0,49 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
In "The New Glutton or Epicure," Horace Fletcher offers a provocative exploration of dietary habits and the philosophy of consumption, challenging the reader to reconsider the boundaries of gluttony and moderation. Fletcher's literary style merges anecdotal storytelling with persuasive rhetoric, drawing upon his experiences and insights to advocate for a more conscious and healthful approach to eating. This work engages with contemporaneous debates in dietetics and health reform, positioning itself within the broader context of the late 19th-century movement toward nutritional awareness and self-care. Horace Fletcher, often referred to as 'The Great Masticator,' was a prominent figure in the dietary reform movement. His own struggles with health and fitness inspired him to develop a philosophy centered on mindful eating and the benefits of thorough mastication. Fletcher's background in various disciplines, including art and architecture, enriched his perspective on aesthetics and wellness, driving him to explore the intimate connection between what we consume and our overall well-being. I highly recommend "The New Glutton or Epicure" to those seeking a thought-provoking examination of dietary practices and their impact on health. Fletcher's insights remain relevant today, making this work not only a historical artifact but also a guide for modern readers striving for a balanced and fulfilling relationship with food. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
Ähnliche
The New Glutton or Epicure
Table of Contents
Introduction
Between appetite’s rush and judgment’s restraint, Horace Fletcher’s The New Glutton or Epicure invites readers to reconsider eating as a drama of choice in which impulse, pleasure, health, and self-command share the table, asking whether the modern diner will remain a hurried consumer of abundance or become a deliberate taster who turns everyday meals into occasions for wellbeing, clarity, and satisfaction through the simplest of acts—paying attention—thereby transforming the ordinary business of chewing and savoring into a method for living that promises less waste, steadier nerves, and more durable contentment without resorting to austerity or extravagance, but by reeducating desire itself.
This book belongs to the tradition of popular health writing and self-culture, a nonfiction guide situated at the dining table and in the rhythms of everyday domestic life rather than in laboratories or clinics. Written by the American food reformer Horace Fletcher and emerging in the early twentieth century, it participates in a broader era of dietary reform and personal improvement literature. Its setting is the modern meal—restaurants, homes, workplaces—where speed, abundance, and distraction meet. As a cultural artifact, it reflects a time when industrial abundance challenged older habits, and when readers sought practical frameworks to reconcile pleasure with prudence.
The premise is disarmingly simple: how we eat—especially how attentively and thoroughly we chew—shapes how we feel, work, and live. Fletcher frames the “new glutton” not as a figure of excess but as one who refashions appetite into discernment, becoming an epicure through method rather than luxury. The reading experience is that of an earnest, persuasive guide: conversational yet insistent, anecdotal yet organized, moral in its aspirations yet focused on everyday practice. Without leaning on technical jargon, it blends common-sense observation with practical counsel, encouraging experiments in attention, pacing, and satisfaction that readers can try at the next meal.
Several themes animate the argument. Pleasure is not the enemy of health; it becomes an ally when governed by attention. Discipline, for Fletcher, is less about denial than about timing, sensation, and self-knowledge. The body is treated as an economy where waste follows haste, and where care yields efficiency. Appetite is recast as a teacher rather than a tyrant, provided one learns to listen. These ideas matter now because they confront perennial questions: how to live well with abundance, how to balance speed with care, and how to turn routine acts into sources of steadiness and composure.
Much of the book’s persuasion works by rehabilitating ordinary sensations. It foregrounds the cues of taste, appetite, and comfort, asking readers to notice texture, pace, and the point at which desire has been satisfied. Rather than prescribing complicated menus, it proposes a shift in attention that changes one’s relationship to all foods, humble or refined. Fletcher’s style is exhortative but hopeful, favoring demonstration and habit-building over punishment. The upshot is a manual for self-management through mindful practice, where the conversion from glutton to epicure is achieved by respect for the body’s signals and the rituals that shape them.
Contemporary readers will find the book relevant in an age defined by hurried meals, constant stimulation, and a marketplace engineered for speed. Its counsel offers practical tools for reclaiming agency: slowing down, savoring, and aligning desire with satisfaction. It speaks to concerns about personal wellbeing, waste reduction, and sustainable habits without requiring elaborate systems or special products. The emphasis on attention scales from solitary breakfasts to social dinners, making it adaptable to different schedules, budgets, and tastes. By reframing eating as a craft rather than a chore, it suggests that daily practice can recalibrate health and enjoyment together.
