The Stomach (1896)

AUTHOR: Kellogg, John Harvey

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, revised Deborah Madsen):

The book is dedicated to “disorders of digestion,” which Kellogg glosses as “the most prevalent of all human ills” (3). Much of the book is devoted to the anatomy and physiology of digestion, and cures for digestive illnesses. Dietary questions are broached in the chapters on “Foods” (31-42), “The Maladies of the Modern Stomach” (55-129), and “Treatment of Dyspepsia” (221-286). Kellogg promotes a vegan diet, noting that “the larger portion of the human race live chiefly upon vegetable foods” (31). He insists that plant-based foods are the only really nutritive foods, because even “a lion, in dining upon an antelope, is only eating at second hand the grass and herbs which the latter has eaten; and a man, in eating roast beef, is taking at second hand the corn upon which the ox was fed” (32). “Vegetable foods” are in all respects superior to foods dervied from animals precisely because they “are the original source of the nutritive elements contained in flesh foods; hence we should expect them to furnish all the elements of nutrition, and in proper proportions. This is the case with the best vegetable foods” (37). “Grains,” Kellogg maintains, “are the most nourishing of all foods, and contain the elements of food in the best proportion. Fruits, grains, and milk constitute a perfect dietary, and one particularly suitable for young persons, and for students and other brain-workers” (38). In fact, plant-based food is the natural diet of humans:

It is probable that the diet of the human family at first consisted almost wholly of fruits, grains, milk, and a few vegetables. History informs us that the dietary of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, and the early Greeks and Romans was of this simple character; and the same diet is still practically adhered to by fully two thirds of the inhabitants of the globe. In densely populated countries, such as Japan and China, the diet is necessarily almost exclusively vegetarian. The peasant class of France, Italy, and Spain, and other continental European countries, use flesh so sparingly that it may be said to be a luxury rather than a food with them. Human life and health can be well maintained upon vegetable food (39).

Hasty, irregular, and too frequent eating, gluttony and gormandizing, and diseased teeth, are the most frequent causes of dyspepsia. Kellogg repeatedly condemns condiments, pickles, vinegar, tea, coffee, alcohol, and tobacco to varying degrees (109-118) as they “stimulate the appetite, and act as whips to the stomach and other digestive organs, and are for this reason injurious” (34). He also insists that “meats are, of all foods, most exciting and stimulating to the stomach; and when freely used, the ultimate result is to produce a condition of debility in the stomach, and in some cases gastric catarrh and other stomach disorders may be attributed to the excessive use of meat. The worst effects, however, from an excessive use of meat are to be sought in the liver and in the body in general, resulting in rheumatism, gout, neurasthenia, and a great variety of diseases which have their origin in the introduction of an excessive quantity of toxic substances into the body through the use of meat” (108).

In terms of treatment, Kellogg promotes the products of the Battle Hill Sanitarium: “The foods manufactured by the Battle Creek Sanitarium Health Food Company, are to be highly recommended. They have been prepared especially for the use of invalids with feeble digestion, and are just what they claim to be. The writer has prescribed them in many thousands of cases, and finds them indispensable in the treatment of the hundreds of invalids with disordered digestion who come under his care annually” (226). He explicitly recommends the use of such products as Granose, Granola, and Bromose.