STORY OF FOUR YOUNG SLAVES CHAPTER XVI. PROPHECY AND FOOD CONSERVATION. 99. Ten days after Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were captives in the court of Babylon, did their health and intellects presage the call of Mr. Hoover, made in 1917, for the people in the United States to eat less meat, sugar, etc.? BIBLE EVIDENCE. Daniel 1:8, 11, 12, 15, 17-21-But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank:.... Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom the prince of the enuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink.... And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat. As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. Now at the end of the days that the king had said he should bring them in, then the prince of the enuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king communed with them; and among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: therefore stood they before the king. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm. And Daniel continued even unto the first year of King Cyrus. SECULAR EVIDENCE. How often we hear the expression that a certain man is as "strong as a Turk!" And those who have seen a Turkish porter fling a heavy trunk unaided upon his shoulders will do well to remember that these men rarely taste flesh food in any form whatever.... George Allen, the man who walked a thousand miles across England and Scotland in seventeen days and a few hours, out-distancing his flesh-eating rival by nearly seven days, was a strict vegetarian.... General Booth, now eighty years of age, still directs the great work of the Salvation Army, lectures to immense audiences, does enough work every day to tire two or three ordinary men, and he attributes his endurance largely to his simple habits of life and to a non-flesh dietary.... and it is by no means a mere figure of speech to say that there is more beefsteak in every pound of either beans, peas, lentils, or ordinary nuts, than there is in a pound of butcher's meat. 148 "THE CURSE OF UNNECESSARY SWEETS' The indisputable conclusions from all these facts are gradually percolating down into the workingmen's strata and many of them are today investing in literature and the conveniences of life the money that they formerly paid for meat. DAVID PAULSEN, M.D., the late Founder and for eleven years Medical Superintendent of the Hinsdale Sanitarium; Popular Chautauqua and Health Lecturer; For Years President of the National Anti-Cigarette League; Editor of The Life Boat. "Can Working Men Live Comfortably Without Meat for Sixty Days?" * The Life Boat, March, 1910, pp. 66, 67. There has been developed in modern times an extensive mania for concentrated, artificial sweets, and we are paying a dear price for it.... The candy habit is generally acquired in early childhood. On this subject, Dr. Deeks uses the following strong language: "In the attractive manner sugars are now manufactured and sold in the form of sweets and candies to stimulate their consumption, they have crept into every man's home. I firmly believe they are the greatest curse in modern civilization. . . . "The candy shops with wide-open doors to children of all ages where their gift pennies are spent, are a veritable curse to the land, poisoning the youth of the country and undermining their physical and mental development. The thirty pounds of candy that is eaten every year in this country for every man, woman, and child in the land is seed sown for a bountiful harvest. On this subject, Dr. Byford says, "It is certain that pie, cake, rich pudding, imperfectly cooked bakery, sweets, are prime factors in producing such diseases as gallstones, diabetes, inflammation and ulcer of the stomach and bowels.... There is a sane, moderate use of sweets which probably does no harm to the healthy individual. It is the candy craze, the disposition to absolutely cover a dish of wholesome cereal with sugar when in the process of digestion it is itself changed into natural sugar.... On this point Packard writes: "If you have chronic catarrh the probabilities are that you are a sugar fiend. Use fruits and pure water to cleanse the system. Resort particularly to apples. If you crave sugar, eat seedless raisins, figs, dates, malt sugar or honey. You will readily discover the fact that a very little natural sugar will thoroughly satisfy sugar craving whereas the artificial sugar of commerce never satisfies." David Paulsen, M.D., "The Curse of Unnecessary Sweets," The Life Boat, In the wealthiest portions of London, one out of seven grown-up people die of cancer, while in the poorer district the average is only one in fifty-four.... *Written for the Chicago Sunday Tribune, Feb. 20, 1910. Republished in The Life Boat by permission. * Dr. Deeks was, when above article was written, "pellagra specialist at the government hospital in the Panama Canal Zone," THE RUSSIAN DOUKHOBORS 149 I quote the following well-known fact from Russell's book, "Preventable Cancer": "The Russian Doukhobors had existed as a community about a century.... About 7,000 of them emigrated to Canada when expelled from Russia. The Canadian papers describe them as a fine-looking set, with stalwart frames. The children look the perfect picture of health. An old man of eighty-five was as happy and active as a boy. Disease, according to Mr. Blow, was rarely known among them. They are particularly clean, frugal and moral. They have keen minds, are kind to animals, and ready to help in any work. I have just heard from the manager that he has never known of any cancer among them. The Doukhobors in Canada refrain from fish, flesh, or fowl, as food, and live on fruit, vegetables, and nuts. Cows are kept for milk. No tea or coffee is drunk. Wholesome bread, jam, honey, and vegetable butter from sunflower seeds are eaten regularly. The houses are roomy, airy and clean; the people wash frequently in baths and are scrupulously clean, regular, and orderly.' DAVID PAULSEN, M.D., Life Boat, April, 1914. We have been a gormandizing people in the use of wines and meats, the abundant use of sweets and many unnecessary and harmful articles.... It will be cheaper, cleaner and better for us healthwise to substitute our meats with such foods as cottage cheese, soy beans, navy beans, peas, lentils, nuts, macaroni and cheese, and other similar foods. Quoting from the new War Cook Book issued by the United States food administration, we read the following:... Cottage cheese, the curd of sour milk, is one of the most important meat