WHY I FAST.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3131, 21 August 1922, Page 8

WHY I FAST.

(Hv Horace Thorne).

To judge from the counsels reeently broadcasted by medical men in the columns of thd daily press, the faculty are beginning to admit that overfeeding is a.s injurious to health as underfeeding. I'Toiu the social point u( view 1 am inclined to think that a glutton in the long run a more offensive monster than, a drunkard. A man in his cups may he amusing; a. food-hog never is. 1 o the hitter I recommend the discipline of a yearly fast. As to its benefits, I can speak from personal experience which has convinced me that il the proof of “the pudding is in the eating,’’ no eating is frequently a proof that the pudding is superfluous.' it tv as an article by Upton Sinclair fhat decided mie to embark on my last, after trying such experiments in diet as milk cures and fruit cures, which. I found beneficial hut not sufficiently radical. I began my real fast with a. day on orango juice, and after that look nothing hut wator, hot or cold, for I t days. It was a sunny April on the hanks of the Thames, and when the headache and nausea of the second and third days had passed away, 1 not only walked several miles every day. hut got through a considerable amount of hterarv work.

By the fourth or fifth day the sensation of hunger disappeared entirely. I can only compare the joy and exhilaration which then succeeded the craving for food to the sensations of a prisoner who is suddenly released from captivity. 1 felt as if I was walking on air, in a world in which everything, including myself, had replenished its youth and vitality. I stopped my last at the end of a fortnight before hunger returned, because [ could not continue to swallow enough water. Ultimately thirst, like hunger, disappears. That is the first danger of fasting. The second danger—and it is a serious danger—is that the sudden return of hunger may tempt one to break one's fast too suddenly. Two days oi fruit juice or milk are necessary before even food as solid as an omelette is consumed. T took quite a week to get back to an ordinary light diet, and 1 went back with regret. The result, of the experiment, however, surpassed my most sanguine hopes. Incidentally 1 lost about 1 lib in weight—roughly. 101b during the first week and 41b during the second. My dyspepsia was completely cured, and the cure lasted for over a year. A slight return of the symptoms induced me 18 months litter to fast again. It was a damp September, and whether the relaxing air of the place where 1 was affected ire, or whether I was exhausted by strenuous mental work before I started it, my second fast was not such an agreeable experience as my first. The sense of exhilaration was absent, and I broke my fast on the eighth day. Again, however, all signs of dyspepsia vanished. I am not, of course, advising any delicate person, still less anyone sulforing from organic disease, to try the fasting cure without medical permission. But the man or woman who is simply ill from too generous nourishment, and who does not, mind being regarded as a harmless lunatic by his friends, would be well advised to try what a little starvation will do for him before calling in the doctor.