The Natural Food of Man

Full title; “The Natural Food of Man: A Brief Statement of the Principal Arguments Against the Use of Bread, Cereals, Pulses, and all other Starch Foods,” written by Emmet Densmore, M.D.. Published in London in 1890. (82 pages)

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Preface.

.....The following pages, except the Introduction, are a re-publication of essays somewhat hurriedly written, partly in New York and partly in this country, while engrossed with professional and business cares. If there appears needless repetitions, especially in the Introduction, I ask attention to the following lines from Professor Max Muller: — "Repeat the same things over and over again, undismayed by indifference, ridicule, contempt, and all other weapons which the lazy mind knows so well how to employ against those who venture to disturb their peace by suggesting unwelcome truths."
.....If the central thought — that bread is the staff of death rather than life — seems preposterous and absurd, I can only urge that many of the accepted teachings of science today would not have seemed less so a hundred years ago.
.....After all, no amount of argumentation can settle this question. A few months' trial — with many, a few weeks — will show such results that arguments become quite unnecessary; and all, I think, must agree that if the main teaching of this little book is based on truth, it is scarcely possible to exaggerate its importance.
.....In addition to the matter of health, of prime concern to every human being, I ask attention to another leading claim that friends of the non-starch diet make in its behalf Nearly all Temperance reformers unite in affirming that the drink crave is brought on and kept alive by any habit or pursuit that tends to weaken the nervous system. This may be tobacco, stimulating food and drink, over-strain in physical or mental work, or undue solicitude or excitement, from whatever cause. Anything that diminishes nerve nutrition is a prime cause of drunkenness. That which the inebriate, when trying to reform, most needs is an abundance of wholesome nourishment, digested and assimilated with least strain upon the nervous system. I have long been a student of the drink problem, and am confident that the system of diet herein advocated is invaluable to the Temperance workers; that anyone who can be persuaded to adopt this course of life is sure to overcome all desire for intoxicating drinks already existing, and that it will prevent the almost world-wide craving for narcotics and stimulants of all kinds.

Excerpts:

.....Some ten years ago, while engaged in a study of the best foods to be used in the reduction of obesity, my mind became directed toward a matter of much greater import; I became convinced that the great bulk of all modern diseases is directly caused by errors in diet; and also that the illness of myself and friends, which I had been accustomed to attribute to heredity, or, more vaguely, to unfavorable conditions of climate, and business cares, and overwork, was and is the result of transgressions easily avoidable; that, to the enlightened mind, to be ill is as reprehensible as to be drunk. Moreover, I perceived that man's natural longevity has been greatly abridged; that the three-score years and ten, which I had been accustomed to regard as a well-rounded and mature life, is full fifty years short of our natural term; and that a death at seventy is as untimely and premature as at forty, differing only in degree. And, while I did not omit from the account a consideration of the importance of fresh air, exercise, bathing, moderation in work, clothing, etc., I became convinced that more than ninety per cent, of all diseases result from unsuitable food and errors in eating and drinking.
.....Looking about me, I observed that men and women of forty and fifty years of age bear almost no resemblance to the appearance they presented at the age of twenty. Most women are beautiful at twenty, and generally (when regarded with a trained eye) hideous at fifty. Men have fared no better than women. The "human form divine" has lost its rightful contour, and approached in resemblance the jelly-fish. I early saw that obesity, or corpulency, is a kind of tumor — less unsightly than those tumors located in any given portion of the frame, but a tumor, all the same. Those who are not obese have not escaped; marked faces, stiffened joints, and contorted bodies, are seen upon every hand; and the emaciated are not less revolting than the obese. Old age, which should....