do and accordingly the amount of fuel necessary for the engine should be in proportion to the amount of work that engine is called on to perform.
The hotels, restaurants and food purveyors invent palate tickling food to tease the human to eat, and hotels and restaurants are mostly patronized by people who do not have much physical work to do; the consequence is they eat too much.
You do not often find dyspepsia or indigestion among men or women who work hard physically.
You who work indoors with little physical exercise will find wonderful benefits if you will cut down the fuel.
You will get sick if you pile in more fuel than is necessary for the engine.
If your engine needs twenty pounds of steam how foolish it is to keep up a hundred pounds pressure.
If you had five-horsepower work to perform how foolish it would be to install a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound engine.
Much of the physical trouble comes from filling up the boiler too much.
Cut down the food and you will feel better.
DAUGHTERS
A Message From a Daddy"s Heart
Dear little Mary Elizabeth and Nancy Lou and dear little girls everywhere who read these lines: here is a message and a wish from daddy"s heart.
I want you to be golden girls, girls who love home and children; girls who love simple things, natural things; I want you to be sweet rather than pretty, lovable rather than popular.
May the mirror never reflect paint, rouge or make-up on your face. A little talc.u.m powder is all right.
Do not look upon matrimony as a means to provide food and finery for you.
Do not be ashamed of an old-fashioned mother. Do not be a "good fellow."
Do not be afraid to say "I can"t afford it."
Help the family; be part of it, and not apart from it.
When you are old enough to have a beau, do not be afraid to bring him into your home, no matter how humble it is.