Fruitarianism: a Short History Early hygienists like Silvester Graham and Dr. Kellogg mainly focused on the restorative properties of a healthy diet and an overall “clean lifestyle.” Other hygienists, such as Edward Hooker Dewey (who innovated with his no-breakfast plan) and Dr. Isaak Jennings (who can be credited for inventing modern fasting), mainly focused on fasting. Some of these hygienists were pure vegetarians while others were not. Most of them did not recommend a fruit based diet, probably because such a diet was not really possible at that time due to the infrequent supply of fresh fruit year round to the United States in the last century. Dr. Shelton was the man who did the synthesis of all these hygienic theories and came up with the term “Natural Hygiene.” Shelton not only promoted fasting and natural living, like his predecessors, but took the diet further by eliminating grains and replacing them with fruit. The famous “ideal” Shelton diet consisted of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds — a common sequence of ingredients that has been used ever since by raw vegans to describe their diets. Although Shelton made some concessions and even used fermented dairy products at times, he was adamant that all grain products (like bread or rice) should be avoided and fruit should be the basis of the diet instead. Shelton did not come up with that idea on his own. The concept of fruitarianism probably came from Dr. Emmet Densmore, an English doctor who published in 1890 a book called “The Natural Food of Man.” Densmore drew on the knowledge of previous, now forgotten doctors — proving that fruitarianism has a concept has a long history. Densmore was a sick man, and could not find relief to his lingering lumbago problems in a pure vegetarian diet. So he adopted a diet of fruits, nuts, milk, eggs, and cheese. The book mostly contains rather anecdotal evidence on the harm of grain products, as evidenced by some of the quotes I pulled out below from the book. “If cereals are so difficult to digest that they must not be used in illness, it will surely be a good idea to see how a non-starch diet will work after recovery. It is quite true that many individuals reach middle life habitually using bread and cereals, and in apparent good health; but the race must be run before anything is proven. In my childhood I knew a neighbouring farmer who used to make daily trips, in the severely cold winters of northern Pennsylvania, to a village a half-dozen miles away, without any coat and without other clothing than the shirt he wore in summer time. The team which he drove hauled heavy loads of wood, and this necessitated a slow pace, and the teamster followed at a slow walk. He laughed at the foolishness of his neighbours who coddled themselves in coats; and, strangely enough, he got on for years in seeming good health. Ultimately he lost his health, and died in middle life; but, while in seeming vigour, his case was no proof that his habit was not injurious; it was proof only that the powers of his system were able for a time to overcome, and not at once die from exposure. All farmers and horsemen are aware that, while their horses are kept the year round in a stable, and fed largely on dried grains and dried grass, they are very liable to be constipated; but it is also quite universally known that as the same horses are turned out to grass, in fact as soon as they are put upon their natural food, the constipation vanishes.” — Ultimately, Densmore was famous for publishing the following table, which has been used, often without credits, by many natural hygienists since. Comparative Anatomy. The Anatomical Differences Between Flesh-Eating And Fruit-Eating Animals The Carnivora. The Anthropoid Ape. Man. The Omnivora. Zonary Placenta. Discoidal placenta. Discoidal placenta. Non-deciduate placenta. Four-footed. Two hands and two feet. Two hands and two feet. Four-footed. Have claws. Flat nails. Flat nails. Have hoofs. Go on all fours. Walks upright. Walks upright. Go on all fours. Have tails. Without tails. Without tails. Have tails. look sideways. Eyes look forward. Eyes look forward. Eyes look sideways. Skin without pores. Millions of pores. Millions of pores. Skin with pores. Slightly developed incisor teeth. Well-developed incisor teeth. Well-developed incisor teeth. Very well-developed incisor teeth. Pointed molar teeth. Blunt molar teeth. Blunt molar teeth. Molar teeth in folds. Dental formula: Dental formula: Dental formula: Dental formula: *5to8.1.6.1.5to8. 