To approach The New Glutton or Epicure is to encounter an early, influential articulation of mindful consumption that remains strikingly accessible and humane. It does not peddle austerity or indulgence; it cultivates discernment. As a document of its era, it illuminates how modernity reshaped appetite; as a guide for today, it offers a durable method for turning routine meals into sources of composure and care. Readers who value practical wisdom, historical perspective, and a calm, invitational voice will find here a companionable introduction to eating with attention—and, by extension, to living with greater poise.
Synopsis
In The New Glutton or Epicure, Horace Fletcher addresses what he sees as a characteristic ailment of modern, prosperous societies: habitual overeating and heedless consumption that burdens health and discipline. Writing in the early twentieth century, he frames his subject as a choice between two eating types—the wasteful glutton and the discerning epicure—arguing that refinement of appetite is a practical, not merely aesthetic, pursuit. The book proposes a program for transforming everyday meals into deliberate, restorative acts. It advances an argument that personal well-being, household economy, and social efficiency are all affected by how, why, and at what pace one eats.
Fletcher begins with observations drawn from personal experience and simple trials. Central to his thesis is the claim that thorough mastication and attentive tasting allow the body’s appetite to regulate quantity without strain. He holds that lingering over food enables the senses to discriminate between genuine need and momentary craving, so that swallowing becomes an informed decision rather than an impulse. The epicure, in this scheme, is not a gourmand of excess but a careful eater who values satisfaction over volume. The proposed change is practical and immediate: slow down, taste fully, and let desire diminish naturally when nourishment is met.
From these observations, he advances a physiological rationale. The mouth is treated as the proper beginning of digestion, where saliva and patient tasting prepare food and trigger reliable signals of satiety. Fletcher contends that hasty eating disrupts this sequence, leading to excess intake and avoidable digestive labor. By contrast, deliberate chewing is said to improve assimilation, lessen bodily waste, and support steadier energy. He avoids rigid prescriptions in favor of principles, insisting that individual responsiveness—guided by flavor, comfort, and ease of swallowing—can calibrate quantity more accurately than external rules. The argument combines common-sense practice with claims of bodily economy.
He then introduces reports that aim to substantiate these claims. Fletcher recounts self-monitoring and collaborative inquiries in which careful eating correlates with reduced intake, lighter elimination, and improved endurance. He presents examples from ordinary workers and active individuals, emphasizing that efficiency, not austerity, is the measure of success. While he highlights encouraging outcomes, he maintains that the method should be tested by each reader’s experience. The evidence is framed as cumulative and comparative rather than theoretical alone, encouraging replication in domestic life and, where possible, under measured conditions that weigh intake against output and performance.
The social dimension follows. Fletcher argues that wasteful eating burdens households and institutions, driving unnecessary expense and discomfort. He claims that reform at the table—a shift from compulsion to judgment—could relieve kitchens, lessen medical complaints, and improve attentiveness in schools and workplaces. The epicurean ideal becomes a civic proposal: a culture that prizes quality, calm, and sufficiency can tame abundance without denying pleasure. Rather than imposing bans, he urges a new etiquette of appetite, one that trains children early and reorients adults toward savoring food as a means of healthful restraint and better social conduct.
Practical counsel punctuates the argument. Readers are advised to create conditions that make unhurried eating likely: comfortable posture, minimal distractions, and intervals that favor thorough mastication. Food selection is not treated dogmatically; emphasis falls on responsiveness to taste and ease of digestion. Fletcher suggests that a composed frame of mind—free from haste and anxiety—supports reliable signals of hunger and satisfaction. The object is self-mastery via attention, not mortification. He portrays this regimen as compatible with varied cuisines and circumstances, provided that the eater respects the mouth’s role as gatekeeper for both nourishment and quantity.
The book concludes by presenting its method as a disciplined pleasure with practical reach. Without promising universal outcomes, Fletcher positions his approach as a low-cost experiment available to anyone willing to cultivate patience at the table. He notes that the practice aligns with contemporary interest in efficiency and personal responsibility, inviting readers to verify claims through daily habit rather than argument alone. The New Glutton or Epicure thus endures as a formative statement of mindful eating: part hygiene, part ethics, and part self-experiment, proposing that careful attention to appetite can reconcile enjoyment with economy in a modern food culture.
