Religion

After spending five pleasant days with Mr. Young in his comfortable house we resumed our journeying again, and went on about eighteen miles to another camp of Eskimo whom I had known when I wintered in this district in 1906, and the day after that we reached a village of four or five houses at Tununirk, the south point of Richard Island. It was on Friday that we came there. This was the home of my old friend Ovayuak, who had entertained me so generously at his house for several months six years before on my first visit to the country. I had therefore to stay for several days to talk over old times. There was so much rejoicing in camp over our visit that although the main occupation of the community was rabbit hunting and although there was nothing to eat except the rabbits shot by the men and the ptarmigan snared and the fish hooked by the women, still all these occupations were suspended in honor of our coming, and we feasted so energetically that by Saturday night we had eaten up all the food that was in camp. This did not seem serious to me in the evening, for there were ptarmigan on every hillside and rabbits in every bush, and doubtless a good many fat fish under the ice right in front of our tent door. But on Sunday morning, as I might have known would be the case had I thought of the matter, nobody was willing to do anything toward getting food, for it was now the Sabbath and the Sabbath must not be broken . I felt a bit hungry myself. There were on our sled little provisions beyond a few delicacies which Mr. Young had given us to help along on the journey to Herschel Island, and I was stingy of these, so instead of bringing them out at once I informed the community that I also was well versed in the Scripture and proceeded to tell them the story of how the ears of corn had been gathered on the Sabbath. The consensus of comment was that while to take flour off the bush in the country where it grows might not be wrong, they had had specific instructions that it was wrong to hunt rabbits or to fish on Sunday, and they would therefore prefer to go hungry rather than risk the displeasure of the Deity. 

I thought it would be too much of a task for me alone to go out with the idea of getting rabbits for the whole crowd, so I took out of my sled and shared with them what was not nearly enough food to satisfy our hunger, but it was all we had to do us over Sunday. Monday morning bright and early every one was out hunting and fishing, and long before noon we had plenty to eat. This entire community had been heathen to a man when I lived with them in 1906 . 

It is said sometimes about the people of New England that they consider cleanliness next to godliness. It is true of the Mackenzie River Eskimo today that they look upon washing as a part of godliness. Soaps, towels, and the wash-basins are with them concrete means of grace. Although Christianity had not yet obtained hold among these people as a confession of faith when I first lived with them (in 1906 ), the idea was even then prevalent that washing was a thing of magic value, likely to promote good fortune and turn away evil influences. I tried then and later to counteract this idea as much as possible by seldom washing, but this deterred them in no way , for they knew from my frank avowals that I was not a shaman and knew nothing of the occult forces. 

I found now on Saturday night in Ovayuak's house that things had gone much farther in the matter of washing and towels than they had when I lived with them five years before. Just before bedtime Ovayuak got out a tub filled a quarter full of water and took a bath. Although he had been an apparently healthy man when I first knew him, both he and other members of his family now have sores on various parts of their bodies which I have no doubt are of syphilitic origin. After bathing he wiped with a towel, rubbing it into all these sores . When he was through bathing, his wife took the towel, and after bathing wiped with it also. It was then passed on to the other members of the family, and when everybody had bathed the towel was hung up beside the stove to dry. Next morning when we woke up all the family washed their faces and wiped with the one towel. Several visitors also came in to have breakfast in our house, and, as the custom is among these people now , they all washed their hands and faces in their host's wash -basin and wiped with his towel. I expostulated with Ovayauk, explaining to him by analogies with certain vermin with which they were thoroughly familiar that the germs which inhabit the sores that accompany contagious diseases get on the towel when it is rubbed into the sores , and will later on be transferred by the towel to the eyes and other parts of the bodies of people who wipe with it. Notably would these invisible vermin enter any sores which the person who used the towel might happen to have on his body and would make them sick in turn. By much explaining I was able to make these things thoroughly clear to my Eskimo friends, and it was evident not only that they believed me but also that they were much impressed with the danger they were in. 

