An Explanation from Lifestyle Laboratory In Dr. Kellogg's time, Biologic Living promoted a vegetarian diet with a limited use of dairy products - including eggs. Today, however, animal diseases are increasing rapidly, and chemical usage multiplies exponentially. Biologic Living has - of necessity - evolved to include a total vegan diet and a lifestyle that deals with the reality of our modern toxic world. |
The Simple Life in a Nutshell
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Start the Simple Life—Begin NOW
Biologic living means health, comfort, efficiency, long life.
It means good digestion, sound sleep, a clear head, a placid mind, content
and joy to be alive.
Live out of doors. Do your work under the trees instead of behind doors
and opaque walls. Dig in the garden, explore the woods and hills. Follow
the brooks, watch the squirrels in their gambols and learn the songs
of the birds.
Fix up a sleeping porch or balcony and so take an outing all night long
and every night, and don't move inside when frost comes. Outdoor sleeping
is the best life-preserver known.
And live on the "fat of the land." Forget breakfast foods and
culinary delicacies. Abjure flesh pots and "sea food." Find
your whole bill of fare in the garden,—peaches, apples, luscious
grapes, plums and pears, lettuce, green corn, celery, 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 vitamins, and vitamins are the real elixir of
life discovered at last in this twentieth century.
"Close to Nature" is a safe place, a haven of rest and peace,
where one may breathe the air of heaven and freedom; may feel the thrill
of
vital joys and hear the music of the spheres.
Learn to live the simple life. Begin today.
The Simple Life in a Nutshell
The purpose of this booklet is to present a few simple rules, the careful
following of which the writer believes will promote physical and mental
efficiency, mental and moral equipoise and equanimity, and will prolong
life and useful activity.
As space is too limited to permit of the full presentation of arguments
or reasons, these rules are expected to be of chief service to those
who are already persuaded of the correctness of the general propositions
of the "simple life," "right living" or "return-to-nature" movement.
It is proper, however, to say, for the encouragement of those to whom
the ideas presented are altogether new, that of the various suggestions
made, not one is presented which has not been thoroughly tried and tested
in the experience of hundreds, even thousands, of persons; nor is a single
proposition offered which does not rest upon a sound basis of scientific
fact.
The "simple life" is not an innovation. It is a return to the "old
paths" from which the perversions of our modern civilization have
gradually diverted millions of men and women, perversions that are responsible
for the multitudinous maladies and degeneracies which yearly multiply
in number and gravity.
Modern medical research has demonstrated that most maladies from which
human beings suffer, chronic as well as acute, are due to infection of
the alimentary canal with poison-forming germs. Many scores of such germs
are known. The poisons are absorbed, and give rise to a great variety
of distressing maladies and symptoms. Unnatural foods and unwholesome
habits of life encourage infection of the intestine by introducing poison-forming
bacteria and promoting their growth. Natural food and natural habits
of life combat these disease-producing infections. Hence the "simple
life" is an antitoxic life, a clean life in the largest sense.
GENERAL RULES
1. Give attention daily to cultivating health. It will pay. Study the
conditions and the surroundings of the home and the business, and give
careful thought to personal habits and practices with special reference
to their bearing on health.
2. Recognizing that health of mind and body is one of the most valuable
of all personal assets, make every reasonable effort to maintain intact,
and, if possible, increase the capital of physical and mental strength.
3. Give to the body and its functions that care and study which you would
accord to any other valuable and costly mechanism, so as to become familiar
with its needs and the best means of supplying them.
EATING FOR HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY
4. Eat only natural foods; that is, those which are naturally adapted
to the human constitution. The natural dietary includes fruits, nuts,
cooked grains, legumes, and vegetables. Natural food imparts to the body
the greatest amount of energy, and maintains normal conditions of life.
No animals but scavengers and men eat everything. We should follow our
nearest relatives, the orang and chimpanzee, in diet.
5. Avoid meats of
all sorts (flesh, fowl, fish, including "sea
food"). These are unnatural foods. 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 colitis and many other diseases.