Historical Context
Horace Fletcher’s The New Glutton or Epicure emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, when the United States and Western Europe were grappling with industrialization, urban growth, and new ideas about public health. Middle-class readers confronted a wave of advice literature on diet, hygiene, and self-care. Universities, government laboratories, and reform-minded institutions were beginning to standardize knowledge about food. Fletcher, an American popular health writer (1849–1919), positioned his program within this changing landscape. He proposed that careful mastication and attention to appetite could improve health and efficiency, a message tailored to office workers, travelers, and households navigating abundance, novel products, and hurried meals.
Nutrition science was being formalized by chemists such as Wilbur Olin Atwater, who led calorimetry experiments for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1890s. The Atwater-Rosa calorimeter quantified energy expenditure and helped popularize the “calorie” as a unit of food energy in public bulletins. Dietary standards then emphasized ample protein following German researcher Carl Voit. As these measurements entered magazines, cookbooks, and home economics curricula, readers sought practical rules for eating. Fletcher wrote into that conversation, promising a technique that worked with the body’s cues rather than tables alone, while welcoming the new laboratories’ authority when it appeared to validate moderation and attentive chewing.
Debate over protein intensified in the early 1900s through experiments led by Yale physiologist Russell Henry Chittenden. His studies with soldiers and athletes tested lower-protein regimens and reported maintained strength and health, challenging prevailing standards. Fletcher took part in demonstrations associated with Chittenden’s work and publicized their results, which appeared in widely read books and reports during the decade. Newspapers and periodicals covered the “Yale experiments,” giving Fletcher’s program scientific prestige with lay audiences. The alliance between a laboratory physiologist and a popular health advocate exemplified the Progressive Era’s traffic between research institutions and mass culture, where claims about diet were framed as measurable and reformist.
The book also addressed anxieties about food quality that culminated in the U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Bureau of Chemistry chief Harvey Washington Wiley campaigned against adulteration and misleading labels, while public outrage swelled after exposés such as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Housewives’ clubs, home economists, and physicians advocated safer, standardized provisions. In that atmosphere, Fletcher’s injunctions to taste carefully, eat deliberately, and avoid excess harmonized with calls for purity and transparency. He recast dining as a site where individual vigilance supported public reform, suggesting that careful consumption could mitigate the risks posed by industrial processing and uncertain commercial practices.
Fletcher’s program drew on a longer American health-reform lineage. Earlier figures like Sylvester Graham had urged simple diets and temperance in the 1830s, and by the late nineteenth century John Harvey Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanitarium promoted vegetarian fare, chewing thoroughly, and hygienic living to thousands of patients. Popular publishers and lecturers, including Bernarr Macfadden of Physical Culture magazine (founded 1899), spread self-improvement regimens that promised vigor without stimulants. While Fletcher gave mastication a distinctive centrality, his appeal to self-control, moderation, and pleasure in natural flavors placed him within this network of sanitariums, magazines, and lecture halls that marketed health as a democratic, teachable practice.
Urban office routines and “quick-lunch” establishments reshaped American eating habits around 1900, feeding diners rapidly between trains, factory shifts, or sales calls. Physicians and editors diagnosed an epidemic of “dyspepsia,” blaming haste, worry, and rich food. Advice columns counseled smaller portions and slower meals. Fletcher’s vocabulary—soon summarized in newspapers as “Fletcherizing”—offered a behavioral remedy: chew until the swallow comes naturally and attend to taste as a guide. The practice fit dining rooms, cafeterias, and travel alike, requiring no special equipment or proprietary food. Its portability helped his message circulate through schools, clubs, and workplaces trying to harmonize modern tempo with bodily comfort.
In the same years, the Efficiency Movement preached scientific management in factories and offices, with Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Shop Management (1903) advocating measurement and the elimination of waste. Reformers applied similar language to households and bodies through home economics and physical education. Fletcher translated that ethos into nutrition: he asserted that mindful mastication reduced digestive waste and improved endurance, a claim he associated with laboratory tests and athletic performances. By treating appetite as something to audit and train, he presented eating as a manageable process, aligning personal discipline with national ideals of thrift, productivity, and conservation that pervaded Progressive Era discourse.
Against this backdrop, The New Glutton or Epicure framed choice at the table as moral and scientific. It critiqued the overconsumption encouraged by industrial abundance while promising that pleasure and restraint could coexist. The “glutton” squandered health and resources; the “epicure,” educated by sensation and reason, conserved both. Fletcher’s tone echoed Progressive optimism that social ills could be addressed through education, measurement, and personal reform, even as it relied on laboratories to validate everyday habits. The book’s enduring legacy is its emblematic fusion of popular advice with emerging nutrition science, capturing a moment when modern eating became an object of reform.