When I saw how clear an impression I had made I said : “ Now you must not do these things any more. You must promise me that you won't take any more baths unless you each wipe with your own towel, which you allow no one else to use or unless the towel can be boiled between times.” But they answered regretfully that they could not follow my advice because they had so few towels. God had commanded them that they must wash all over their bodies every Saturday night and must wash their hands and faces before every meal and on waking up in the morning. Their first duty was, they considered, to obey God lest they fail to attain salvation , for they considered that the health of the body was of small consequence beside the welfare of the soul . 

The point is, of course, as we have explained elsewhere, that they look upon the missionary as the spokesman of God, and anything which he tells them they consider he tells them as the direct commandment of the Lord . For that reason, although they were much exercised over the gruesome picture which I had painted of the effects of the promiscuous use of towels, they felt themselves unable to do anything because the commandments of God in the matter had to be obeyed at all costs . They explained to me, as others have done on similar occasions, that when I first knew them and lived among them they had not been Christians, but that they had since learned about heaven and hell and considered that nothing else is of vital importance except the avoiding of eternal punishment ; for after all, they said, a man has to die sometime anyway and it makes comparatively little difference when he dies, but if he observes the commandments of God while he lives, his soul will when he dies go to heaven and dwell there in joy forever.

Lenna’s first book, The New Cookery (Good Health Publishing, 1913), featured nutritionally balanced, attractive, and palatable vegetarian recipes, most of which were served at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Many of these unique recipes incorporated innovative nut, wheat gluten, and legume- based meat substitutes, whole grain cereals, and other vegetarian food products that were originally created at The New Cookery (Good Health Publishing, 1913) the Sanitarium. Working closely with Dr. Kellogg, Lenna developed the vegetarian cuisine medical nutrition therapy menus that were served to the Sanitarium’s patients.Because of her multifaceted talents and accomplishments in dietetics at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, Lenna’s reputation gradually became recognized on a national level as a leader in her field. Those early days of training and experience working at Battle Creek gave her a strong foundation in nutritional science that paved the way to an illustrious career.

An article by American dietitian Lenna Cooper printed in 1917 suggested that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. The article appeared in Good Health, a magazine published by the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, which was run by Dr John Harvey Kellogg.

Both Cooper, through her catchy saying, and Kellogg, through the invention of flaked cereal — 124 years ago today — have had a major influence on breakfast in the western world. Cooper, who was mentored by Dr Kellogg and conducted nutrition classes at his sanatorium, was influenced by Kellogg’s food philosophy. In August 1917 she wrote that “less attention is usually paid to breakfast … yet in many ways it is the most important meal of the day, because it is the meal that gets the day started”.

Dr Kellogg would have been dismayed, because he and his protege Cooper had very definite ideas about the first meal of the day. Yet before Kellogg arrived some societies had never bothered with breakfast.

As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association), it is a good time to reflect on our Academy’s rich history.

It is a time to honor and recognize the visionary women who started our professional organization. One such woman was the Academy’s co-founder Lenna Frances Cooper. In describing her character and dedication to the dietetic profession, the July 1965 Journal of The American Dietetic Association states, “This woman who accomplished so much in the field of applied nutrition and dietetics was slight of stature, quiet in voice, and gentle in manner, but she had the true spirit and courage of the pioneers. She had vision, steadfastness of purpose, high integrity, and a thirst for knowledge which she shared freely with her students and staff. Her warm personality and deep understanding of others made her an ideal teacher and dietitian and won friends wherever she went.” (1).

Lenna achieved much in her nutrition and dietetics career. To give structure and professionalism to the field of dietetics, she was the first to propose the formation of the American Dietetic Association (now known as the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics), which she co-founded in 1917. She became the Academy’s first vice president and later served as the fourteenth president in 1937. During World War I, she was the first Supervising Dietitian for the U.S. Army (1918- 1919). Lenna saw the need to economize food during the war and in 1917 wrote the book, How to Cut Food Costs. In 1929, as a charter member, she became the first president of the Michigan Dietetic Association. Lenna served on the staff of the U.S. Surgeon General and created the Department of Dietetics at the National Institutes of Health. Her greatest renown came as senior author of Nutrition in Health and Disease, used as a textbook for 30 years in dietetic and nursing programs throughout the world.

