Introduction

Only nature can perform the complete life process— the transformation of inorganic substances from out of the earth into organic plants and their eventual consumption by animals and human beings. Unfortunately, "civilization" has, through many generations contributed to the development of today's average man, whose vital chemistry frequently is denatured, deficient and unbalanced. This "feat" modern man has accomplished to a large degree by overcooking the natural food elements in his diet and eating the denatured, devitalized results. This is something that is not to be found in lower creatures regardless of what one element they may eat, for they eat as nature provides.

To revitalize the chemistry of the body, vitally perfect foods will have to be consumed. As the natural properties of foods change through cooking or chemical processes, and the use of heat beyond body temperature destroys food values completely, the process must and should be discarded. My recipes for food—both cold and hot (or, rather, warm)—are rich in true vitamins and their use will give you a body, consistently well, disease-resistant, and therefore beautiful. It will be capable of healing and rebuilding itself and will remain youthfully active throughout its entire life span.

The principal law of life, that LIFE SUSTAINS LIFE, whether in the vegetable or animal kingdom, is strictly adhered to in all of my recipes. The first and most important requisite for good health is the correct use of vital foods.

Those few who know these truths about the urgent importance of correct eating and living are often considered to put it mildly, ODD. While people, in general, are pitifully uninformed where true knowledge is concerned, they are full of firmly implanted, erroneous conceptions that are tremendously difficult to dislodge from their minds, even when these conceptions are obviously distortions of fact.

For instance, we are told that there is nothing more nourishing, more complete as a food than milk. But the processes which the milk that we drink undergoes these days are completely overlooked. Whether pasteurized, homogenized, vitalized or what have you, the vital substances are wholly or partially destroyed. Although some organic chemicals are only partly affected, very few of them can still be used by the blood in its functions. Pasteurization was perhaps imperative when hygienic conditions left much to be desired and the inspection of cows and their attendants was not legally enforced. In removing the danger of infection by germs and bacteria from raw milk, pasteurization destroyed its life and, by extension, that of all milk products: butter, cheese, cream, and ice cream. Therefore, to be a source of vitamins, milk should be consumed "certified raw." It is made available to the public in many large cities and some small farm areas as "certified raw."

Take the so-called "staff of life"—bread. To begin with, the wheat has been so denatured through refining that most of its vital substances have been destroyed. Then it is baked in overheated ovens and the removal of what was left of vital substances is completed.

All the added vitamin pills cannot take the place of the natural ones that have been destroyed.

One can go on and on, through the whole gamut of dishes cooked with excessive heat, canned foods, toasted cereals, vitamin plied flour and milk, which have been robbed of all or almost all of the original vitality, cooked out desserts and candies. These products are so ingeniously advertised that the public is convinced they are musts for their growing children. So strong has become the faith in these foods, that natural, raw food is seldom given a thought. In fact, it is often a matter of controversy among our most listened-to nutrition authorities.

The result has been a deplorable deterioration and progressive undermining of the health of American youth. The proof lies bare in a recent government publication which gives startling figures on the number of rejections of our youth for the armed forces. Considering that these "rejects" are our teen-agers, our most select age group, and that the percentage is higher today than it was either in World Wars I or II, there must be something radically wrong. Moreover, this is most typical of America—not other countries. It behooves us to look into it!

My husband remembers how, in the past, working people would take a handful of grain, raw and unprocessed, and use it for their daily bread. Later, they began to use hearth-raised bread which, although still made of the whole natural ingredients, already suffered a partial loss in vitamins because of the heat. But now we eat the standard one pound loaf, baked in an overheated oven.

In his research among the various peoples, my husband found that the matzoth, once a Jewish mainstay, was at one time made of crushed wheat and spring water and then sun dried on the desert sands. It was then a healthful, complete lifegiving food. Today however, even the matzoth has deteriorated and although still an unleavened cracker, it is now baked to a crisp and is hence no longer the useful, invigorating food it once was.

Food is not devitalized when it is air dried, frozen, warmed, smoked, or pickled with natural spices, organic substances, salt and water; nor through transportation, or being gathered unripe. It is devitalized only through excessive heat and chemical processing.

It will help us little to eat a four- to twelve-course dinner, consisting of the best carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, starches, sugars and pill vitamins. After years of eating overcooked and processed foods of the finest quality, the majority of us suffer assorted ailments, which vary from debilitating children's diseases to those of crippled maturity and old age. This state of our health has become accepted as the inevitable pattern of our destiny. Some of us however, will not give in and frequently, hopefully follow new fads in eating and are just as frequently led astray to some degree for a very simple reason: because no matter what foods or combination of them are advocated in these fads, and no matter how excellent the ingredients, they fail if they are cooked or processed to death and thus reduced to working against and not for us.

It is, therefore, not what you eat, but how it is prepared. All foods, as nature produces them, eaten in any combination, are complete, chemically correct and vital, if prepared at body or, at most, at fever heat.

In the recipes that follow, I shall demonstrate the preparation of daily meals which retain all or sufficient vital values and still approach routine or customary eating. For forty-five years my husband has utilized such methods of food preparation. It is our conviction that the whole span of our lives from conception on can be free from all ailments, barring accidents or external infections.