The New Glutton or Epicure
PREFACE
The original "Glutton or Epicure" has been completely revised and much enlarged, including considerable new matter added in the form of testimony by competent investigators, which confirms the original claims of the book and supplements them with important suggestions.
The "New Glutton or Epicure" is now issued as a companion volume to the "A.B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition," in the "A. B. C. Series," and is intended to broaden the illustration of the necessity of dietetic economy in the pursuit of an easy way to successful living, in a manner calculated to appeal to a variety of readers; and wherein it may suggest the scrappiness and extravagance of an intemperate screed, the author joins in the criticism of the purists and offers in apology the excuse that so-called screeds sometimes attract attention where more sober statement fails to be heard.
Especial attention is invited to the "Explanation of the A.B.C. Series," at the back of this volume, as showing the desirability of regard for environment in all its phases; and also to the section, "Tell-tale Excreta," on page 142, an evidence of right or faulty feeding persistently neglected heretofore, but of utmost importance in a broad study of the nutrition problem.
The professional approval of Drs. Van Someren, Higgins, Kellogg, and Dewey, representing wide differences of points of view and opportunity of application, are most valuable contributions to the subject. The confirmation of high physiological authority strengthens this professional endorsement. The testimony of lay colleagues given is equally valuable and comes from widely separated experiences, and from observers whose evidence carries great weight. The commandante of a battleship cruising in foreign waters and representing the national descent of Luigi Cornaro[1]; a general manager of one of the largest insurance companies of the world; a cosmopolitan artist of American farm birth and French matrimonial choice and residence; and a distinguished bon vivant, each with a world of experience, testifying in their own manner of expression, is appreciated as most valuable assistance to the cause of economic dietetic reform.
During the original experiments in Chicago, and in Dayton, Ohio, the originator was much indebted to James H. Lacey, Esquire, of New Orleans, La., and Cedar Rapids, for helpful suggestions, which his early training as a pharmaceutical chemist rendered him able to give.
There are also numerous altruistic, self-sacrificing women, who have been active colleagues of the author in testing the virtues of an economic nutrition, and who have greatly assisted in making the economy an added new pleasure of life, instead of being a restraint or a deprivation. This is accomplished easily by a change of attitude towards the question, and in such reform women must have an important part to play. To their kindly meant, but hygienically unwise, aggressive hospitality, in begging friends to eat and drink more than they want, just to satisfy their own generous impulses, is due much of the milder gluttony that is prevalent.
Imposition upon the body of any excess of food or drink is one of the most dangerous and far-reaching of self-abuses; because whatever the body has no need of at the moment must be gotten rid of at the expense of much valuable energy taken away from brain-service. Hence it is that when there is intestinal constipation the energy-reserve is lowered enormously, and even where there is no painful obstruction, the mere passage of waste through some twenty to twenty-five feet of convoluted intestinal canal is a great tax upon available mental and physical power; and this disability is often imposed on innocent men by well-meaning women in the exercise of a too aggressive hospitality.
Mention of constipation suggests another reference to one of the specially new features of this discussion, insisted upon by a truly economic and æsthetic nutrition, and herein lifted out of the depths of a morbid prejudice to testify to the necessity of care in the manner of taking food for the maintenance of a respectable self-respect. So firmly rooted is the fallacy that a daily generous defecation is necessary to health that less frequent periodicity is looked upon with alarm, whereas a normally economic nutrition is proven by greater infrequency, accompanied by an entire absence of difficulty in defecating and by escape from the usual putridity due to the necessity of bacterial decomposition.
To illustrate the prevailing ignorance relative to this most important necessity of self-care, and also a traditional prejudice, even among physicians, the following extract from a letter just received is given: "You ask me to define more exactly what I mean by constipation; this is not at all difficult; I mean skipping a day in having a call to stool. There was no trouble about it, and the quantity was not large, but when I mentioned it to my doctor he advised me to stop chewing if it interfered with the regular daily stools. I must confess that I never felt so well as while I was chewing and sipping, instead of the hasty bolting and gulping which one is apt to do on thoughtless or busy occasions, but I don't think it is worth while for a chap to monkey with his hygienic department when he is employing a professional regularly to tell him the latest kink about health." To this surprising state of ... the evidence of "professionals" like Van Someren, Kellogg, Higgins, and Dewey, as well as that of the great men of physiology who have spoken herein, and in the "A.B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition," gives hopeful answer, but suggests a warning.
