The art of living

Front matter

Class. _J> 14 7 Book 'b ^ 4

)Opyriglit]^^_

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

PART I. Introductory, xix

A letter — The desire of women for physiological instruction — Why are there thousands of irresponsible national guests — A problem for the consideration of philanthropists and conservators of the race — The dependence of man upon woman's ability to mold and educate the race — The importance of her work in creating the child-world to live out the highest ideals.

PARLOR TALKS WITH WOMEN.

The Ideal Temple of the Human Soul, - - - 3

The importance of good material — Our homes and conditions now and in the future — Why is reform expensive — How to improve by Health Culture in the Kitchen — Woman's influence in the home when she is a model of health.

The Way in and Out, - 7

W^hy the lack of common sense in feeding the race — Negative food — How fashion decrees our customs — The army of cooks — The despair of the housewife — The cook and doctor partnership — How disease gets in and becomes "old age matter" — How to get it out — Why we eat — Expense of dirt and rubbish eaten — How we pay for luxuries.

Our Eating Habits, 12

Eating a fine art — ^IVIastication — Nutrition — Dr. Dewey's new physiology — Objections to it — One and two meals a day — Ancient customs — Popularity of "No-Breakfast" — Its ad-

X co:srTENTS.

vantages — Relief to women — Light suppers — Objections answered — Losing flesh and growing young.

THE SCIENCE OF LIVING.

Important Paper by Edward Hooker Dewey, M.D., - 17 How the Science of Living is taught in cookbooks — Facts about the brain — Its relations to the body — How bodily powers are restored — New physiology — Stomach a machine — The brain a dynamo — What food is and its office — Self-feeding power of brain — Illustrative cases — Condition of body and mind after sleep — When shall we eat — What shall we eat — Hunger — Acid fruits — Meats — Food after fasting — How shall we eat — Food not a source of energy — Underweight — Overweight late in life — Thirst — Alcoholics — Digestive energy — Insanity — How to attain the highest health.

Early life — In a sanitarium — ^A student — College — Lecture trips — Progressive methods — Success — Developing "massage" — Pioneer work — Original methods — Work as teacher — Vegetarianism — Flesh eating — Illustration — The diet question — "Sure cures" — Improved methods — Rest — A letter — Experience with the sick on the "No-Breakfast" plan — Personal experience — Literary work — One meal a day — Old age — Youth in age — How to cultivate it.

Variety in Food, - - 32

The results of complex feeding — Benefit the doctor and the imdertaker — Description of a dinner in 1711 — Fussiness about food — How to cure it — Lost appetite — Hov\^ to find it — Invalid's tray — Fruitarians in California — Bread and fruit — Vegetables — Animal food — Change from complex to plain diet.

Who are Vegetarians and What is a Hygienic Diet ? - 37 Phases of the question — Divisions — Fish eating vegetarians — Not so inhuman to kill the fish — Altruism — An incident — Animal products — The cow and the hen — The Japan-

ese — The Chinese — Fine points in dietetics — Meat not necessary — "Healthy Food"" not always the best — Dietetic rocks — Substitutes for meat — Animal names for mixed dishes — Hygienic dietary — Well cooked foods — No one rule that will apply to all — Errors in excessive use of nitrogenous foods — Science or sentiment the foundation of theories — The force of truth — The ideal code of dietetic ethics.

Sun-Cooked or Raw Food, ------ 43

Classes of cooks — Nothing new — Ancient priests — The first professional cook — Primitive man and his habits — Arguments for not cooking — The raw foods we eat — Edenic diet — No kitchen, no cook — Rich concentrations — Animal products — Destructive qualities in raw or cooked food, which and why — How to get in and out of dietetic errors.

Not a new patent — Very much alive — Many people refuse it — What there is in it besides just air — The freest and cheapest of all foods — Living on odors of food, trees, and plants — Health seekers after air food — It 's right at our doors, "ready for immediate absorption"' — Business air, church air, home air, hospital air, the air of health, illness, hurry and worry — The air of people we meet, the doctor, the nurse — Great importance as food — Economy of it — Invisible food — Highly organized elements in air — Undreamed-of changes to come in the near future — Not a dream.

