If You Want To Eat More Eat Less

8. If You Want To Eat More, Eat Less

It is obvious that reduction of total food intake will prolong the life of all the vital organs by reducing their work loads. Dr. Graham said, “It is a general rule strictly true that a correct quantity of a less wholesome ailment is better for man than an excessively small or an excessively large quantity of a more wholesome ailment. It is solely from the want of a proper regard for this important truth, that many have been unsuccessful in their attempts to live exclusively on a vegetarian diet.”

A well-known illustration of this precept is the example of Luigi Cornaro, who lived to about 100. As a young man (around forty), he became very ill, and an early death was predicted. He discontinued  his gluttonous habits and experimented with various foods to find which foods caused no overt symptoms. He restricted himself to fourteen ounces of food daily. He ate bread, meat, the yolk of egg, and soup (a selection of foods which caused no symptoms). The quantity was minimal, you will agree, and
so his body was able to handle it efficiently and sustain itself so well that he outlived his prognosticators.

Cornaro said that what we leave of a hearty meal does us more good than what we have eaten. He is credited with having said (loose translation), “if you want to eat more, eat less, because if you eat less, you will live longer, and if you live longer, you will eventually eat more.”

Hereward Carrington (The Natural Food of Man, p. 269) quotes Dr. Nichols: “It is my experience—and I believe of many others who work as I do—that the less I eat, the better I feel. I do not vary much in weight through months and years from 160 pounds. In solid, dry weight, my food, day by day, would not exceed ten or twelve ounces.”