Fletcherism. Fletcher Horace

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СКАЧАТЬ it does call for it; and I eat until my appetite is satisfied and cries "Enough!"

      With my New England food preferences, my range of selection circulates among a very simple and inexpensive variety, namely, potatoes, corn-bread, beans, occasionally eggs, milk, cream, toast-and-butter, etc.; and combinations of these, such as hashed-browned potatoes, potatoes in cream, potatoes au gratin, baked potatoes, potato pats, fish-balls – mainly composed of potato; occasionally tomato stewed with plenty of powdered sugar; oyster stew with the flavour of celery; escalloped oysters, etc. The taste for fruits is always suitable to the season, and is intermittent, strong leanings towards some particular fruit persisting for a time and then waning to give place to some other preference.

      But with all my fifteen or twenty years of unremitting study of the subject, I cannot now tell what my body is going to want to-morrow. But Nature knows, and she alone knows.

LET NATURE CHOOSE THE MEAL

      Once in Venice a group of experimenters, of which I was one, subsisted on milk alone. During seventeen days nothing but milk, always from the same cow, and fresh from the milking, passed my lips in the way of food or drink. I sipped the milk, and tasted it for all the taste there was in it, and I learned to be so fond of it that it was with some difficulty that I went back to a varied diet when the experiment called for a change. Good, fresh milk is an exception to Nature's dislike for monotony in food. Milk is the one perfectly-balanced food material; and while it may not be always the best food for grown persons, it is the most acceptable as a monotonous diet, and always is good, sufficient and safe nutriment, if sipped, tasted, and naturally swallowed.

      I have forgotten just what the exact quantity was that I consumed daily during those seventeen days – I believe it was about two quarts. I get away as far as possible from quantitative amounts, which may influence other persons. The appetite is the only true guide to bodily need; and if milk is tasted and swallowed only by involuntary compulsion as required by right feeding, the appetite will gauge the bodily need exactly, and cut off short when enough for the moment has been taken.

      So I say to all who ask me these questions as applied to themselves: I cannot advise you appropriately what to eat, when to eat, nor how much to eat; neither can anybody else. Trust to Nature absolutely, and accept her guidance.

      If she calls for pie, eat pie. If she calls for it at midnight eat it then, but eat it right. Understand the food filter at the back of the mouth as I have described it in a previous article, and use it in connection with the pie. If it is used properly, and all the taste is extracted from the pie, and it is swallowed only in response to the natural opening of the gate, and if the ingredients of the pie that are not swallowed naturally are removed from the mouth, nothing will happen to disturb profound sleep.

      Few persons will crave mince pie or Welsh rarebit late at night. The worker on a morning paper may do so, and often does. He has earned his appetite, and sometimes it is so robust as to call for mince pie or Welsh rarebit; but if these are eaten properly they will then be utilised by the body, eagerly and easily.

      I dwell purposely upon this extravagance of eating. It is to accentuate the fact that we want to get as far away as possible, when cultivating vital economies, from the idea of extraneous advice in the matter of food.

      The ordinary person will probably find his appetite leaning towards the simplest of foods, and away from frequency of indulgence. If the breakfast is postponed until a real, earned appetite has been secured, the mid-day or later breakfast (remember always that breakfast means the first meal of the day, no matter when taken) will be so enjoyable a meal, and the appetite will be so entirely satisfied that there will be no more demand for food until evening, and possibly not even then.

HOW MANY MEALS A DAY?

      I am often asked if it is true that I eat only two meals a day; that I never eat breakfast, and why I have dropped that meal.

      I have two meals a day more habitually than any other number, but not with any prescribed regularity, for the reason that my activities are most irregular at times, and my appetite accommodates itself to my needs.

      When I am doing work under the most favourable of conditions, one meal a day is the rhythm best appreciated by my body. But the question of "How many meals a day?" is tantamount to the inquiry as to the amount of sleep needed: it is a matter of satisfaction of the natural requirements. The harder one works, the faster one runs, etc., the more air he needs. The same applies to the need for food according to the amount of heat eliminated, and the repair material consumed. The really hardest work that anybody does is done within the body. Muscular effort in normal conditions is not so waste-provoking and exacting as getting rid of excess of food and the counteraction of worry or anger. Likewise, idleness begets uneasiness, uneasiness begets desire for something (nobody knows just what), and groping around for "Don't know what" causes the temptation to eat and drink something which the body does not need; and then the really hard work of the body begins in the attempt of Nature to get rid of the excess. Excess of water can be thrown off in perspiration with comparative ease, but with excess of food it is different. The kidneys, bacteria and fuel furnaces of the body are all over-worked to get rid of it.

      When I am so busy that I have only time to replenish the real exhausted need of the body, say half an hour at most, I find one meal a day all that my appetite demands of me. This is taken after I have done my day's work of, say, eight hours of writing, or twelve or thirteen hours of bicycle riding or mountain climbing, and then I do not have appetite for more until the next day, after the work is done.

      When I mention two meals as being the more habitual, it is because I am not fully, constructively active all the time now, although I am usually "snowed under" with things that I might do to advantage; and hence I conform to the social custom and sit down to table some time in the evening to be social.

      The reason I have dropped the habit-hunger morning meal is because I find that it is unnatural in my case. My experience showed me that omission of the early morning meal led to desire for a lighter but more satisfactory mid-day meal, and took away the craving for the evening supper. I first came to this realisation during excessive hot weather and monotonously trying environment. The only time I could write comfortably was before sun-up in the morning. Absorbed in my writing I did not realise the growing heat of the day until I actually began to rain perspiration, by which time it was nearly noon. Then came the mid-day meal of breakfast selection with salad and fruit preponderating. The best of feelings followed, the waist-line shrank, and one meal satisfied.

      In order to try the urgency of any habit appetite – the early morning meal, for instance – take a drink of water instead, and note if that does not suffice as well as food to allay the craving for "something." A cup of hot water, with sugar and milk to suit the taste, is amply sufficient. Water will not satisfy a real, earned appetite; but it often will effectually allay a purely habit-hunger such as that for early breakfast.

HOUSEWIVES AND FLETCHERISM

      A great many women ask: "But how is it possible to follow such a haphazard way of eating in a home without upsetting the whole routine of the household, disturbing the work of the servants? You can't just have your family eating whenever they like."

      My answer is this: The possible disturbance to domestic regularity and convenience, because of the difficulty of supplying different members of the family only when appetite in each case is "just good and ready," is purely imaginary. Persons of regular occupations will accommodate themselves to the ordinary rhythm of meal schedule easily and naturally, with the difference that they may occasionally skip a meal or two when the ordinary activity has been lessened.

      The general experience has been, that concentration on one particular meal, either at noon or in the evening, will suit everybody, and other feedings will be "snoopings" from the larder, or taken at a restaurant in those instances where one's occupation is remote from home. The "Fletcherite" at business frequently follows the method of having nuts or plain biscuits in his desk in case he СКАЧАТЬ