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By Dr.Herbert M.Shelton
What constitutes nutrition? Certainly the common thought that food and nutrition are the same thing is a fallacy that needs to be discarded. It is one thing to eat an abundance of good food, it is quite another thing to have good nutrition. Food is one of the materials with which the processes of nutrition are carried on. Water is another, and air is another. But neither one of these, nor all of them combined constitutes nutrition.
Nutrition is a vital process carried on only by a living organism. It is a process of growth, development and invigoration. To eat good food, to drink pure water and breathe pure air are very desirable. But something more is needed in order to acquire health, strength and vigour.
Nutrition is function and we can have better nutritive function only when we have the capacity for better nutrition. Capacity cannot be bought. There are no drugs in the drug stores that can increase capacity, nor can they carry on the functions of life for us. The power to live, to breathe, to eat, to function resides within not without.
Food is of value only in its physiological connections with air, water, sunshine, rest and sleep, exercise and activity, cleanliness and wholesome mental and moral influences. In short, all the natural or normal circumstances, which we know to be necessary for preservation of health. It would be impossible to assign to any over the rest a superior value, the simple fact being that each is indispensable and it is only in their plenary combination and harmonious co-adaptation to the wants of the body that real health is maintained or regained, once it has been lost. They constitute not only the only means that the powers of life can make use of in the preservation of health, but also all that they can use in restoring health. They are nature’s only remedial means.
Food is inert substance and therefore has no power to make living organisms. It cannot act, but is acted upon. The living organism uses what it can of the food consumed and rejects the rest. A large supply of food does not increase the digestive and assimilative capacity of the invalid. Instead of studying nature and her laws, with the idea of using her laws, conditions and materials constructively, we seem to study her in an effort to discover how to cheat her. We seek not to obey the laws of life but to disobey them.
Often it is important to know what not to do as to know what to do. Thousands of patients are killed yearly and many thousands more are irreparably injured because their physicians do not know what not to do. There are times when one should not eat, there are conditions under which no food should be taken. It is not what one eats that invigorates one, but what one digests and appropriates; hence to know how to improve digestion and assimilation is of more importance than to know what foods to feed.
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By John T. Richter (USA)
When you live on 100 per cent natural food, you build health every day of your life. You will get a better intellect, a stronger nervous system, a more powerful body and an excellent character, because you will be free from disease, pollution and evil. Then naturally and easily, comes the true beauty of life: power to love others. Nothing will build better morals, stronger character, bigger and more tender hearts, than the natural way of living.
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