SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

Nichols' stated aim in this booklet is “to show that living on a dime and a-half a-day is not only possible to any American, but that it has many advantages over a more costly dietary” (5-6). He maintains “that a simple and cheap diet is not only sufficient for the perfect nourishment of the body, but conducive to strength of mind and serenity of soul, and that living on a dime and a-half a-day may be made even more delightful to the senses than indulgence in costly and pernicious luxuries, and that a pure and simple diet may be as appetizing and delicious as it is healthful and invigorating” (6). The first observation he makes is that animal food is vegetable food at second hand because animals eat and process vegetable food: hence, Nichols' slogan that “'All flesh is grass'” (6). He discounts all stimulants and narcotics such as opium, tobacco, alcohol, tea, coffee, and chocolate. Ultimately, these substances are but “poison” and the “cause of disease and death” (13).

For Nichols, “[t]he chief staples of human food are the seeds of plants and their pulpy envelopments, the fruits. These contain all that is necessary. The best human food I believe to be wheat, the king of grains” as “[i]t contains all the elements of nutrition” (16). Thus, bread is the single most important item of nutrition for Nichols, with “brown bread ... made of unbolted wheat meal” being “more healthful than the now more common white bread” (17). Oatmeal, corn, rye, barley, rice, peas, beans, lentils, potatoes, yams, onions, cabbage, beets, carrots, and pumpkins are some of the items that Nichols explicitly mentions as excellent foods. But “the most delicious and salubrious articles of diet” are “fruits and berries” (19). Next on the list are “milk and eggs” (20). Meat has the least nutritive value and is thus ranked last. Nichols also notes that “[m]any animals are diseased when they are killed – much meat is half putrified before it is cooked, and there is always the chance of its being infested with the germs of tape-worms or trichinae” (22). Clearly, “the best diet, the one best adapted to the human constitution, and to sustain the highest vigor of body and mind, is one composed of bread and fruit” (23). Meat is not only the most unhealthy and the least nutritive but also the “most expensive form of food” (23).

Nichols maintains that “from eight to twelve ounces of dry nutriment can be found in a sufficient variety of delicious articles and preparations of food for a dime and a-half a-day, or about a dollar a-week. A person of the least ingenuity would be able to plan a series of breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, or breakfasts, lunches and dinners, if you prefer three meals a-day to two, so as to have no two meals alike for a week together” (41). Nichols recommends: “Banish at once and forever, beer, whiskey, and tobacco. Not one of them can do you any good. Buy such pure, good, and cheap food as I have indicated. Have good homebaked brown bread, or mush, or porridge of oatmeal and wheat meal, soups, vegetables, milk, cheese, fruits, enough, and in variety enough, and you will be strong and need no medicine” (46-47).