Russian and Japanese Soldiers Compared From the Stand-point of Diet
By D. T. Bourdeau
LET the following extract from the editorial section of the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Herald, of September 25, have its due weight on the relative value of meat and cereals, from a dietary stand-point:— “The present war in Manchuria is teaching us many things, and compelling us to revise opinions that had long become fixed in our minds. The Japanese are usually a mild people, very polite and kindly toward all, noted for their gentleness toward children and animals, living almost entirely upon cereals, mostly rice. Some of the swaggerers have long maintained that such people could not be formidable fighters, and that no rice-eating nation produced warriors.” “Most people believed it, and the achievements of the Japanese came as a surprise. They can outmarch, outplot, outflank, and outfight the big, noisy Russians, who eat great quantities of meat and drink fiery vodka. Rice seems to make brawn and brain. If these new lights illumine more of our long-cherished prejudices, we shall be permanently made wiser. As a matter of fact, the quiet men are usually the best fighters. They expend their breath in action, not in words. The braggart often fights, but when it comes to the desperate chances and forlorn hopes, it is the quiet ones who bear the tests.” This is but a fractional part of what is said on this subject by candid writers and by others of reflecting minds, who are becoming more and more deeply convinced that a vegetable diet is the diet par excellence. May those who have long had light on what constitutes the best diet, profit by such admissions as those contained in the testimony given above.