392 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



for although the author starts out from an 

 entirely different direction he ends up very 

 close to where Terry has been working and 

 pleading. He says in the preface that, 

 while many books and much thought have 

 been given in regard to the vegetable and 

 animal kingdoms for food, but little has 

 been said or touched on in regard to the 

 need of our physical bodies from the mineral 

 kingdom. The book from beginning to end 

 (it contains 270 pages) is a vigorous protest 

 against white bread, white flour, rice with 

 the most valuable element about it left out, 

 and the rejection in other ways of the very 

 things that God intended we should use for 

 food. Aside fi'om his strong indorsement 

 of whole wheat (every bit of the wheat) he 

 says we need also to eat the skin of our 

 baked potatoes; and in order to get the 

 minerals that our bodies are often starving 

 for, we should try to have witli every meal 

 a large proportion of "uncooked " food. Of 

 course he urges a diet largely of fruit. 

 While he does not enjoin or recommend a 

 vegetarian diet exclusively, he says a little 

 meat for the growing child once a week will 

 be suificient, and perhaps twice a week for 

 adults. Let me make a couple of extracts : 



Every time we boil a potato and throw away the 

 water in which it is boiled we throw away potas- 

 sium. 



The despised Italian fruit-vender at the street 

 corner is a noble American institution. By his dis- 

 play of greens and fruits he constantly tempts min- 

 eral-starved bodies to eat these raw and life-giving 

 carriers of mineral salts. No one knows what a 

 blessing the Italian has brought into the hurried, 

 unthinking, ignorant land through his fruit-stand. 



By the way, I have often assured Mrs. 

 Root that, when we soak the potatoes over 

 night, and throw away the Avater, we are 

 wasting the best part of them. I have all 

 my life preferred potatoes baked whole; 

 and the most delicious part of a baked 

 potato, when properly baked, is, for me, the 

 skin. In the same way, I want my sweet 

 potatoes baked without peeling, and also 

 my dasheens. Before another year has 

 passed I think a large lot of us will be 

 made happy with dasheens. Where I have 

 good nice apples, I have for years been 

 eating them core and all. The seeds seem 

 to me to supply sometliing that nature calls 

 for. 



The book enumerates the minerals that 

 make up the composition of the whole hu- 

 man body. But the author assures us we 

 can not get these at the drugstores. They 

 must come from the use of the fruits and 

 vegetables that God prepared for us and 

 intended us to use. The book is going to 

 be a heavy blow at a large class of our 

 manufacturers of food products. They not 

 only throw away the valuable part of these 



products, but substitute benzoate of soda 

 and a lot of other injurious drugs as pre- 

 servatives. The manufacturers of these 

 prepared foods, and especially the injurious 

 prepared foods, are making so much money 

 in the business that they were able to throw 

 out Dr. Wiley, even when he was proving 

 himself to be a world-wide benefactor to 

 (he whole human race. 



The book is now published by The Geo. 

 H. Doran Co., 38 West 32d St., New York. 

 At the present writing we are not able to 

 give the jDrice; but I wish that every man, 

 woman, and child could read it. 



Below is what my good friend W. P. 

 Root had prepared for a review before I 

 liad got hold of it. 



AN EPOCH-MAKING BOOK. 



One of the most important contributions 

 to the subject of healtli is a book called 

 '' Starving America," written by Alfred W. 

 MeCann, Member Vigilance Committee of 

 the Associated Advertising Clubs of Amer- 

 ica. It tells why fifteen million children 

 are physically defective; why 250,000 chil- 

 dren die annually in this country; why we 

 l^ay one-fifth as much for drugs as for 

 foods; why 130,000 surgeons and doctors 

 work day and night, etc. The book has 29 

 chapters, among which may be mentioned 

 "what minerals do;" "white-bread starva- 

 tion ;" " candy, ice-cream, and other foods;" 

 " procession of little white caskets;" " meat- 

 eating insufficient." 



It is out of the question to give here even 

 a summary of the writer's startling expos- 

 ures of the deleterious articles sold to chil- 

 dren; and the wonder is that more of them 

 do not die instead of stopping at 250,000 

 a year. The author makes a fearful ar- 

 raignment of many common articles of 

 food, some of which are not tabooed by 

 even the pure-food law of 1906. He says 

 that Easter eggs are made of stearic acid, 

 carpenter's glue, glucose, coal-tar dye, anri 

 soajistone. 



Licorice pellets are made of lampblack, 

 carpenter's glue, and glucose. 



Baked beans are coated with shellac. 



Easter rabbits and raarshmallows are 

 made of carpenter's glue, glucose, coal-tar 

 dyes, and ethereal flavors, 



Easter chicks are made of carpenter's 

 glue, glucose, coal-tar dyes, and ethereal 

 flavorings. 



Candy marbles are made of coal-tar dyes, 

 glucose, ethereal flavoring, and soapstone. 



As an adulterant, glucose seems to be in 

 universal use; and, in fact, one would infer 

 that groceries and drugs are all sold from 

 the same shelf. 



In regard to food, the book is about 



