Encyclopedia of Diet: a Treatise on the Food Question, Vol. 2

Part 1

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

DIET

A Treatise on the Food Question

IN FIVE VOLUMES

EXPLAINING, IN PLAIN LANGUAGE, THE CHEMISTRY OF FOOD AND THE CHEMISTRY OF THE HUMAN BODY, TOGETHER WITH THE ART OF UNITING THESE TWO BRANCHES OF SCIENCE IN THE PROCESS OF EATING SO AS TO ESTABLISH NORMAL DIGESTION AND ASSIMILATION OF FOOD AND NORMAL ELIMINATION OF WASTE, THEREBY REMOVING THE CAUSES OF STOMACH, INTESTINAL, AND ALL OTHER DIGESTIVE DISORDERS

EUGENE CHRISTIAN, F. S. D.

VOLUME II

NEW YORK CITY CORRECTIVE EATING SOCIETY, INC. 1917

COPYRIGHT 1914

EUGENE CHRISTIAN

ENTERED AT STATIONERS HALL, LONDON SEPTEMBER, 1914

EUGENE CHRISTIAN, F. S. D.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PUBLISHED AUGUST, 1914

CONTENTS

VOLUME II

Lesson VIII Page

FOODS OF VEGETABLE ORIGIN 287 Grains 289 Uses of Grains: (1) Grain as a Source of Energy 295 (2) Grain as a Source of Nitrogen 297 (3) Grain as a Remedial Food 298 Nuts 300 Peanuts 306 Legumes 307 Fruits 308 Classification of Fruits according to acidity 313 Vegetables 317 Classification of Vegetables 319 Sugars and Sirups 324 Beet-Sugar 325 Honey 330 Confections 332 Vegetable Oils 335

Lesson IX

DRUGS, STIMULANTS, AND NARCOTICS 341 Alkaloids and Narcotics 349 Opium 350 Cocain 353 Nux Vomica and Strychnin 356 Quinin 356 Acetanilid 357 Tobacco 361 Coffee 363 Tea 365 Cocoa and Chocolate 366 Alcohols and Related Compounds 367 Alcohol 367 Chloroform, Ether, and Chloral 372 Poisonous Mineral Salts and Acids 373 Mercury 373 Potassium Iodid 374 Lead and Copper 375 Purgatives and Cathartics 375

Lesson X

IMPORTANCE OF CORRECT DIAGNOSIS AND CORRECT TREATMENT 379

Lesson XI

Part 2

COMMON DISORDERS--THEIR CAUSE AND CURE 403 Health and Dis-ease Defined 405 Overeating 413 Superacidity 418 The Cause 420 The Symptoms 421 The Remedy 423 Fermentation (Superacidity) 424 The Cause 425 The Symptoms 426 The Remedy 428 Gas Dilatation 431 The Symptoms 432 Importance of Water-drinking 434 Constipation 434 The Cause 434 The Remedy 436 Foods that May Be Substituted for One Another 439 Constipating and Laxative Foods 446 Constipating and Laxative Beverages 446 Gastritis 447 The Cause 449 The Symptoms 449 The Remedy 450 Nervous Indigestion 453 The Cause 454 The Symptoms 455 The Remedy 458 Subacidity 460 The Cause 461 The Symptoms 462 The Remedy 463 Biliousness 465 The Cause 466 The Symptoms 466 The Remedy 466 Cirrhosis of the Liver 467 The Cause 467 The Symptoms 468 The Treatment 469 Piles or Hemorrhoids 471 The Cause 471 The Symptoms 472 The Treatment 472 Diarrhea 474 The Cause 474 The Treatment 476 Emaciation or Underweight 477 The Cause 478 The Symptoms 481 The Remedy 482 Obesity or Overweight 491 The Cause 493 The Remedy 495 Neurasthenia 503 The Cause 505 The Symptoms 506 The Remedy 506 Malnutrition 511 Cause and Remedy 511 Locomotor Ataxia 511 The Cause 511 The Symptoms 514 The Remedy 515 Colds, Catarrh, Hay Fever, Asthma, Influenza 519 Colds--The Cause 520 The Symptoms 521 The Remedy 523 Catarrh--The Cause 527 The Symptoms 528 The Remedy 528 Hay Fever--The Cause 530 The Symptoms 531 The Remedy 531 Asthma--The Cause 533 The Symptoms 533 The Remedy 534 Influenza--The Cause 536 The Symptoms 537 The Remedy 537 Insomnia 538 The Cause 538 The Remedy 539 Rheumatism--Gout 543 Rheumatism--The Cause 544 The Symptoms 545 Gout--The Cause 546 The Symptoms 547 Rheumatism, Gout--The Remedy 547 Bright's Dis-ease 550 The Cause 551 The Symptoms 551 The Remedy 552 Diabetes 556 The Cause 556 The Symptoms 557 The Remedy 557 Consumption 560 The Treatment 564 Heart Trouble 569 The Cause 571 The Remedy 573 Dis-eases of the Skin 574 The Cause 575 The Treatment 578 Appendicitis 580 The Symptoms 582 The Treatment 583 Chronic or Severe Cases of Appendicitis 586