The Staff of Life. -------- 54

Then and now — Improved methods — Poor bread and intemperance — How to test flour — Bad bread — Good bread — French bread — Vienna bread — Sour bread — Ignorant cooks — Luck — The science of bread making — The art of making good bread — Graham flour — Its poor quality and why — How to select the best — Flour of entire wheat — Its origin and value.

Xll CONTENTS.

Part II. Health Culture Cooking

Yeast bread — White, entire wheat and Graham — How te make it, and the importance of best material and baking it well done — Breads raised with baking powder, how made, baked and steamed.

Unleavened Breads, 65

Graham, entire wheat and corn — Gems, biscuit — Rolls — Wafers — Diamonds — Mush rolls — Brown bread — Zwieback.

Their food value — The mouth a predigesting laboratory — How to cook and eat cereals.

Their value, quality and best methods of cooking to prevent waste of nutriment — How to cook all green vegetables — Legumes, their nutritive value and methods of cooking when ripe — Legume soups and purees.

How to eat them raw and how best to cook them — Caution in commercial canned fruits — General directions for canning — Tomatoes — Fruit juices — Dried fruits, how to prepare them for the table — Dangers in commercial dried fruits, jams, jellies and marmalades.

Animal Foods, - ------ 85

Modern methods of cooking them burdensome — Making it easy — Value of flesh foods — Milk — Eggs — What they are — Excessive use injurious — Care of animals — Cold storage, canned and salted meats.

Meat Cookery, - - - - - - - - 87

How to roast, boil, stew and broil — Fowls — Fish — Albumen and its value — Eggs, omelets, poached and jellied — Soups, purees and stews.

COXTEJs^TS. Xlll

Nuts as Food, . . . - - 92

Their use in place of meat — What to do without them — How to prepare them for the table.

Vegetable Oils and Fried Foods, ----- 94 Better methods than frying — Best fat to use — Purity and economy in vegetable oils — Olive oil, Wesson oil and Ko-Nut — How made and where.

Their antiquity — Composition — Seasonings — Mixtures.

Seasonings and Condiments, ------ 97

Why natural flavor cannot be restored by seasoning — Careless methods of cooking — Sugar — Fruit flavors — Liquors — Spices — Stored up refuse and the results.

Why we have them — Woman the caterer — Reversing custom — A burden to the cook — Flesh formers — Something in place of them.

Pastries, 101

How plainly made.

Time consumed in making it — Why we have it 305 nights in the year — Making sweets.

Composition of Food Products and Food Combinations 103 Waste in food products — Prof. Atwater's table of waste — Elements obtained from food — Combinations — Animals make their own until civilized — Primitive man^Civilized man — Artificial chemist — Appetite — General rules — Practical application — Nuts — Meats — Digest food in the mouth and why — Words of caution to vegetarians — Legumes — Balancing diet.

Summing up the Cooking Department, - - - 108 The products used — How this cookery is adapted to all

XIV CONTENTS.

classes of dietists — Animal products; how obtained — Milk drinking — Objections answered — Reduction of labor — Children's diet — Too much lunching, and why — Lady Henry Somerset on evils of drink among women — Inhuman to children, why — Social burdens of women — Inhuman to themselves — The new woman.

Part III. Thoughts Leading Toward Practical Ideals

Pearls of Wisdom from the writings of Jos. M. Wade, Editor and Publisher of "Fibre and Fabric,''' Boston, - - 115

Educators from HoRxVce Fletcher's book, "Glutton or Epicure." Author of several books. Published by Herbert S. Stone & Co., Chicago, 12a

Social Chats with My Friends, the Young Home Makers.

Building and Furnishing the Home, - - - 124

Location — Comfort — Ventilation — Sleeping rooms — Sun

Parlor — Library — Bric-a-brac — Draperies — Living rooms —

Plants — Dining room — Kitchen — ^]VIodel pantry — Heating

and other things pertaining to the house that is a home.