The principles of natural food preparation upon which my husband has based his lifelong work, were instilled in him from his early childhood. The Maviglia (Mavilya) family, of Roman descent, settled several generations ago in agricultural southern Italy-Marcellinara in the province of Calabria. The eating habits of this bountiful farm country were generally correct due to their natural methods of preserving and preparing all types of foods in a variety of ways, e.g.: in olive oil, in salt and water with spices, in salt and water with wine vinegar, in oil and lemon juice, in honey, by air-drying, by salting and low-heat drying, sun drying—always either away from heat or not too close to it. Cheeses were prepared naturally, at below fever temperature. The proverbial Italian wines, which were taken with all of these foods, were merely fermented grapes.

Dr. J. Dudley White, doing so much research on the health and eating habits of peoples around the world, has disclosed the fact that one of the highest degrees of health to be found anywhere in the world can be found in the province of Calabria. My husband came to the same conclusion many years ago when he took his trip around the world for the same purpose. It is the condition in which the food is eaten by these people that plays the major role in keeping them healthy, free from heart ailments, and intestinal distress of any kind.

Depending upon the season of the year, a meal consisted of raw fruits, vegetable salads, one warm course with a blending of one or several of the preserved foods and wine or spring water. The warm course was seared, quickly sizzled or barbecued (as a whole animal), fish or fowl, all done very rare, a Sauté ed or scalded vegetable, and al dente* spaghetti, macaroni, or noodle dish. At times, a simple meal was composed of slicings of salted, spiced air-dried meats, a fresh salad or combined fresh or naturally preserved combinations of vegetables as a salad, wine, and fresh or sun-dried fruits. When bread was used it was hearth-baked (air-dried in hearth) and of tremendous size—almost as large as King Arthur's round table! It lasted several weeks to a month. Raw and therefore "vital" foods predominated in all meals.

In the course of my husband's research, he came to know such eminent doctors in New York as Benedict Lust, Will K. Kellogg, and the elder Lindlahr. He learned from them but continued to carry on his own work in accordance with his convictions. He was baffled by the curious fact that so many of his countrymen, who lived on a higher level in America than they had in Italy, were ill. After giving much thought to this phenomenon he decided to make a world-wide survey of human eating habits under various conditions, climatic, social and economic.

* Al dente—firm to the tooth, water soaked and firm, slightly heated.

He returned, therefore, to the land of his early childhood to compare habits and to discover why healthy Italians became ill in the United States—the land of plenty. He found that although living standards were much higher here so far as housing, conveniences, money and quantities of food were concerned, fundamental principles of living had been thoughtlessly altered or discarded altogether. He saw almost at once that the reasons lay in the destruction of foods by "modern" methods of processing.

In America there were excellent facilities for cooking with more intense and consistent heat than in Italy. Mr. Mavilya made tests in which he compared foods as they were habitually prepared in Italy with those cooked in the United States. The results showed that in Italy less intense heat and less heat or cooking time is used than in this country, and that raw foods, whether fresh or naturally preserved, dominated the daily meals there.

The physique of the people in his little home town had all of the characteristics of good health and vigor, even those in their eighties and nineties. They all had exceptionally fine eyes, good teeth and clear skin. Mr. Mavilya also took into account that apart from the difference in the foods that they consumed, they lived a more outdoor life and consequently had the added benefits of good air and sunshine. They indulged in more physical activity—motion, one of the principal laws of life.

In France and Spain he found food habits similar to those in Italy. In England, Russia and Germany however, he noted that, although the people gave the impression of strength because of their height and robust appearance, they generally had weak eyes, poor teeth and poor digestion. They ate hot, "well-cooked" foods. He realized, of course, that the rigors of the climate in these countries prompted them to warm up with hot foods. Yet, even in these countries in rural communities, where the diet was still simple, people ate much raw food and were consequently healthier than in the cities.

Journeys into Africa, among natives living in the most primitive way, further supported Mr. Mavilya's theories. There, an almost consistent raw food diet prevails and, despite the ills caused by unhygienic conditions, a far healthier physical state exists than in modern "civilized" northern and coastal areas of the world. The conditions that he found among the peoples of India, China, Australia, and South America further confirmed his conclusions that illness was primarily due to incorrect preparation of foods, rather than to the kinds of foods consumed. He also found that hygienic conditions came second and climatic third—in their influence on health.

Mr. Mavilya determined to teach American men and women how to eat. He began his work among a few people and then, encouraged by the fine results, he decided to aid the many by establishing a health center as a means of spreading his findings and his knowledge.

He has practiced in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and now in Florida where hundreds of very sick people are brought to better health every year.

We have not yet been able to enjoy the full benefits of our improved external hygiene and our bounteous way of living, because we still suffer from the unhygienic internal waste which we store up from the devitalized elements in our food intake. We accumulate this waste in our intestines, carry it along in our blood stream, deposit it generally in our tissue cells and alimentary channels. It becomes then the primary basis for many human diseases. Not only can you correct and eliminate disease, but you can prevent it from developing merely by being an intelligent provider of nature's "living" foods.

The Fountain of Youth, so adventurously sought for by Ponce de Leon is indeed within each one of us. We need only know how to taste of it.

Marya Mavilya Miami Beach, Florida

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