Sophisticated Diets and Man’s Health 
physical nutrition and health, grounds which can perhaps be 
described as “‘humanitarian”’ although the term is inept. From 
the nutritional point of view there is no doubt that when dairy 
products and eggs are included, an otherwise mixed vegetable 
diet can be entirely healthy. The evidence is almost over- 
whelming, however, that strict vegetarianism (veganism) is 
incompatible with healthy human development. (4) As a 
physician I am satisfied that those who follow diets such as 
those advocated by Hay often obtain great benefit. This 
benefit is undoubtedly in part the result of suggestion and in 
part the result of healthy simplification of diet by those who 
have been over-indulgent of themselves. No satisfactory 
physiological evidence has been brought forward to support 
the basic tenets underlying this food fad. 
Non-Physical Disadvantages 
To the real or supposed disadvantages of dietary sophisti- 
cation can be added some unfavourable effects which constitute 
part of the total stresses exerted on man’s psyche by urban 
technological development. According to Trémoliéres, the 
French, for example, see in food technology a threat to family 
life and culture through a resultant decline in the culinary art 
and its associated cultural values. They stress the importance 
to the family of the mother’s réle in purchase and preparation 
of foods leading up to the family gathering at the principal 
meal. 
SUMMARY—THE BALANCE OF EVIDENCE 
The varieties of sophistication of foods which can be traced 
in man’s history have been classified and contrasted with 
twentieth-century technological sophistication to which the 
major part of the discussion is devoted. The cultural values 
of eating are stressed. 
The catalogue of physical advantages experienced by 
Western civilized man during the twentieth century is impres- 
sive. These advantages have been won in part through 
improved quantity and quality of foodstuffs made available 
i) 