substitutes. It supplies more protein per pound than most meats and is considerably cheaper.... Substitute vegetable fats for butter and animal fats. MARY W. PAULSEN, M.D., Medical Superintendent Hinsdale Sanitarium, "Kitchen Patriotism," The Life Boat, May, 1918. Outdoor sleeping is the best life-preserver known.... Find your bill-of-fare largely in the garden-peaches, apples, luscious grapes, plums, and pears, lettuce, green corn, celery, potatoes, greens, tomatoes, melons, nuts, and all the rest of the luxuries which Mother Earth supplies. Revel in salads and berries, and green stuffs untouched by fire. These dainty foods abound in vitamines, and vitamines are the real elixir of life discovered at last in this twentieth century.... No animals but scavengers and men eat everything.... Avoid meats of all sorts (flesh, fowl, fish, including "sea food"). They are all likely to contain deadly parasites of various kinds, and always contain countless numbers of noxious germs, "meat bacteria" or "wild germs," which infect the intestines, cause putrefaction and other poison-forming processes, and inoculate the body with 150 THE HEBREW CAPTIVES colitis and many other diseases. These germs are not destroyed by ordinary cooking, such as stewing, boiling, frying, and roasting.... Discard tobacco, alcoholic beverages, "tonic drugs" and other nerve foolers. They are poisons which lessen efficiency and shorten life. J. H. KELLOGG, M.D., Superintendent Battle Creek Sanitarium, The Simple In regard to the question pertaining to the Hebrew captives I would say, it would be difficult to find a more forceful argument favoring a meatless and sweetless diet than that furnished in the book of Daniel. It for all time settles the disputed point as to whether it is possible to subsist on a diet made up of grains, fruit and nuts and legumes. Physically these young men were superior to their associates who ate at the king's table. Mentally and intellectually they excelled them all. Morally and spiritually they were their superiors by far. It seems that in this experience, and its record on the divine page, God would forever silence the objector to a meatless diet. Last year $4,500,000,000 was paid out for food in the U. S. Of this sum over one third, or $1,800,000,000 was expended for meats. Mr. Hoover's appeal to eat less meat will, if responded to, increase the health of our people. One hundred years ago seven lbs. of sugar were consumed annually per capita in the United States. Last year this amounted to twelve times that amount or 84 lbs. To cut down the sugar supply is a blessing in disguise. The free use of meats and sugars is responsible for the prevalence of intestinal catarrh and of appendicitis. In countries where meat is seldom used and free sugar is never served on the table, appendicitis is practically unknown. D. H. KRESS, M.D., Author, Traveler, Lecturer; Formerly physician in Meat eating among the American people is almost universal. I am often asked, "How can you keep strong without meat?" I sometimes remind the questioner that the race horse gets along pretty well without steak or wiener-wurst.... In consuming flesh foods, you only get the plants and vegetables second hand, after they have been through the body of an animal that knows nor observes no law of cleanliness or hygiene. HARRY B. WEINBURGH, Perfect Health, pp. 131, 132. In answer to your query regarding the restrictions laid on us by Mr. Hoover, my opinion is that they are a decided benefit in every way, as was demonstrated by Daniel and his companions in the court of Babylon. A simple diet is of decided advantage, for physical and mental vigor. For the grains and legumes in their natural state contain all the sixteen elements necessary to body growth and repair, while the vegetables and fruits act as appetizers, blood purifiers and SEVEN DEADLY SINS 151 body regulators. Alcohol, sugar, and meat contain only a part of the necessary food elements in a too concentrated form. Dr. Osler in his etiology of diseases puts alcohol as one of the most common causes of disease. Dr. Gould speaks of sugar as one of the seven deadly sins of modern civilization and his statement is verified by the sugar biscuit children of Chicago. Sugar is the best friend that tuberculosis has, for after the body has imprisoned the germs within a stone wall sugar dissolves the calcium and sets the prisoners free. Calcium is supplied in sufficient quantities in the outer colored coats of all grains, in green garden vegetables, milk, etc. It is neutralized by sugar. The teeth are often rendered soft and subject to decay for lack of the hardening influence of calcium which is neutralized by candy, sugar, and sweet meats. Dr. Turk speaks of cancer as the meat eater's disease, and to cancer we may add Bright's disease, rheumatism, auto-intoxication, arteriosclerosis, heart trouble, etc. Now what was true of the Hebrew worthies is true today of every one who has the moral courage to discard all health destroying luxuries and live on simple natural foods and clear pure water. A ten days trial will demonstrate the utility of the simple diet. L. H. WOLFSEN, M.D., Boulder Colorado Sanitarium. The physical tests carefully carried out by Dr. Fisher, of Yale University, showed that the sanitarium staff of vegetarians, compared with athletes from Yale fed on meat, were many times superior on an average in feats of endurance. WILFRED GRENFELL, M.D., The Soul of Battle Creek, p. 13. Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, the Egyptians built the Pyramids, Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Caesars conquered the world of their times, Dante sang of Beatrice, Joan of Arc saved France, the Tudors snatched England from the power of the pope, Columbus discovered America, all on a diet entirely minus sugar as a food ingredient. Honey they knew, but not the sweet juice of the cane, and honey was a delicacy only for the occasional use of the rich. The opening up of the West Indies introduced sugar to the slowly awakening world. So, when we are reduced, as we are today, to a monthly allowance of three pounds of sugar per capita let us think of all that was accomplished by men and women who never knew sugar. MME. X. in Chicago Tribune. In the second place, diabetes is a good deal of a national menace, and candy eating provokes diabetes. In the third place, candy eating is hard on the digestion. Sugar disease and diabetes are one and the same. DR. W. A. EVANS, Editor, How to Keep Well Department, Chicago Tribune. |