THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 75 



and the lean of meat; fat which we are all familiar with; and the carbo- 

 hydrates, which appear in the form of sugar and starch and pectin, and other 

 similar bodies. Fruit is almost a pure carbohydrate. Ordinary fruits 

 contain only about half of one per cent of proteid, and so cannot be looked 

 upon as a proteid food. Beefsteak is almost all proteid, proteid with some 

 fat in it and no carbohydrate to speak of; while fruit is all carbohydrate. 

 These three elements are all necessary — proteids, fats and carbohydrates. 

 Animal food gives us only two of them, proteid and fat; while fruit gives 

 us carbohydrates, so you see, if one is a meat-eater, fruit is a very necessary 

 complement to his beefsteak; and those who are accustomed to use meat 

 will find the large use of fruit in combination with meat a very wonderful 

 advantage. The reason for that I will show you a little further on. 



Fruit has other advantages as a food; not only that it is a predigested 

 food and only requires chewing to render it ready for immediate assimilation 

 into the blood — complete and thorough mastication is the only thing necessary 

 for rendering the fruit ready for immediate assimilation, immediate absorp- 

 tion. If one eats a ripe apple — as Dr. Beaumont found in his experiments 

 upon Alexis St. Martin nearly a hundred years ago; it is digested in an hour 

 and a half; while beefsteak requires three hours and a half; roast goose five 

 hours and a half; and pickles are never digested. So you see we have in 

 fruit something that has taste, acid, has all the flavors that the pickle has, 

 is something that is entirely wholesome, and digested in an hour and a half; 

 ripe apples, that is. Sour apples requires a little more time. A green 

 apple requires longer time of course, because it is not likely to be masticated 

 so thoroughly. You have all experienced, probably, to your sorrow, when 

 boys and girls, that the green apple is not digestible at all; but if it is cooked, 

 it becomes digestible. A green apple when cooked is just as digestible as 

 a ripe apple, because the process of cooking has done for the green apple 

 what the action of the sunlight does for it outdoors in the ripening process. 



The fruit must be properly chewed. If fruit is swallowed into the stomach 

 in chunks, the stomach can do nothing wuth it, because the stomach cannot 

 digest carbohydrates. The fruit requires no digestion; it requires nothing 

 but crushing, that is all the ripe fruit requires; it does not require any diges- 

 tion at all. There is nothing for the saliva to do upon it; practically nothing 

 for the gastric juice to do upon it, because it is 70 to 90 per cent water, and 

 there is only about one-half of one per cent proteid — such a small amount of 

 proteid that there is practically nothing at all for the stomach to do. There 

 is no fat in fruit, with the exception of a very few peculiar fruits like the 

 olive — and the nuts which contain a large amount of fat. But the ordinary 

 fruit, the acid fruits, the sweet, saccharine fruits, juicy fruits, contain no 

 fat, no proteid; they are simply carbohj^drate, and that carbohydrate is 

 already digested ready for immediate assimilation. That is the reason fruits 

 are so refreshing ; the reason why the tired boy is so happy when he gets into 

 the peach orchard orra cherry tree — which the little boy has a perfect right 

 to do. Moses gave the children of Israel instruction in passing through 

 a vineyard that they were at liberty to eat to the fill. And that is what the 

 small boy does when he gets into the peach orchard, or cherry orchard or 

 apple orchard — and according to the Mosaic law he has a perfect right to 

 eat all he wants, not carry anything away, but to eat to his fill. That is 

 what he does, and goes home and has a stomachache, if he has swallow^ed 

 those cherries too fast without chewing them; his mother perhaps puts a 

 strong hand on one side of him and a hot water bottle on the other, and he 

 feels better. Next day he climbs another cherry tree and does the same 



