Vitality Supreme

One can, however, maintain good health without being what might be termed a dietetic crank. To be sure, where one is suffering from a disease or is definitely in need of some special diet in order to secure certain results, a very rigid diet is of great importance and should be adhered to strictly. After such results have been achieved, however, and after normal health is regained, you can secure at almost any well supplied table a selection of foods which will furnish satisfactory nourishment. Some intelligence in selection, however, is necessary. There are a few articles of food that it would always be well to avoid. For instance, nearly all white-flour products are to be condemned. This means not only bread but biscuits, cakes, crackers, and pastries made of white flour. Unquestionably, if one is using meat freely, white-flour products are not nearly so harmful as when taken with a vegetarian diet. The meat supplies some of the deficiencies, though not all. At one time I had an experiment made which proved in a striking manner the defective character of white flour as a food. The subject tested the results of a fast of two weeks. He weighed himself before and after the fast and several times during its progress. He accurately determined his strength at all times, before, during, and at the completion of the fast. A considerable time thereafter he experimented with a diet of white-flour products for the same period of two weeks, eating white flour as commonly prepared, in the form of bread, cakes, etc. The result showed that he lost more weight and more strength while following the white-flour regimen than he had while fasting absolutely. This would seem to indicate that, in this case, at least, white-flour products were not a food, but a slow- acting poison.