The author has noticed that immediately folk begin to give attention to any new régime relative to diet, exercise, mental discipline, or whatever else, they begin to charge all unusual happenings to the change of habit, whereas before the same things were common but unnoticed. Even among men of scientific habit of thought, unduly constipated by stale conservatism, the old, old corpse of tradition, "The accumulated experience of the whole race must be correct," is revived and used in argument contentiously; but to this relapse into non-scientific reasoning comes the reply: "If the accumulated experience of the human race is evidence that crime and disease are natural, then disease and crime are good things and should not be discouraged."
There are many sorts of constipation, the worst of which are constipation of affection, of appreciation, of gratitude, and of all the constructive virtues which constitute true altruism. Let us avoid sinning in this regard[1q]! In pursuit of this thought the following is àpropos:
SPECIAL RECOGNITION
The author wishes here, also, to express gratitude to many who have not figured by name in the "A.B.-Z.," or elsewhere herein, but whose assistance, encouragement, criticism, and example have helped the cause along in one way or another. Of these many friends a few are quickly recalled, but not necessarily in the order of their friendly service. To John H. Patterson, Esquire, of Dayton, Ohio; Col. James F. O'Shaughnessy, of New York; Stewart Chisholm, Esquire, of Cleveland, Ohio; Fred E. Wadsworth, Esquire, of Detroit, Michigan; and Henry C. Butcher, Esquire, of Philadelphia, are due much for encouragement in pursuing the investigation at critical moments of the struggle; as well as to Hon. William J. Van Patten, of Burlington, Vermont, whose interest in the "A.B.C. Series" began with "Menticulture" and has continued unabated. In Dr. Swan M. Burnett, of Washington, D. C., has been enjoyed a mentor with great scientific discrimination and a sympathy in the refinements of art and sentiment, as expressed in Japanese æsthetic civilisation, which has been extremely encouraging and most inspiring in relation to the whole A.B.C. idea.
From Gervais Kerr, Esquire, of Venice, came one of the important suggestions incorporated in the A.B.-Z. Primer; and the young Venetian artist, E. C. Leon Boehm, rendered great service in studying habits of dietetics among the peoples of the Balkan Peninsular, in Turkey, along the Dalmatian Coast, and in Croatia.
Prof. William James, of Harvard University, in his Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburg, Scotland, published under the title of "The Varieties of Religious Experience," gave the practical reformatory effort of the "A.B.C. Series" a great impetus by quoting approvingly from "Menticulture" and "Happiness." Coming from a teacher of philosophy and psychology, with a physiological training and an M.D. degree to support the approval, recognition is much appreciated; but, in addition to his published utterances, Dr. James has followed the psycho-physiological studies of the movement with interest, and has given much valued encouragement.
This does not begin to complete the list of those to whom the author owes a debt of especial gratitude. The argus-eyed vigilance of the collectors and doctors of world-news, who mould public opinion in a great measure, has brought to the cause of dietetic reform established upon an æsthetic basis their kindly assistance, but, as usual, they prefer to remain incog. In this seclusion, however, Ralph D. Blumenfeld, Esquire, of London, and Roswell Martin Field, Esquire, of Chicago, cannot be included; neither can Charles Jay Taylor, the originator of the Taylor-Maid girl. James P. Reilly, Esquire, of New York, has lightened the labours of the investigator, and has strengthened his arm in many ways; as have also Messrs. B. F. Stevens and Brown, of London, not alone as most efficient agents, but as friends interested in the cause in hand. In the various books of the series opportunity has occurred to express appreciation of many sympathetic friendships, and in heart and memory they hold perpetual carnival. To Major Thomas E. Davis, of the New Orleans Picayune, is due more than mere expression of gratitude for excellent editorials on our subject; and across the ocean, Sir Thomas Barlow, the private physician of King Edward VII, Dr. Leonard Huxley, Prof. Alfred Marshall, of Cambridge University, and Reginald Barratt, Esquire, of London, have been most sympathetic and assistful. On both sides of the waters, William Dana Orcutt, Esquire, of The University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Frederick A. Stokes, Esquire, of New York, have added friendship for the cause to much appreciated practical assistance.
These and many others are preferred-creditors of gratitude, in addition to those whose mention is embodied elsewhere in the various books of the "Series."