Sanitation in the Home, 127

Fruits — Drinks — The sink — Fumigation — Lamps — Food — Care of things — Death in Kisses — Meats — Vegetables — How to drink — The dishcloth — Fevers — Rubbish — Close rooms — Air — Poisons in fabric furnishings — Sensitive people — Towels — Handkerchiefs, how to cleanse them — Combs and brushes — Beds — Money — Pets and children — Thought sanitation.

The Cook Stove and the Fire, 135

Save the Body and Use the Brain, - - - - 137

What Shall We Do.? 140

The Care of Food, 143

Clearing the Table and Dish Washing, - - - 144

CONTENTS. XV

Economy in Food Supplies, 145

Sunday Dinners, -------- 150

Courtesy at Home, - - - - - - " - 152

The Perils in Fat and How to Dispose of It, - - 153 Hints for all the obese.

Work and Duty, - ■ - 155

Brief Refreshments for Leisure Moments, - - - 156

Prepare to Live, 1^5

Length of life increasing — What our aim should be — Where does the blame lie ? — Why it "s never too late to prepare to live — Our pet infirmities — How to dispose of them — Unconscious suicides — Living to die one of the occupations of the race — Public educators — The world a theater — Pausing at the half century milestone and counting the gray hairs and wrinkles— In our prime then— The orderly temple — Its needs — A special message for all readers.

Preface

Only a minority of the human family have made a study of the Art of Living to live. With the majority the art of living to die has become contagious. With the great masses there has been no real principle involved, except that of existence or staying here, and the gratification of every phj^sical sense, until the animal has assumed control of the man or the spiritual.

To educate into life in all its glorious possibilities and make intelligent use of its abundant resources are within the comprehension of the present intelligence of the race. This book is written in response to a call that would not be silenced, for a plain, practical method of teaching and living that will lead to a higher development in every direction. To making books there is no limit. Except as a teacher along progressive lines, the list would not be increased by this addition. The title suggests cooking, but that is only a small part of the book. We are flooded with books that teach this art, and the majority of the teachings lead toward the contraction rather than the expansion of life.

Through ignorance — the greatest of all sins — the demand has become great, almost assuming a mania, for this destructive instruction. Some of the wisest and best who supply the demand are specimens of health and do not hesitate to tell us they would be ill should they live according to their own health-destroying formulas.

XVlll PREFACE.

At the same time they do much good in various waySj, and strive to educate in the right direction, and for those who desire to be liberated, education is the only way out. Those who prefer the bondage of illness, suffering, and sacrifice of themselves, of their friends in care and anxiety for them, and of their means to meet the expense, that they may live but half a life in a half dead body must continue until they realize by some sharp experience that it is not making the most and best of life to suffer in either body, soul or purse.

This book deals with some of the living topics of the day in the form of brief essays. Dr. Edward Hooker Dewey, the pioneer in giving to the world a new physiology in the Art of Living, and whose books should be found in every home, has attracted the attention of some of the most learned physicians at home and abroad and met with their hearty approval. By special request he has contributed to this book a chapter of scientific wisdom that will be studied with deep interest and its full value received when practically applied. The cooking department, so elaborate in other books, in this which means better health and longer life for the race is plain, condensed, and sufficiently ample to meet all family needs.

Aids for the housewife and educating brevities on a variety of helpful topics are made practical in this book^^ that aims to teach the constructive Art of Living.

Ellen Goodell Smith.

Amherst, Mass., U. S. A., January, 1903.

INTRODUCTORY.

" Let no one presume to give advice to others that has not first given good advice to himself."— Se/icca.