5.1.4.1.5. 5.1.4.1.5. 8.1.2103.1.8. 5to8.1.6.1.5to8. 5.1.4.1.5. 5.1.4.1.5. 8.1.2t03.1.8. Small salivary glands. Well-developed salivary glands. Well-developed salivary glands. Well-developed salivary glands. Acid reaction of saliva and urine. Alkaline reaction saliva and urine. Alkaline reaction saliva and urine. Saliva and urine acid. Rasping tongue. Smooth tongue. Smooth tongue. Smooth tongue. Teats on abdomen. Mammary glands on breast. Mammary glands on breast. Teats on abdomen. Stomach simple and roundish. Stomach with duodenum(as second stomach). Stomach with duodenum(as second stomach). Stomach simple and roundish, large cul-de-sac. Intestinal canal 3 times length of the body. Intestinal canal 12 times length of the body. Intestinal canal 12 times length of the body. Intestinal canal 10 times length of the body. Colon smooth. Colon Convoluted. Colon convoluted. Intestinal canal smooth and convoluted. Lives on flesh. Lives on fruit. Homo sapiens vegetus -Lives on fruit. Live on flesh, carrion, and plants. * In this formula the figures in the centre represent the number of incisors; upon each side are the canines, followed to the right and left by the molars. “Man is neither carnivorous nor herbivorous. He has neither the teeth of the cud-chewers, nor their four stomachs, nor their intestines. If we consider these organs in man, we must conclude him to be by nature and origin, frugi-vorous, as is the ape.” Fruitarianism Spread In one of his books, Shelton reproduced the table by Dr. Densmore and presented his case for a fruit-based diet, using somewhat more scientific arguments. Mainly, he argued that man is not designed by nature to live on a grain-based diet, as evidenced by his anatomy and physiology. Grains are generally acid-forming, and their consumption only as old as agriculture itself. Before that, man lived on a fruitarian diet, in a sort of “Garden of Eden.” Although Shelton admitted that it was possible to live on fruit and nuts alone, provided you could find foods of good quality, he never promoted a pure fruitarian diet as a diet plan for life. Instead, Shelton insistent on the importance of eating a large salad every day. The concept of a fruit-based diet, however, became increasingly popular over the years. Most of the Natural Hygiene movement embraced it. After a few decades, some students of Shelton wanted to improve on Shelton’s diet, complaining that his diet was too difficult to follow. My early mentor, Albert Mosséri, discovered that most people could not digest the 4-5 ounces of nuts that Shelton recommended to eat every day. So he dropped the nuts out of the diet, became less strict about a pure raw food diet, and instead recommended a diet of fruits and vegetables (raw or cooked). This nut-free version of Shelton’s fruit-based diet gave better results and was surprisingly easier to follow. T.C. Fry’s Fruitarian Diet The person who took over as the voice of Natural Hygiene after Shelton’s forced retirement through Parkinson’s disease (and eventual death) was T.C. Fry. Fry not only wanted to eliminate nuts out of the diet, but also all greens! He started out with Shelton’s diet, but eventually refined it to the point where he eventually believed and promoted a pure fruitarian diet. In Fry’s pure fruitarian diet, he also included some vegetables that are technically fruit, botanically speaking (like tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers). T.C. Fry’s arguments in favor of a fruitarian diet can be summarized as follows: * Humans are physiologically fruitarians. Every animal has a natural food and our natural food is fruit. * The idea that “more is better” is a fundamental flaw of modern nutrition. It’s not necessary to eat a “large salad everyday” to meet our nutritional needs. * Fruits contain more vitamins and minerals than we could possibly need. We don’t need vegetables. * Vegetables, especially some greens, contain some toxic substances that can be identified by their bitter taste. Even though Fry’s arguments were flimsy, and that his diet was so unsustainable that he could not even follow it himself (as evidenced by many reports that came out after his death) he nonetheless convinced a lot of people to go fruitarian. The fruitarian diet was mostly a failure, because most people simply could not stick to it. But a few determined people managed to summon enough willpower to do it, and many of