Each year at the Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo™ (FNCE®), the Academy recognizes and honors Lenna’s legacy of leadership in nutrition and dietetics through the presentation of the Lenna Frances Cooper Memorial Lecture Award. This highly esteemed award is presented to a dedicated Academy member, notable and inspiring speaker, and a role model who has made significant contributions to the profession of nutrition and dietetics. Yet, few Academy members are aware of Lenna’s personal career background and history as a pioneer in the field of vegetarian nutrition and dietetics. Her study and career in food and nutrition began with a focus and specialization in vegetarian nutrition.

https://www.vndpg.org/vn/about/vn-history/academy-co-founder-lenna-frances-cooper-a-pioneer-in-vegetarian-nutrition-and-dietetics

John Harvey Kellogg, M.D., LL.D., F.A.C.S.

Man not Naturally a Flesheater

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It is to be noted at the outset that our present mode of life is far from natural. Since he left his primitive state, in his wanderings up and down the face of the earth to escape destruction by terrific terrestrial convulsions and cataclysmic changes in climate and temperature, chilled during long glacial peridos, parched and blistered by tropic heats, starved and wasted by drouth and famine, man has been driven by ages of hardships and emergencies to adopt every imaginable expedient to survive immediate destruction, and in so doing has acquired so great a number of unnatural tastes, appetites, and habits, perversions and abnormalities in customs and modes of life, that it is the marvel of marvels that he still survives.

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Man no longer seeks his food among the natural products of field and forest and prepares it at his own hearthstone, but receives it ready to eat, prepared in immense factories, slaught-houses, mills, and bakeries and displayed in palatial emporiums. No longer led by a natural instinct in the selection of his foodstuffs as were his remote forebears, he finds his dietetic guidance in the advertising columns of the morning paper, and eats not what Nature prepares for his sustenance but what his grocer, his butcher, and his baker find it most to their pecuniary interest to purvey to him. The average man himself no longer plants and tills and harvests the foods which enter into his bill of fare, that is, "earns his bread by the sweat of his brow," but accepts whatever is passed on to him by a long line of producers and purveyors who do his sweating for him, depriving him of the opportunity of earning both appetite and good digestion by honest toil. So he resorts to condiments and ragouts, palate-tickling and tongue-blistering sauces and nerve-rousing stimulants, as a means of securing the unearned felicity of gustatory enjoyment.

Animal Dietaries

Comparative anatomy and natural history give definite and positive information. It is easy to determine the natural diet of an animal by studying its eating habits when in a wild or natural state, because animals are guided by unerring instincts which instruct them to eat and lead them to avoid those things which are not naturally adapted for their sustenance, and which are hence unwholesome for them. 

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Lessons from the Monkey

Even savage man finds it necessary to appeal to his humble forest companions for indformation regarding foods with which he is not acquainted. Dr. Geil, a famous African explorer who visited the pigmies, told the writer some years ago that when he asked the chief of the pigmies, "How do you know what to eat when you visit a new forest?" the quaint little chieftan replied: "When I find a new nut, I put it where a monkey can see it; then I hide and watch the monkey. Pretty soon he picks up the nut, smells it, tastes it, and then if he eats it, I eat it. Yet if he drops it on the ground, I know it is poisonous and don't eat it."

The pigmy has made an important dietetic discovery which the average civilized man has not yet attained. He has found that the safe way in diet is to follow the monkey. He submits his bill of fare to his forest relative, whose knowledge of dietetics he knows to be more reliable than his own, and accepts his guidance.Much more valuable information could be obtained by sitting at the feet of some wise old chimpanzee and watching him eat than by reading many books on dietetics.