LooKiXG over some papers yellow with time, and also thinking about the introduction to this book, my eyes fell upon the following letter : —

"St. Paul, July 15th, 1870. ■^^Mrs. E. G. Smith, M. D. :

"Dear Madam — We, the undersigned, fully appreciating the great importance of a more general diffusion of physiological knowledge among our own sex, would sincerely request, if not incompatible with your professional engagements, that you deliver in this city one or more lectures on subjects pertaining to health, at such time and place as may suit your convenience."

Then follows a long list of names, many of them the most prominent in the city. As if by magic a familiar scene rose before me, including a large expectant audience of women seeking instruction in the ways of health for themselves and their families. Xever in all my previous Avork had I found a more progressive and wideawake body of women than were those whom I met in the infant city of St. Paul, Minn.

As they, by adopting better methods of treatment and living, were restored to health and taught how to remain in health, the oft-recurring question — not only from

XX INTRODUCTORY.

women but from men — was, "Why have not our family physicians told us these things?" "Have you asked them?" "Yes, but they often evade a direct reply, and we are now finding out that if they had taught us many things we ought to know we never should have developed such physical conditions as are ours to-day."

Women have made a demand for this book. Many of them are representative women, seeking not only selfimprovement but to improve the race. In frequent conversations with them they have admitted their inability to cope successfully with existing conditions that constantly demand time, energy, sympathy, and purse. To-day their vision extends and embraces a broader and more practical method of work. Their eyes have been opened to facts that now confront us with a mighty force that somehow must be met. We have been waging a fearful warfare of aggression against conditions that meet us at every step. The results, although satisfactory for a time, have not been permanent, and these questions arise : Why such an excess of crime, criminals, and prisons? Why is the world always preparing for war instead of peace? Why are sanitariums, hospitals, and homes crowded with invalids, insane, cripples, imbeciles,, and other irresponsibles ? Why do we continually expect and prepare for the care of unfortunates ? Why punish,, correct, suppress, and so court a repetition of the conditions we try in vain to remedy? Wise men tell us "we are what we eat." Yet science has never labored so industriously to discover the hidden mysteries for the proper development of the race through suitable food.

Pliysicians multiply so rapidly oue is led to believethe entire world is in need of their services. The legal

INTKODUCTORY. XXI

profession increase and ply their vocation with untiring zeal. The ministry and methods for healing the souls and improving the morals of the race were never so plentiful, well organized, and financially equipped as at the present time. Health and sanitary boards arise almost "in a night" and unmercifully pursue the fatal "microbes," and yet the tide of untimely death sweeps on. Poverty and crime are still with us, and luxurious criminals leave palatial mansions for the kindly shelter of dungeon walls.

For the protection and care of the thousands of these distinct classes of the nation's guests, we support institutions that never should obtain standing room in a civilized nation, and should cause us to blush with shame that they are necessary for the moral, physical, and national safety of an enlightened people. Instead of this, however, we ^^oint with pride to the huge and expensive mauseoleums that often occupy and overlook the most magnificent in nature's varied landscape and in which are buried millions of living victims.

A nation that indulges in such luxuries (?) should never mention "hard times," but rather consider where and how the money goes, then bear in mind that hard times would be impossible to a healthy, happy, and temperate people. But this desirable condition will never be reached until we consider cause and effect in a broader light than has yet been generally recognized by the most wise and learned philanthropists.

There must exist and be in active operation causes with which public servants and conservators of health, order, and morals are not familiar. Time and money might be more wisely expended should they turn their

XXn INTFtODUCTOllY.

attention to the Art of Living and seriously consider if we as a nation can afford to support existing conditions and also what makes them necessary and an inseparable part of the body politic. The way of relief would no longer lead toward an invitation of the conditions we would improve and banish into oblivion, but rather toward the true Art of Living for the best education and highest development of the entire human race.

In these pages will be found the key that opens the door to a practical demonstration of truth, which the readers may apply to their daily life. The author is a thorough optimist, never presenting negative conditions except by way of illustration or as an object lesson.

The body was designed to be so thoroughly well that it would care for itself without such a vast amount of time and energy being spent in giving attention to it. Care it needs like any other piece of mechanism, but less work, thought, and worry about it.