These germs
are not destroyed by ordinary cooking, such as stewing, broiling, frying,
and roasting.
6. Take care to avoid an excess of protein, that is, the albuminous
element which is represented by lean meat, the white of eggs, and the
curd of
milk. An excess of protein promotes putrefaction, and thus intestinal
autointoxication, the chief cause of "biliousness," colitis,
appendicitis, gall-stones, arteriosclerosis, possibly cancer, Bright's
disease, and premature old age. Ordinary bread contains a sufficient
amount of protein, as do also other cereals. Most nuts, also peas
and beans, contain an excess of protein, and should be eaten sparingly.
7.
Eggs should be eaten in great moderation, if at all. They encourage
autointoxication, and thus often cause "biliousness." The
yolk of the egg is more wholesome than the white.
8. Cow's milk is not altogether suited for human food. A large proportion
of invalids, —nearly half, perhaps—suffer from "casein
dyspepsia," and can not take milk without suffering from constipation,
headache, "biliousness," coated tongue, or other unpleasant
symptoms which indicate intestinal autointoxication. Such persons may
sometimes make use of fresh buttermilk, sour milk, cottage cheese,
yogurt cheese or yogurt buttermilk, with less difficulty, and even with
benefit. Excellent substitutes for milk may be prepared from nuts (Almond
cream, Malted Nuts).
9. Animal fats, such as lard, suet, and ordinary
butter, should be avoided. They are difficult of digestion, and promote
intestinal
autointoxication,
and thus cause "biliousness." Vegetable fats are more easily
digestible, and do not encourage intestinal autointoxication. To be
wholesome, butter must be perfectly sweet, and should be made from
sterilized cream.
Persons who are not subject to casein dyspepsia are often able to digest
sterilized cream more easily than butter. Persons who suffer from hyperpepsia—"sour
stomach"—may take sterilized butter and cream more freely
than those who suffer from slow digestion. When butter and cream produce
pimples on the face, a coated tongue, or a bad taste in the mouth,
they must be diminished in quantity, or omitted altogether. Nuts, Malted
Nuts,
ripe olives, and olive oil are excellent substitutes for butter and
cream.
10. Avoid poison-containing foods. Tea, coffee, chocolate and cocoa
contain poisonous alkaloids which impair digestion, damage the nerves,
and promote
disease of the liver, kidneys, and blood-vessels. Cereal beverages
and hot fruit juices are wholesome substitutes for tea and coffee.
11. Condiments—mustard, pepper, pepper sauce, cayenne, capsicum,
vinegar, hot, irritating sauces, and spices of all kinds—must
be wholly discarded. They irritate the stomach and cause gastric and
intestinal
catarrh and gastric ulcer, colitis, and damage to the liver and kidneys.
12. Common salt, or chlorid of sodium, should be used sparingly. According
to Richet and others, the food naturally contains all the chlorid of
sodium actually required by the body, so that the addition of salt
to the food is necessary only to please a cultivated taste. A safe
rule is: The less the better.
Persons who have dropsy, Bright's disease, arteriosclerosis, gastric
ulcer, hyperacidity, obese persons, and epileptics should discard salt.
13. Food combinations should be such as to give the proper proportion
of the several elements,—proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Fruits
and vegetables, as well as other combinations of natural foodstuffs,
agree perfectly when mastication is sufficiently thorough to reduce
the food to a liquid state in the mouth.
14. The quantity of food should be adapted to the size of the person
and the amount of work which he does. Never eat to satiety. A person
of average height and moderately active requires 200 calories of protein
(1/10),
600 calories of fat (3/10), and 1,200 calories of carbohydrates (6/10),
or a total of 2,000 calories or food units, daily. This is furnished
by the following: Bread, 10 1/2 oz.; milk, 6 oz.; potatoes, 8 oz.;
butter, 2 1/4 oz.; rice flakes, 1 1/4 oz.; cream, 2 1/4 oz.; apples,
7 oz. The proper
quantities for any bill of fare may be easily figured out by aid of
the Battle Creek Sanitarium Diet List. Be careful to eat enough to
maintain normal weight (see table in the Diet List). The body can dispose
of a small excess, but can not make up a deficiency. Weigh once a month.