those individuals ended up with serious health problems. T.C. Fry himself diet at the age of 69 after a series of mysterious illnesses. His diet also was severely deficient in vitamin B12 and he did not supplement. The Main Fruitarian Argument Demolished by Modern Anthropology It’s not possible to promote a pure fruitarian diet based on nutritional facts alone. We know enough about nutrition today to ascertain that fruits generally don’t contain enough minerals to sustain a healthy life in most people. That’s why all modern fruitarians recommend eating large quantities of greens everyday to compensate for what’s missing in fruit. But there’s one argument that still captures the imagination of wannabe fruitarians: the concept of humans as fruitarian creatures, who once lived on a diet of fruit. When we look at modern Apes like the Chimpanzee, we find that the more genetically related the ape is to humans, the more fruit it eats. For example, gorillas, which are not that close to humans, eat mostly vegetables, while chimps prefer fruit. Chimpanzees (and especially bonobos) live in the wild on a fruit based diet, although they also include other food items such as ants, vegetation, and sometimes meat. However, fruit is by far their favorite food and they would probably eat it exclusively if they could get their hands on a plentiful, quality year-long supply. Because we share a lot of genes with Chimpanzees (we’re told it’s close to 96%), it’s easy to think of humans as “more evolved chimps.” The temptation is to think that we could go back in time, millions of years ago, to find a band of humans living in their original diet of perfect fruit, and think that we’ve somehow lost our way since then by adopting a modern diet. Most people think of evolution as a ladder, which in their minds looks like this: Chimpanzee ===> Neanderthal Men ===> Humans In reality, evolution is more like a tree with branches going out in all directions! We did NOT evolve from Chimpanzee. Rather, humans AND chimpanzee both share a common ancestor. According to modern findings, that was about 6 million years ago. Evolution looks more like this: Pre-human ancestors ====> Modern Apes ====> Extinct Humanoid Races ====> Modern Humans That is a rather rough way of explaining it, but the bottom line is we have been humans properly for only 200,000 years. Before that, there were many different types of human ancestors, some which would look similar to us. We evolved from some of them, and the rest died off. Modern apes are fairly ancient creatures that have NOT significantly evolved for millions of years. *But here’s the kicker: as long as humans have been “humans,” we’ve never actually lived on a fruitarian diet, or anything close to it. Work by anthropologist Nathaniel Dominy shows that humans have mostly evolved as humans consuming fairly large quantities of starchy foods, such as large tubers that are no longer cultivated today in most parts of the world. We’ve actually adapted to this diet, so that our ability to digest starch is MUCH better than that of a chimpanzee. However, we still come from a line of creatures that were definitely fruitarians, such as the same ancestors we share with modern apes, as well as many creatures that came after. In other words: •You could not go back in time and find a tribe of ancient humans living on a pure fruitarian diets. Instead, you’d have to go back so far that the creatures you’d encounter could no longer be qualified as “homo sapiens.” •The concept of man as a fruitarian creature that once lived in the Garden of Eden is just a myth. Our Fruitarian Framework There’s no doubt that our digestive tract is very similar to that of other fruitarian creatures, like the chimpanzee. But it is not exactly the same. For example: * Humans produce several times the amount of amylase, a starch-digesting enzyme produced in the saliva. * Chimpanzees can consume fruits that would be impossible for humans to digest. These fruits are way too astringent or sour for most people to eat. If humans tried to live on the wild chimpanzee diet, they would suffer from a permanent case of indigestion. Yet, there’s no denying that we evolved from fruitarian creatures. That’s at least one argument in favor of eating more fruit, but not in favor of a pure fruitarian diet. As I explained in my last article, there are many reasons to eat more fruit. However, no convincing argument can justify a pure fruitarian diet for everyone.