This book is out of the ordinary line, and in its construction, originality and condensation, it will appeal to all readers. The cuisine is practical, thoroughly American, and health-inducing rather than diseaseinviting. To meet the requirements of all, different lines of diet have been discussed, according to each their special merits. Although animal food is not considered the worst nor the best, yet, to meet the needs of all, a chapter on animal foods and plain methods of cooking them is also included.

The luxuries of civilization have led us into bewildering complexities and | erplexities of "riotous living.'' It is time to call a halt and return like the "prodigal son,"' not to the feast of the fatted calf of luxurious living, of

INTRODUCTORY. Xxiii

which we have enjoyed ( ?) a surfeit, but to the simplicity of well prepared nutritious foods that build and repair the human temple.

With this object in view, the authors thoughts are sent to her friends and sister co-laborers in the emancipation of woman from domestic servitude, and through her to remove the badge of ancestral bondage to illadvised dietetic customs.

Upon us the future waits. We are an important factor in the propagation and continuation of the species. We prepare the soil for the growth and development of the race. Is it not then of the utmost importance that the predigested food that lays the foundation of the embryo race, and builds the habitation of the expanding infant soul, be of the best and purest quality ? Women are persistent, insistent, and successful in carrying out whatever they in earnest attempt, no matter what the obstacles in the way. Then why not in this matter of Health Culture through the Art of Living that shall produce a superior quality of people? To us, mankind looks for the creation and molding, through education and influence, the childhood race. With such confidence in our power, with its responsibilities, and its wonderful possibilities, let us not forget that within the real, or what we call the realities of life, is grown the seed that germinates and reaches out toward the development of ideals,, be they high or low. What we enjoy to-day is the result of the ideals begun by those before us. What thosewho come after us enjoy will be the ideals formed as begun to be by the men and women whom we help to» create.

Part 1. PARLOR TALKS WITH WOMEN

The influence of woman is beyond estimate. Keep it on the right side of men. Feed them, as well as yourselves and your children, on the substantial bread of life, then we may expect to a«ld Peufect Health to the marvels of twentieth century progress.

THE IDEAL TEMPLE OF THE HUMAN SOUL.

'• Ye are the temple of God."

Everything in the material world has its first creation in the spiritual or invisible world. Our homes are our spiritual ideals materialized and brought in touch with our physical senses. When we desire to build a material home in which to locate we first idealize the building that later, under the touch of scientific and skillful artists, stands before us the creative embodiment of our ideal be it high or low.

To create the human temple we should also have an ideal and endeavor to make ourselves conform to the highest standard possible. To do this successfully requires the best material with which to build. But in building we rarely stop to consider an ideal of just how we desire to look or how perfect the temple should be in all its parts so wonderfully and harmoniously adjusted by the Divine Architect. God-made human temples are one thing, man-made human temples are quite at variance with the original design, and fall far short of their highest development.

The majority of our homes are filled with the results^ of catering to the negative wants, not the positive needs^ of the human temple. But the day is dawning when the •Goddess of Wisdom with the light of experience will consume the desire for catering unwisely, the hours of labor will diminish, and all work will become a pleasure. This means time for undeveloped souls to develop and educate themselves according to their ideals that have been nearly smothered by the heavy relentless hand of toil, mental and physical, that often is entirely unnecessary. This means, too, that we shall cease following along traditional lines, fixing up and patching up our human temples and then wondering why they are not in first-class order.

Health is our first right and just as much of it as we are capable of manufacturing. The body should be so well made and cared for, so completely charged with health from head to foot, that there will be no room for the tenant called Pain and his numerous offspring. None but ourselves can set the limit and each must be a law unto himself as to his mode of cultivation. Rules may be formulated for general observance but, as each person has an individuality of his own, he will from necessity create certain laws that pertain to himself. Hence he cannot justly say to another, "This is the only way," neither can he in justice to himself say that he has reached the top or that his present methods are not subject to improvement.

