Appendix 3 – Lectures on the Science of Human Life

Sylvester Graham

Page 568-1446 – “it is of great importance to our welfare as individuals and members of society, that we should regularly and punctually take our food at those hours, and, as a general rule, with as little variation as possible;”

Page 562-1429 – “For nothing is more true than that the highest welfare of the human constitution requires the utmost regularity and periodicity in all the physiological actions of the system;.... and in which his food is, as a general rule, taken at stated periods;”

Score - Minor

What 83 - Missed Meal

If we are late for a meal we should not eat, but wait until the next meal before eating again.

Page 568-1447 – “If.... to pass by our regular meal-time without any food, .... it is, as a general rule, far better to defer eating till the next regular meal-time arrives...But in such a case it is important to remember that we ought not, at our next meal, to make up for the one we have lost, by eating a quantity sufficient for two meals.”

Score – Unverified

Babies should not be fed as often as they demand, but should be fed at regular times and never more than three hourly

Page 571-1458 – “From the first hour of life, this matter is of the highest importance, in rearing and educating our children. If they be nursed or fed whenever they are restless, or whenever an ignorant nurse or mother takes a notion that they require it, or be supplied with food as often as they choose to ask for it (it is dangerous)”

Page 572-1460 – “How often a young infant needs to be nourished.....I am confident that I am perfectly safe in saying that, as a general rule, once in three hours is as often as an infant should be nourished.”

Comment – This is still an issue that is debated. It seems that children do well under each regime.

Score – Unverified

Why 87 – Demand Feeding (What 84)

Frequent feeding of a baby causes distress and disease in later life.

Page 571-1458 – “how can their digestive organs perform their functions without continual disturbance and irritation?.... can it be surprising that they should be restless and fretful and frequently indisposed or that they should often be afflicted with those distressing and violent complaints which in so many instances and suddenly send them to the grave, in the very budding of their existence.”

Page 571-1460 - “to nurse them every half hour or hour .... is cruel beyond measure, for it....... is blending with the very elements of the constitution the principles of disease for after-life.”

Score – Unverified

What 85 – Eating before Weaning

Until weaning, a child should not have solid food.

Page 583-1492 – “While children nurse, they should, as a general rule, be confined, at least till near the time they are weaned, to the natural food which the mother and nurse affords.”

Comment – This may be so in the first few months, but as nursing is best continued for 6 to 12 months then food should be gradually introduced.

Score - Unverified

What 86 – Food after Weaning

Appendix 3 – Lectures on the Science of Human Life

Sylvester Graham

Children should be weaned onto diluted milk and coarse wheat bread and fruit. Water should be the only drink.

Page 583-1493 – “When children are weaned, good coarse wheat and a portion of good new milk diluted with about as much boiling water or pure soft water, together with a proper supply of good ripe fruit in its season, should mainly constitute their diet …..Their only drink should be water; and that, as far as possible, should always be pure and perfectly soft. They will however, require very little drink, if all their dietetic habits are correct.”

Comment – This is a far too restrictive diet. A child should be weaned onto a wide variety of foods.

Score - Unverified

What 87 – Toddler Eating

Up to four or five years of age, a child should have up to four meals a day.

Page 572-1461 – “When children are old enough to receive solid food, they should either eat four regular meals a day at stated periods, four to five hours apart; .... This practice may be continued till they are four or five years old,”

Comment – If a child is not overweight, then there should be little restriction to the amount they are eating as long as the quality is good.

Score – Minor

What 88 – Children Eating

Children should limit the amount they eat.

Page 582-1491 – “Children in civic life, even when their diet is of the simplest and plainest kind, are always strongly inclined to take more food than is good for them; and when they are allowed to indulge in all the variety of culinary preparations, they are sure to run into great excess, and thus either cut themselves off in early life, or lay the foundation for distressing chronic disease in the future years.”

Comment – If presented with quality food, a growing child should not be restricted in intake.

Score – Unverified

Page 577-1475 – “Excessive alimentation, then, always and inevitably shortens life and tends to produce disease.”

Score – Significant

Why 88 – Over Eating (What 89)

Overeating overworks all the organs of the body and leads to disease.

Page 577-1475 – “Excessive alimentation causes an overworking of all the organs concerned in the general function of nutrition, as well as those employed in the general function of decomposition and elimination, and consequently every organ concerned in the general economy of organic life is over-taxed, and kept, as it were, in a state of perpetual action. The whole vascular system, including all the blood vessels and lymphatics, is over distended, and made to perform excessive labor.”

Page 579-1478 – “Thus, by excessive alimentation, chronic disease, and often of the most distressing kind, is produced and kept up for years in the brain, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, throat, lungs, stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, skin, nerves, muscles, bones, or some other organ or part, and perhaps finally terminates in premature death.”

Score - Unverified

Appendix 3 – Lectures on the Science of Human Life

Sylvester Graham

water is decidedly hurtful if taken when not necessary for the physiological purposes of the system, or more freely than those purposes require.”

Page 589-1511 - “If dietetic and all other habits and circumstances of man were truly natural and in strict accordance with the laws of his nature, he would very seldom require drink, and therefore very rarely experience thirst. Many individuals....-who have adopted the diet and general regimen advocated in these lectures, have so regulated their dietetic habits as to be able to live without taking any kind of drink or feeling thirst, for the space of three, four, and six months;”

Comment – This is exceedingly dangerous. It is safer to drink possibly polluted water than to have none at all.

Score – Unverified

Why 90 – No Water – 1 (What 94)

Drinking water causes the need to dispose the water and this causes increased work and wearing out of the whole system. This results in fatal disease.

Page 589-1512 – “so in regard to excessive imbibition or drinking, when a large quantity of fluid is received into the stomach than is demanded by the immediate wants of the vital economy, it must be disposed of in some way or other. The absorbents are made to perform unnecessary labor in taking it up, and then it cannot be permitted to enter into the general circulation and remain there, but must a speedily as possible be expelled from the vital domain; and therefore, all organs employed in the performance of this work, are also made to do unnecessary employment in receiving the fluid into, and those employed in expelling it from, the vital domain, are over tasked, debilitated, and relaxed, and often bought into a morbid condition, and frequently involve the whole system in fatal disease,”

Score – Unverified

Why 91 – No Water – 2 (What 94)

The water that is available is too contaminated to be drunk.

Page 594-1522 – “With too few exceptions, and especially in civic life, the water employed for this purpose is charged with those minerals and vegetable and animal impurities which render it exceedingly injurious to the vital organism of the body.”

Comment – In 1850 this is a true statement, but boiling the water solves the problem.

Score – Verified

All the water we need can be gained from the fruit we eat.

Page 589-1511 - “The fruits and succulent vegetables which entered into his diet would afford all the aqueous matter that his vital economy requires.”

Page 597-1525 – “The only drink that God has made, therefore, and the only drink that man can ever use ....is pure water; and this is best supplied by the juices of such fruits and succulent vegetables as compose a part of the natural food of man;...aqueous matter ....is abundantly furnished by their regular food,”

Comment – This may prevent cholera, as he claimed, but would damage the kidneys, in contrast with what he claims, the more fluid the kidneys have to excrete, the healthier they are.

Score – Unverified

Page 595-1523 – “hard water be habitually used (is a health hazard)”