To reduce weight, eat less and exercise more. Eat one-third more when
doing hard muscular work. Mental work requires no more food than loafing.
15. Food must be well relished to be well digested. According to Pawlow, "appetite
juice," which is produced by stimulation of the nerves of taste
by palatable food, is the most important factor in gastric digestion.
Eat when hungry, never because it is mealtime, or because invited to
eat.
16. Cane-sugar should be eaten only in small quantity. Large quantities
cause acidity and give rise to gastric catarrh and indigestion. Sweet
fruits, such as raisins and figs, honey and meltose or malt sugar, are
natural and wholesome sweets and may be eaten freely.
17. A sedentary life tends to produce intestinal inactivity, that is,
slow digestion and constipation; hence, the ordinary daily bill of fare
should supply an adequate amount of laxative foodstuffs, fresh sweet
fruits (not preserves), especially figs and prunes, acid fruits and fruit
juices, fresh vegetables, bran, whole grain preparations.
18. Some fresh, uncooked food should be eaten at each meal in the form
of fresh fruits or fruit juices, lettuce, raw cabbage, cucumber and other
salads.
19. Fresh vegetables and whole grain cereals are needed to supply lime,
potash and other salts. The blood and all living cells require these
salts, as do the teeth and the bones. The free use of cane-sugar and
meats leads to lime starvation, because of the deficiency in lime. Avoid
white bread. Eat baked potatoes freely.
20. Avoid complicated dishes and great variety at one meal, but vary
the diet from day to day, as the appetite may indicate.
21. Eat at regular hours, so as to maintain the normal intestinal rhythm
which secures the daily movements of the bowels. Rather than omit a meal
entirely, eat some fruit, or a cake of colax (agar-agar) with fruit juice,
or some other simple nutrient which will keep up the peristaltic procession
and rhythm.
Never take food into the stomach when remains of a previous meal are
present.
22. The best meal plan is to eat twice a day. Eight to nine a. m. and
three to four p. m. are the best hours; or eleven a. m. and six p. m.,
if the retiring hour is necessarily very late. When breakfast is omitted
or taken very late, it is an excellent plan to take some fruit soon after
rising.
23. If three meals are eaten, the heartiest meal should be taken at midday.
The breakfast should be substantial, the evening meal very light, especially
avoiding pastry, fats, rich sauces, and hearty foods. The evening meal
should consist chiefly of ripe or cooked fruits, liquid foods, and such
cereals as boiled rice or cereal flakes.
24. Avoid iced foods and drinks. Very cold foods or drinks, if taken
at all, should be swallowed slowly and in very small quantities to avoid
chilling the stomach.
25. Chew every morsel until reduced to liquid in the mouth. Thorough
chewing develops "appetite juice" in the stomach and combats
intestinal autointoxication, a most prolific cause of disease. Careful
mastication affords opportunity for the nutritive instincts to select
the food and food elements adapted to the body needs, and to say, "Enough," at
the proper moment. Hence, give preference to dry foods. Sip liquid foods
slowly, taking care to insalivate thoroughly.
26. Dismiss work, worries, business cares and annoyances while eating.
Good cheer promotes good digestion. Anger, worry, irritation, stop digestion.
27. What we eat today will be walking about and talking tomorrow; hence
all foods not known to be pure and wholesome should be avoided. Especially
avoid rich and so-called hearty (hard to digest) foods, and such indigestibles
as pickles, green olives, and preserves.
28. Take three or four pints of water a day, including liquid food.
Do not drink much at nor immediately after meals. Take a few sips whenever
thirsty.
Drink a glassful of water on rising in the morning, on retiring at night,
an hour before each meal, and two or three hours after eating.
EXERCISE FOR HEALTH
29. Live as much as possible in the open air. If compelled to work indoors,
be sure that the living and work rooms have an ample, continual supply
of fresh air. The lower the temperature the better, so long as the body
is kept comfortably warm. Temperatures above 70° are depressing.