To reform the world has proven expensive along every line. To improve and teach will produce far more satisfactory results. There is no business in the world conducted in such an unscientific, unpractical manner as the formation of human temples. They are builded of inferior material, without thought, pattern, or model. Hence the world has been overwhelmed with the work, care, and responsibility of trying to re-form or make

THE IDEAL TEMPLE OE THE HUMAN SOUL. 5

over that which should have been better made before materializing in visible form. When, where, and by whom shall the higher ideals begin to take form if not through the men and women of the ever-present now with its grand opportunity ? The bodily temple must be huilded from good material that its foundations be enduring. Muscle, brain, nerves, and organs must be fed from the living fountain of blood, and this is made from the products of the cook rooms all over the land ; be it good or not it must build and keep the temple in repair. The culture of health or sickness in the home begins in the kitchen, and what we eat tells the story of what we are. In our kitchens and dining rooms are prepared the temples inclosing the souls that create communities, states and nations. From the homes go forth every day the toiling millions who have been preparing for the immense work of the world in every line of activity.

Woman is the home maker. She is also largely the creator of customs, and her rapid growth and development along all lines she chooses to touch with her presence have made her a powerful influence. If then, with all her up-to-date physical drawbacks, she is capable of such influence, where will she stand when she restores to herself her birthright Health in its perfect meaning? When she is no longer in the toils of physical torture, the victim of numberless ills, the slave of disease labeled with a thousand names, that demand an ever-increasing army of physicians to meet the ceaseless cry for relief from Pain — avoidable if only she knew it, and no part of the Divine plan.

It is time to wake up, walk out from this bondage, extend our hand to man, demand the highest and best in him, and cease peopling the earth with an army of weaklings, who cannot help dying young, because we have not yet learned the positive law of life that creates their bodies good enough to live in !

Mental stupidity and ignorance have been in the ascendency. A few clearer heads arise now and then, strike a better way, that causes the world first to gape and stare — "Oh ! ah ! another fad," — but later to bring up the rear.

We cannot set our ideals too high for these temples of the soul. How vital that they represent all that is best in the present manhood and womanhood, that the future may more nearly meet the Divine requirement.

THE WAY IN AND OUT.

•• One pound of learning requires ten pounds of common senso to ^pply it."

There is nothing in all the world's economies where the above saying is more applicable than in the Art of Living, and none where common sense is so often deficient even to stupidity.

It would be the part of wisdom to spend as little time and effort in cookery as possible, but the reverse is true. The cooks manipulate the living products into things of death and call them food. Not a farmer in all the land would dare feed the animals under his care with such impoverished food as is daily set upon his own table. One need not look outside of his own home to prove that in our kitchens are manufactured from the very best material the things that cannot but produce the negative conditions of gluttony, intemperance, disease, and death. Those are the best cooks who can make the most palatable and nutritious dishes from the fewest materials, and this would be real hygienic or health culture cookery. Everything would be so excellent in its simplicity it would not require the addition of various doses of this, that, and the other to perfect its quality. But this custom has not yet taken a very firm grasp upon those who prepare our food. Hence we find a surplus of negative food, — bread sour or half baked, vegetables ruined, meats badly cooked, fruits doctored into sweet, sticky, indigestible deceptions, and pies, cakes, and puddings that would give a hyena the dyspepsia !

It has come to this that unless one keeps right in line with combination cookery and foreign names he would be puzzled to select a dinner from the modern improved menu. Simplicity long since gave place to the decree of custom, that fashions our dishes to meet the demand of the cultivated civilized appetites of the race. Our food is pattied, bisqued, souffled, stuffed, creamed, Lyonnaised, spiced, pickled, and frizzled almost to death's door before it appears upon the table. The once well furnished pantry has become a wareroom of implements, many of them labor-makers instead of labor-savers. Every spare corner is tilled with bottles, boxes, packages, holding mysterious contents that are supposed in some magical way to improve our food, but really disguise it in such a negative way that often one cannot tell from the taste what the foundation article was.