Food for the Traveler
What to Eat and Why
by
Dora C. C. L. Roper, D.O.
R. S. KITCHENER, PRINTER, OAKLAND, CAL.
1916
Copyrighted 1916
by
DORA C. C. L. ROPER
All Rights Reserved
Man is composed of what he has assimilated from hisspiritual, mental and physical food
INTRODUCTION
These pages are dedicated to those who are seeking light on the questionof rational living and to all who are suffering from the effects ofwrong living. Thought along this line expresses growth and progress, andwith it comes knowledge. Common sense and judgment, following a naturalinstinct, will go a long way toward attaining better health. But thosewho, through the constant use of cooked, or highly spiced and fermentedfood, have lost their natural instincts and intuitions, will find thestudy of the science of dietetical chemistry of inestimable value towarda better understanding of natural laws, and be enabled to make theselections and combinations of foods more suitable to their temperament.
Before the question as to meat eating and vegetarianism can be solved,we must consider the first principle of nature, which is the law ofself preservation. Thereafter we may be able to think and strive to savethe lives of animals, now cruelly sacrificed largely for the sensegratification of man. The artificial preparation of food is a fine art,and no doubt has helped much toward the development of our centralnervous system.
The ordinary mixed diet with the addition of meat two or three times perweek is the safest method for most people who are compelled to workeight, ten, or twelve hours out of every twenty-four and have to deprivethemselves of the proper amount of fresh air, sunshine and physicalexercise, which brings all the muscles and organs of the body intoproper action.
Inharmony, disease, and misfortune are largely caused by living a lifecontrary to the laws of nature.
The fulfillment of high ideals must be accompanied by common sense andjudgment, so it becomes an evolution instead of revolution. The evolvingof man from the stage of a jelly fish to a being possessed of a bonyframework in an upright position by the eating of animals has developeda higher self. After having reached this stage of evolution the natureof some people has become so highly sensitized that meat, as a food,becomes repugnant to them. What they need is a stepping stone. The veryfood which has produced this state of over refinement or destructionmust be used for construction and minimized by degrees.
In examining the claims of the disciples of vegetarianism it is well toconsider those nations whose constitution and customs of work andeducation resemble our own. And in doing so we find that while nearlyall European nations, as well as many of the Orient, practice moderationin meat eating, still they are for the most part only "nearvegetarians," and therefore should not be used as examples in anargument for vegetarianism.
It is possible for normal individuals under fairly normal conditions oflife to nourish perfectly their bodies on a vegetarian diet, providedthey are willing to live mainly on sun-kissed foods instead of on a massof sloppily-cooked, devitalized, starchy vegetables, and softnitrogenous foods that burden the digestive organs and produ