Horace Fletcher | |
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| Born | (1849-08-10)August 10, 1849 Lawrence, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | January 13, 1919(1919-01-13) (aged 69) Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Food writer |
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Horace Fletcher (August 10, 1849 – January 13, 1919) was an Americanfood faddist who earned the nickname "The Great Masticator" for his argument that food should be chewed thoroughly until liquefied before swallowing: "Nature will castigate those who don'tmasticate." He made elaborate justifications for this claim.
Fletcher was born August 10, 1849, at Haverhill Street inLawrence, Massachusetts.[1] He left home at sixteen and throughout his career worked as an artist, importer, manager of theNew Orleans Opera House and writer. Fletcher suffered fromdyspepsia andobesity in his later years, so he devised a system of chewing food to maximize digestion.[1] His mastication system became known as "Fletcherism". He was a member ofThe Boston Club of New Orleans and founding member ofThe Bohemian Club of San Francisco.[2]
Fletcher and his followers recited and followed his instructions religiously, even claiming that liquids, too, had to be chewed in order to be properly mixed withsaliva. Fletcher argued that hismastication method will increase the amount of strength a person could have while actually decreasing the amount of food that he consumed.[3] Fletcher promised that "Fletcherizing", as it became known, would turn "a pitiable glutton into an intelligentepicurean".
Fletcher also advised against eating before being "Good and Hungry", or while angry or sad. Fletcher would claim that knowing exactly what was in the food one consumed was important. He stated that different foods have different waste materials, so knowing what type of waste one was going to have in one’s body was valuable knowledge, thus critical to one’s overall well being (The New Glutton, 1906, 132–133). He promoted his theories for decades on lecture circuits, and became a millionaire.Upton Sinclair,Henry James andJohn D. Rockefeller were among those who gave his ideas a try. Henry James andMark Twain were visitors to his palazzo in Venice. He lived in the Palazzo Saibante with his wife, Grace Fletcher, an amateur painter, who studied in Paris in the 1870s and was influenced by theImpressionists, and her daughter, Ivy. Ivy, later to become a journalist at theDaily Express in the 1930s, was often a guinea pig for Horace's experiments, which she described in her unpublished memoirs "Remember Me".
Fletcher inspiredRussell Henry Chittenden ofYale University to test the efficacy of his mastication system.[4][5] He was also tested byWilliam Gilbert Anderson, director of the Yale Gymnasium.[6] It was here that he participated, at the age of fifty-eight, in vigorous tests of strength and endurance versus the college athletes. The tests included: “deep-knee bending”, holding out arms horizontally for a length of time, andcalf raises on an intricate machine. Fletcher claimed to lift “three hundred pounds dead weight three hundred and fifty times with his right calf”.[7] The tests claim that Fletcher outperformed these Yale athletes in all events and that they were very impressed with his athletic ability at his old age. Fletcher attributed this to following his eating practices, and ultimately these tests, whether true or not, helped further endorse “Fletcherism” publicly.[8]
Fletcher saw many similarities between humans and functioning machines. He posited several analogies between machines and the human body. Just some of the comparisons that Fletcher drew included: fuel to food; steam toblood circulation; steam gauge to humanpulse; and engine to heart.[9]
Along with "Fletcherizing", Fletcher and his supporters advocated alow-protein diet as a means to health and well-being.
Fletcher had a special interest in humanexcreta. He believed that the only true indication of one’s nutrition was evidenced by excreta (Fletcher 142). Fletcher advocated teaching children to examine their excreta as a means for disease prevention (Fletcher 143). If one was in good health and maintained proper nutrition then their excreta, or digestive "ash", as Fletcher called it, should be entirely "inoffensive". By inoffensive, Fletcher meant that there was no stench and no evidence of bacterialdecomposition.[10]
Fletcher was an avid spokesman for Belgian Relief and a member of theCommission for Relief in Belgium inWorld War I.
Fletcher, 69, died ofbronchitis inCopenhagen on January 13, 1919.[11] His message to humanity – to have an excellent overall health – was to have a holistic approach. The approach has only three steps:
Although he acquired many followers, medical experts described Fletcher as afood faddist and promoter ofquackery.[5][12] He was a key figure of the American "Golden Age of Food Faddism".[13] Critics described Fletcherism as a "chew-chew cult".[14] Fletcher's extreme claims about chewing a mouthful of food up to one hundred times until it had no taste in order to avoid illness is not supported by scientific evidence. He also believed that his mastication system could curealcoholism,anaemia,appendicitis,colitis andinsanity.[5]
Fletcher believed that his system could improve bowel movements; however, the bowel must have a certain amount of indigestible bulk to stimulate it to action.[12] Health writerCarl Malmberg noted that Fletcher's extreme diet of chewed food was almost aliquid diet that does not provide "even a minute quantity of th[e] necessary bulk". For this reason, Fletcher's system is potentially dangerous and may be responsible for "constipation of the most serious kind".[12]
PhysicianMorris Fishbein noted that the result of Fletcher's system was a "thorough disturbance of the entire body and the development of intoxication and general disability."[15]
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