The breathing of cold air is a continuous tonic; every breath is a tonic
bath, a vital lift. A thousand breaths an hour count greatly toward health
or disease, according as the air breathed is pure and cool, or impure
and hot.
30. Working in the open air is one of the best forms of exercise, especially
working in the garden, digging, hoeing, pruning, etc. Do some good, hard
muscular work every day, enough to produce slight muscular fatigue and
free perspiration; but avoid exhaustion. Exercise out of doors is most
beneficial.
Swimming in water at 76° to 78° is the best of all special health
exercises. Rapid walking and hill climbing are excellent; stair climbing
is good.
31. One need not degenerate physically because his occupation is sedentary.
Always sit erect, with chest held high and the small of the back supported.
Sit as little as possible. Standing and lying are more natural and healthful
positions than sitting. One may exercise while sitting at work by deep
breathing and by stiffening the muscles of first one limb a few seconds,
then the other. All the muscles in the body may be exercised in this
way.
32. Deep breathing aids digestion, encourages liver and bowel action,
develops the lungs, and purifies the blood. The only directions needed
are: Hold the chest high and breathe as deep as you can ten or twenty
times every hour, or oftener. The best "breath" gymnastics
are swimming, hill or stair climbing, and rapid walking or running. Always
breathe through the nose.
33. In walking, always hold the chest high and carry it well to the front.
Swing the arms moderately, and walk fast enough to hasten the breathing
a little. Nine miles walking a day at the rate of three miles an hour
is the necessary amount for the average adult. Most housekeepers and
laborers do more.
34. Develop the abdominal muscles by some simple exercises, such as walking
on tiptoe with chest held high, or running round the room on all fours;
or lie on the back, hold the legs straight and raise them to the perpendicular,
repeating thirty to forty times three times a day.
Lying on the back, raise the body from the lying to the sitting position
with the hands placed upon the back of the neck. Repeat ten to twenty
times three times a day, gradually increasing the number.
35. If the abdominal muscles are weakened, so that the lower abdomen
bulges forward, a tight flannel bandage, or more substantial support,
should be worn about the lower abdomen when on the feet, until the muscles
have been strengthened by exercise.
THE TOILET
36. Cleanse the mouth and teeth thoroughly before and after each meal,
on rising and on retiring. A foul tongue and decaying teeth indicate
mouth infection and intestinal autointoxication and general low resistance.
37. Bathe daily at night in warm weather. Twice a week in winter, take
a warm cleansing bath before retiring. Apply olive oil or fine vaseline
after the bath if the skin is dry.
If the skin is irritated, apply Dr. Buckley's skin cream, of which the
following is the formula:
Lanolin ..............................1 dram.
Boroglyceride .................... 2 drams.
Cold cream. .......................6 drams.
If the skin irritation is very great, add five grains of carbolic acid
and ten grains of menthol to the above. Apply after bathing in cold weather,
especially when using hard water.
Rub the scalp with the finger tips dipped in cold water twice a day.
38. Take a short cold bath every morning on rising. This is an excellent
tonic. Or take a cool air bath morning and night, rubbing the skin with
a dry towel.
39. The hands, nose, and scalp also require sanitary attention. For the
hands, use a good soap and rinse well with soft water. If rough, apply
skin cream (see opposite page).
40. The bowels should move thoroughly three times a day, most naturally
soon after each meal. Many persons move the bowels soon after rising.
Train the bowels by trying to move them on rising and after meals.
41. Putrid, foul-smelling stools are an indication of intestinal autointoxication,
and are due to an excess of protein in the form of meat, eggs, or to
decay (stasis or stagnation) in some part of the colon. Such a condition
always breeds disease and indicates need for a "change of flora."
SLEEP AND REST
42. Sleep eight hours each night. If not strong, or if neurasthenic,
take a nap before dinner. Growth, assimilation, and repair are most active
during sleep.
43. Surroundings at night should be quiet. Sleep amid noise is not normally
refreshing.
On the side is the best position during sleep for most persons. Change
sides.
