What is “Fletcherism?”

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4490, 18 November 1909, Page 3

What is “Fletcherism?”

“DIETIC RIGHTEOUSNESS” WHICH SA-VES AMERICAN HOMES £50,000 A DAY ! If you ask an American for the antonym of “ gormandising,” he will reply without hesitation, “ fletchering,” and the man who is reeponsible for the introduction of this new world into the language is a little roundfaced man, the picture of rudicund happiness. He was not always so. Twelve years ago Mr Horace Fletcher was the despair of the doctors. He had half a dozen desperate ailments, he weighed nearly as much as two ordinary men, and no company would insure his life. He determined to cure himself, and he did it by cutting down his food. To-day he is a blithe, medium-sized man of sixty, with the pink face of a cherub, a grip of iron, a clear blue eye, a head of white hair of which Benjamin Franklin would have been proud, and an ardent desire to teach the world how to eat wisely and yet well. He is not a vegetarian, but he eats very little meat. He is not a teetotaller, but he extracts as much pleasure from a few sips of wine as most wine drinkers do. from a whole bottle. He even smokes, but often the smell of the tobacco satisfies his desire without the trouble of smoking. He has been a sailor, a globe trotter, an author, a business man, and a lecturer. Now he isthe apostleof “ dietetic righteousness.” In the United States there are hundreds of “ Don’t Worry ” clubs. Mr Fletcher was the originator of this novel and interesting cult. In Mr Horace Fletcher’s belief half the ills of the world are due to food poisoning from eating too much. The body gets clogged, he says, with the superfluous food, and the result is all kinds of physical, mental, and moral illness.

His cure is astohishingly simple, and he first proved it on himself. He refuses to 11 diet ” anyone. He says that he can’t tell what he will fancy for breakfast to-morrow, and much less what anyone else would fancy. He lays down two rules ; they are-: — (1) Eat thoroughly. Don’t worry to count how often you chew your food, but chew everything until it “ swallows itself.” (2) Eat anything you fancy. If you fancy oysters, eat oysters. If you fancy the shells and can chew them, eat the shells. Eat anything your taste selects, so long as you eat thoroughly. Trust your instinctive taste. Never eat unless you are hungry. Stop when your taste says so. Here are things Mr Horace Fletcher eats : Potatoes, rice, fruits, bread and butter, stewed oysters, wheat cakes and maple sugar, crcain with powdered sugar, all sorts of pies (occasionally), eggs (rarely), salted nuts, caramels. He gets up at 6 a.m., breakfasts at midday, and eats again in the evening, when he gets hungry. He feels twenty years younger than he did twenty years ago, and says that everyone else would who took his advice and practised “ dietetic righteousness.” Mr Fletcher is enrolled by the Carnegie Institute as one of America’s men of science, on the strength of his successful system of dietetics, and yet the principle is remarkable simple. Mr Fletcher, in an interview, explains it as follows : “For three years,” he says, “ after I put forward the suggestion of the possibility of great economy, added enjoyment, and improved health from my method of eating, I discovered there was a perfect frost of inattention to the revelation. It was then that Dr. van Someren, of Venice, took heed and

organised the experiments, which were the beginning of a series of experiments in America and elsewhere, all of which have been confirmatory of the original claims. “To those who do not know what these claims are it may be said that they mean refining the appetite to a point where it is a perfect discriminator of the choice of food.

All that is needed is careful mastication.

Eat Slowly

“ Bite every morsel over and over again. This leads to moderation. This moderation in eating leads to the avoiding of what Edison calls intoxication from food, or what I call auto-intox-ication, and the cells of the body are nourished from a pure supply. A further effect is the entire d ssapearance of f itigue, less of energy, illness, depression of spirits, brain fag, and many of the disabilities from which mankind in civilised communities suffers.

“ At the present time it is estimated that more than £50,000 a day is bemg saved to the domestic exchequers of America alone as a result of attention to the method of eating. Two poweiful religious organisations have taken the matter up with the idea of enabling their members to benefit not only by the saving of money but also by the influence that clean eating has upon morals and the temperance question. “The management of the great summer school at Lake Chautauqua, where 10,000 persons are in residence during the summer vacation months, have commissioned me to organise a department of health and efficiency at the next session in July and August. This parent Chautauqua is the leader of some thirty affiliated gatherings, and is the model and guide of more than 600 local summer schools, all of which bear the name of Chautauqua.

How Fleteherism Saves,

“ It is easy to make an average saving of od. per day per head in the cost of food, -without any deprivation, by Fletcherism. The actual enjoyment of food —the true gastatory enjoyment—is very much increased, to say nothing of the important energy aud health conditions.’ Enormous total saving is thus made possible in a nation of ninety million people. It has been estimated that within the next two or three the economy will amount annualy in America to millions of pounds stealing.”