A Test of Endurance
45
SCIENCE of FOOD ancC COOKERY
peasant is for the greater part black bread, milk, and vegetables ;
yet he often works from sixteen to eighteen hours a day, and his
strength is not inferior to that of his foreign neighbor.
With reference to the effect of the vegetarian diet on the
strength and endurance of animals, we may say that the elephant,
the strongest animal known ; the horse, one of the fleetest ; and the
camel, the most enduring, — all proverbial for their hardiness and
vitality, — subsist entirely upon natural foods. The vegetarian ox
will plod on day after day without exhaustion ; but how would
it be with the flesh-eating lion or tiger? Though these are the
strongest and most ferocious of the flesh eaters, and would be very
quick for a fierce fight lasting but a short time, they would soon
faint if attached to the plow. Anatomy, physiology, and instinct,
all witness to the fact that man is by nature a fruit-eating creature.
These expressions from well-known naturalists undoubtedly voice
the sentiment of most persons who have made a careful study of
the subject :
"The natural food of man, judging from his structure, con-
sists of fruit, roots, and (vegetables. " — Cuvier.
"It is vulgar error to regard meat in any form as necessary
to life." — Sir Henry Thompson.
"No physiologist would dispute with those who maintain that
man ought to live on vegetarian diet." — Dr. Spencer Thompson.
In his article, "To Raise a Family in Whose Arteries the Blood
Leaps," Mr. Heppe says:
"An excessive meat diet, while producing, in life's first half,
extraordinary energy and restless activity, leaves the body a
used-up empty shell after forty-five. It acts like a furnace with
a forced draft."
"Simple fare and correctly prepared foods . . . will keep the
human body the replica of the divine form. It will not develop
excessive fat or obnoxious pugnacity, but rather will it leave the
mind free for the contemplation of life's highest ideals." — "Ameri-
can Cookery," January, 1920.
46
SCIENCE of FOOD ancC COOKERY
Prize fighters, while in training for mastery in strength, dis-
card flesh food as material not best suited to the accomplishment
of their aim, that of developing the greatest possible endurance.
In the athletic contests that have taken place within the last
few decades, such as walking, swimming, bicycle riding, arm hold-
ing, knee bending, leg raising, etc., and which have represented
the vegetarian on the one hand, and the flesh eater on the other,
the vegetarians have usually proved easy victors. Perhaps the
most reliable endurance tests so far recorded, showing the effects
of diet upon endurance, were made by Irving Fisher, professor of
political economy, of Yale University, on a large number of men,
to test the endurance of flesh eaters and flesh abstainers. These
experiments showed that the vegetarians surpassed the flesh eaters
on an average of from 50% to 200%. In summing up the results
of these and other experiments, Professor Fisher says:
"These investigations, with those of Combe of Laussanne,
Metchnikoff and Tissier of Paris, as well as Herter and others
in the United States, seem gradually to be demonstrating that the
fancied strength from meat is, like the fancied strength from
alcohol, an illusion." — "Scientific Nutrition Simplified," page 149.
Page 25
Presented as published in 1921. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
A Test of Endurance
peasant is for the greater part black bread, milk, and vegetables ; yet he often works from sixteen to eighteen hours a day, and his strength is not inferior to that of his foreign neighbor.
With reference to the effect of the vegetarian diet on the strength and endurance of animals, we may say that the elephant, the strongest animal known ; the horse, one of the fleetest ; and the camel, the most enduring, — all proverbial for their hardiness and vitality, — subsist entirely upon natural foods. The vegetarian ox will plod on day after day without exhaustion ; but how would it be with the flesh-eating lion or tiger? Though these are the strongest and most ferocious of the flesh eaters, and would be very quick for a fierce fight lasting but a short time, they would soon faint if attached to the plow. Anatomy, physiology, and instinct, all witness to the fact that man is by nature a fruit-eating creature. These expressions from well-known naturalists undoubtedly voice the sentiment of most persons who have made a careful study of the subject :
"The natural food of man, judging from his structure, consists of fruit, roots, and (vegetables. " — Cuvier.
"It is vulgar error to regard meat in any form as necessary to life." — Sir Henry Thompson.
"No physiologist would dispute with those who maintain that man ought to live on vegetarian diet." — Dr. Spencer Thompson.
In his article, "To Raise a Family in Whose Arteries the Blood Leaps," Mr. Heppe says:
"An excessive meat diet, while producing, in life's first half, extraordinary energy and restless activity, leaves the body a used-up empty shell after forty-five. It acts like a furnace with a forced draft."
"Simple fare and correctly prepared foods . . . will keep the human body the replica of the divine form. It will not develop excessive fat or obnoxious pugnacity, but rather will it leave the mind free for the contemplation of life's highest ideals." — "American Cookery," January, 1920.
Prize fighters, while in training for mastery in strength, discard flesh food as material not best suited to the accomplishment of their aim, that of developing the greatest possible endurance.
In the athletic contests that have taken place within the last few decades, such as walking, swimming, bicycle riding, arm holding, knee bending, leg raising, etc., and which have represented the vegetarian on the one hand, and the flesh eater on the other, the vegetarians have usually proved easy victors. Perhaps the most reliable endurance tests so far recorded, showing the effects of diet upon endurance, were made by Irving Fisher, professor of political economy, of Yale University, on a large number of men, to test the endurance of flesh eaters and flesh abstainers. These experiments showed that the vegetarians surpassed the flesh eaters on an average of from 50% to 200%. In summing up the results of these and other experiments, Professor Fisher says:
"These investigations, with those of Combe of Laussanne, Metchnikoff and Tissier of Paris, as well as Herter and others in the United States, seem gradually to be demonstrating that the fancied strength from meat is, like the fancied strength from alcohol, an illusion." — "Scientific Nutrition Simplified," page 149.