Overloading the Living Machine

Meats have a greater stimulating effect than other high-protein foods. For example, Moore of Harvard found that a single meat meal such as a cat would eat, called forth extra heart work equivalent to three or four addi­tional hours in twenty-four. The common practice of eating the higher protein foods in amounts above what the body needs for growth (building material) and for main­tenance (repair material) is not a precaution of wisdom, but a factor productive of de­generation.

From the minimal body needs of 45 grams (for a man of 154 pounds) up to 6o grams (the Chittenden standard) or a little above, there is no evidence of harm if the diet is maintained in alkaline balance. In acid-ash preponderance, fatigue and slowly accumulat­ing nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus wastes produce various degenerative changes if the protein intake is in excess of minimal body needs. More rapidly detectable damage from a protein intake of 6o to 120 grams becomes manifest in obvious ill-health at forty-five to fifty-five years of age. This I have seen in thousands of sanitarium patients checked by diet history and blood-chemistry examinations, together with the findings in the cardio­vascular-renal system. Mary Swartz Rose makes a significant comment on this subject:

"When protein is used as fuel, the nitrogen it contains is not an asset, but a liability, to be got rid of as speedily as possible. There is thus a mainte­nance requirement for protein, which continues throughout life and is independent of muscular ac­tivity."—"The Foundations of Nutrition," p, 127, x938 ed.

When Protein Becomes a Liability

Any protein above the amount the body can use for growth and repair is used as fuel; that is, burned, with nitrogen, sulphur, and phos­phorus wastes resulting. These wastes in the blood stream above a certain amount result in ultimate damage, with temporary disabil­ities occurring, such as fatigue, and lessened working capacity and endurance. The state­ment regarding protein's being "not an asset but a liability" when used as fuel, is an accu­rate scientific parallel to the Spirit of prophecy statements concerning eating "more than the living machinery requires" and "double the quantity . . . your system requires," coupled with the results specified as "hindering it in its work." These statements are certainly applicable to a protein intake above 7o grams, and especially up to 120 grams, which is ac­tually "double the quantity . . . your system requires." Such an intake is not an uncom­mon practice with very large numbers of civilized peoples.

Eggs are to quite an extent similar in amino-acid composition to meat and are also of high protein content. They must be used with moderation. Cheese is likewise a food heavy in protein, of which one should not eat freely. A further reason for the need of much limita­tion in these foods of animal origin is ex­plained by the researches of Newburgh and Marsh, H. B. Lewis, and A. C. Curtis, who have shown that of twelve common amino acids, two in large dosage were mildly harm­ful, and five produced serious kidney damage. They state that single doses of some amino acids, too small to give microscopic evidence of injury, would cause the appearance of ab­normal urine if repeated only a few times, and that it requires about twice as much to give unequivocal microscopic evidence of kid­ney damage as is needed to produce casts in the urine.

The fuel foods—starches and sugars—may also be eaten to excess, but chiefly when they are refined and the regulatory substances are removed. The foods in these classes are spoken of by Mrs. White as "rich and luxuri­ous," "the tempting dessert," "every stimu­lating kind of food," "meat, highly seasoned gravies, and various kinds of rich cakes and preserves."—"Counsels on Diet and Foods," pp. 138, 134, 188, 19o.

As to the quantity of even good foods, "It is possible to eat immoderately, even of whole­some food. . . . Nearly all the members of the family eat more than the system requires."—Id., p. 131. Grain products are "perfectly whole­some ;" yet even of whole-wheat bread or other whole-grain foods, such as oatmeal or corn bread, it is not only possible to overeat, but it is a rather common habit with some persons to partake of as high as nine slices of bread a day. Such large quantities of bread, cereals, and other grain products, require an amount of fruit and vegetables for acid-ash neutraliza­tion that it is impossible to consume. The physical results of overeating are described by such phrases as: "clogs the living machine;" "hinders it in its work ;" "weakened and crip­pled ;" "tired and weary feeling;" "faintness or languor."—Id., pp. 131, 132, 134.

Research Has Demonstrated Results

In order to appreciate the great practical importance of the statements made in regard to the results of overeating, let us turn to the researches which have demonstrated the var­ious results specified.

Overeating of High-Protein Foods.—The weakening effects of protein in the diet in excess, hindering the body in its work, were shown by the researches of Russell H. Chit­tenden, of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, with his professional, soldier, and athlete groups on both high and low protein rations. The fatiguing effects of this diet, with lessened endurance, have been shown by numerous long-distance running, walking, and swimming contests, which have frequently been won by vegetarians. Irving Fisher of Yale University, working with tests such as the ergograph, horizontal arm holding, etc., also showed the great superiority of vegetarians over meat eaters in endurance and foot pounds of work done.

The fatiguing effects upon the heart muscle have been shown by Dr. Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute, who worked with the chicken-embryo heart. Accumulated wastes produced conditions like senility; washing out the wastes rejuvenated to active life at once. Though the work was done for an entirely different purpose, yet this informational by­product was so startling as to occasion em­phasis by Carrel himself and also by Fisher and Fisk as a chief physiologic lesson of cru­cial health importance. In human physiology, this progressive accumulation of wastes is so widespread as to be noted by Jay E. Sham-berg as a rule of life, arithmetical in progres­sion with the advancing years. It is due not to years as such, but to overeating of proteins with consequent accumulation of their wastes.

Because tea and coffee contain similar nitro­gen wastes without protein nutriment, their use leads to the same fatiguing effects. The acid-ash wastes from excess protein foods—sulphur and phosphorus—have weakening and fatiguing results more or less in common with the nitrogen wastes, and in practice they are inseparable.

Refined Starches and Sugars.—The clog­ging, tissue-damaging, disease-producing ef­fects of refined carbohydrates would better be discussed in connection with Section XIX on "Desserts." However, of confections, cakes, rich desserts, and puddings—all of which are deficient in certain vitamins needed for the healthy action of the nervous system and alert mental grasp—it should be said that vitamins B and G and nicotinic acid have been shown to have specific nerve-function effects. These are not alone valuable in the prevention of beriberi and pellagra, but are also useful in the prevention of neuritides, neurasthenia, neuroses, mental depression, melancholia, etc.

Thus, overeating of both heavy protein foods and refined carbohydrates in the form of con­fections and rich desserts, produces end results which are properly described by the terms "weakened," "tired," "weary," "languor." And technically the expression, "clogs the living machine," applies to both classes in a very definite scientific sense.*

There is a remedy for overeating among intelligent and Christian people. It is plainly stated: "Were all men acquainted with the liv­ing, human machinery, they would not be guilty of doing this."—Id., p. 131. This means that we, as intelligent men and women, should become acquainted with the nutritional re­quirements of the body. To avoid overeating, we must know what damage results from eat­ing food in excess of our requirements, and how much is excessive.

The Protective Foods.—There are certain other classes of food of which there is little or no danger of overeating. They do not produce perversions of appetite. Their bulky nature, with a low protein, large water com­ponent, and soft cellulose structure, are non-stimulating, and they are not at all likely to do harm by any excess one could eat. These are protective foods—fruit, vegetables, and milk—that contain the larger amounts of the regulatory and protective substances. Vita­mins and minerals are more largely found in this class. Regarding these regulatory sub­stances, science has shown no harm from the largest amounts of vitamins and minerals such foods contain, or even from relatively high, dosage of vitamin concentrates extracted from them.