44. The bed should be neither too hard nor too soft. Avoid feathers.
The covers should be dry, warm, light, and porous. Avoid overheating
by excess of clothing. Use a thin pillow and discard bolsters.
45. When asleep, always breathe outdoor air supplied by means of wide
open windows, a window tent, a fresh-air tube, or a sleeping balcony.
Do not sleep within two hours after eating.
46. Make the weekly Sabbath a day of complete rest from work. Spend most
of the day out-of-doors if possible. Take a half-day off for an outing
in the middle of the week.
CLOTHING
47. The clothing should be loose, comfortable, light and porous. Restrictive
clothing is necessarily damaging, for the trunk of the body is continually
changing in form and size. Wear porous, cotton or linen underclothing
next the skin.
48. Avoid waterproofs except for temporary protection. Clothe the extremities
so as to keep them warm and dry. Avoid too much clothing.
MENTAL HYGIENE
49. Do not worry. The Power that made us can and does take care of us.
There is no need to worry. The Intelligence that controls and energizes
heart and lungs can rule our destinies and with our co-operation will
lead our lives in ways where "all things work together for good" to
us. Worry kills. Hope inspires, uplifts. Cheer up.
50. Do not become self-centered. Avoid thinking or talking about ailments
or other unpleasant things. Cultivate altruistic ideals and wholesome
and optimistic thoughts.
51. Exercise self-control and restraint in all things. Work uses energy
moderately; the passions and the emotions, enormously.
52. Take a vacation when you dream about your work.
53. Discard tobacco, alcoholic beverages, "tonic drugs" and
other nerve foolers. They are poisons which lessen efficiency and shorten
life.
54. Avoid nostrums and patent medicines. The habitual use of any drug
is harmful. The most eminent physicians are now agreed that very few
drugs have any real curative value. The essential thing is right habits
of life.
SUGGESTIONS
55. For inactive bowels, knead the abdomen well with the hands night
and morning, especially the lower side parts. Eat laxative foods, especially
fruits and nuts, and whole-grain "cereals." Drink a glass of
cold water or eat an orange on rising and retiring. Exercise the abdominal
muscles. If necessary, use a cool enema (80°F.) within an hour after
breakfast daily for a week or two. Use one and a half to two ounces of
sterilized bran daily. Use Colax biscuit (agar-agar) at each meal. Take
one to three tablespoonfuls of Para-lax (emulsion of Russian paraffine
oil) at night. Visit the closet regularly after each meal to train the
bowels. When a "call" is experienced respond immediately. Five
minutes may postpone action indefinitely. Support the feet on a stool
before the closet seat.
56. For a cold, take an electric light or other sweating bath on retiring;
drink three quarts of water or weak lemonade daily and eat little but
fruit for a day or two; and stay out-of-doors. Live in the fresh air
and avoid colds.
57. If sleepless or nervous, take a warm bath at 102° F. for one
or two minutes, then cool to 93° to 95°; continue half an hour
to two hours if necessary. This rarely fails.
58. If "bilious," take several enemas until the bowels are
thoroughly emptied. Drink two or three quarts of water daily. Eat freely
of fresh fruits and green vegetables. Avoid fats almost wholly for a
few days, and diminish the amount of fats in the regular diet. Discard
milk. Make the bowels move three or four times a day by the use of bran,
Colax, or Para-lax, or all three, if necessary. Use besides if required
a daily enema at 80° F.
59. The best foods in the order of excellence: Fresh, ripe fruits, cooked
fresh fruits, cooked dried fruits, nuts, graham bread, rice, zwieback,
toasted wheat flakes, potato, cauliflower, carrots, greens and other
fresh vegetables, lettuce, cabbage, cucumber, honey, mel-tose, malted
nuts, yogurt buttermilk, sterilized milk and cream, peas, beans, lentils,
raised bread, sterilized butter.
60. Eat, drink, sleep, exercise,— do all for efficiency. Said
Paul, "Whether ye eat or drink, whatsoever ye do, do all for the
glory of God." A man can do credit to his Creator only in following
the natural order of life intended for him.