LESSON VIII

FOODS OF VEGETABLE ORIGIN

GRAINS

Grains constitute the most important article of human food, not so much on account of their superior nutritive, curative or remedial value, but chiefly because of their prolific growth and abundant production in all civilized countries throughout the world.

The variety of grain produced in the various countries depends largely upon the climate and the habits of the people.

The predominant use of rice by the Asiatics, wheat by the Europeans, and maize by the aboriginal American, shows how people adapt themselves to the foods of prodigal growth. It also shows the effect different foods have upon the physical development of the various tribes that inhabit these remote countries.

Wheat is said by some writers to be a complete food. This is not strictly true. Wheat contains a very small percentage of fat, and while fat can be made in the body from carbohydrates, it is more natural, and entails less work upon the digestive organs and the liver if the diet is balanced so as to contain the required amount of fat, and all other nutritive elements in the right or natural proportions.

A diet composed of wheat alone would contain 70 per cent of carbohydrates, chiefly in the form of starch. While this would be perfectly wholesome, it would give the body an excess of starch which would ultimately result in intestinal congestion, gout, rheumatism, hardening of the arteries, and premature old age. Wheat contains a larger quantity, and a greater variety of proteids than any other grain, but wheat proteids are more difficult to digest than the proteids of milk, eggs, or nuts.

Wheat varies greatly in composition, according to the soil and the climate in which it is produced. This fact is not recognized or considered by the average writer on dietetics, who eulogizes wheat as the wonderful "staff of life," because certain food tables show that wheat contains 13 per cent, while corn contains only 10 per cent of proteids. It is neither the proteid nor the carbohydrate content that determines the value of any grain as food, but rather the proportions of the different elements of nutrition it contains, that being the best which is more nearly balanced to meet the requirements of the human organism.

Rye may be considered in the same class as wheat. Chemically, the contents are very similar, and the effects upon the body are very much the same. It contains a larger per cent of cellulose, and less gluten than wheat, therefore as a remedial food it is superior to all other grains for exciting intestinal peristalsis, thereby removing the causes of constipation.

The nutritive elements of barley are similar to those of wheat and rye. It contains less cellulose fiber, and therefore a larger per cent of digestible nutrients than any one of the cereal group except rice. It has never become popular as a bread-making grain because--

1 The nitrogenous or gluten substances are not tenacious enough to make the conventional "raised" bread

2 The flour is dark in color

3 The grain is so hard and "flinty" that it is very difficult to mill it down to the required fineness

For these reasons barley has been greatly neglected as a food commodity. From a chemical standpoint it deserves a much higher place in our dietaries than it has hitherto been given.

The composition of oats varies somewhat from that of wheat, rye and barley. They contain a larger proportion of both fat and proteids, and form a desirable food if correctly prepared. The objection to oats as an article of diet is the hasty manner in which they are usually prepared, which converts them into a gummy mass of gelatinized starch, entangled with the peculiar gummy proteid of the oat grain. Thus prepared the oat is a most prolific source of disturbed digestion.

Corn is the cheapest material capable of nourishing the human body that is produced in the temperate zone. It is less digestible, and more deficient in the salts than the group of grains thus far mentioned. It is very wholesome, however, but in no way superior to other grains. In the future corn will probably play an increasing part in the problem of feeding the world, as a cheap source of carbohydrates, and for the purpose of manufacturing glucose.

In all tropical and semi-tropical countries rice occupies the same position that corn does in the temperate zone. It is more deficient in proteids and in fat than any other food grain, while the starch of rice is more easily digested than any other form of cereal starch. This grain, however, is almost entirely devoid of mineral constituents, and for this reason it is productive of serious nutritive derangements when indulged in too freely. This deficiency can be overcome by taking a liberal quantity of green salads, or fresh vegetables, whenever rice is eaten.

Buckwheat is a grain whose consumption is very limited, owing to the fact that it is dark in color. It compares favorably with wheat and corn as to nutritive elements, and is now much used as a winter food by the northern people.

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