Many are advertising what to eat, and what medicines to take to make you eat or stop you from eating. Many books are written and sold on good and bad foods, as well as on reducing the weight and on how to increase the weight, introducing the many chemicals used to bring about the desired result. But Allah, in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, to Whom praises are due forever, has given us a better and safer way to do these things.
His way will prolong our lives and do away with our sicknesses. And, that way is eating one meal a day—or if we are able and do not have too much physical work to do, eating one meal every two days. This alone will prolong your life.
You will not be sick often if you eat once a day and eat the proper food. The proper food is that food which is not poisonous. The slave masters taught us to eat the rough foods, such as field peas, and today, being accustomed to eating them, we still eat them along with sweet potatoes (which are not good for anyone but hogs) and white potatoes (which, since they are so starchy and fattening, are not good for anyone unless they are in a zone where they cannot secure better food).
We cannot live a long time if we laden our bodies with fats to burden our hearts in pumping blood through all of this fat. It shortens the time of our heart beat, and the fat person is—in many instances more likely to attract sickness and disease.
Why are we healthier and our lives prolonged by eating as God has taught us in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, to Whom praises are due forever? It is because of the one meal a day or fasting. Eating once a day and fasting gives the body time to rest from the previous meal and to absorb it properly and distribute it where the body is calling for it.
Some of us eat so often and so much at a time that it actually has a tendency to make us small and skinny because we never allow time for the previous meal to digest and distribute the vitamins and proteins into the proper places and throughout our bloodstream. Rest, given to the digestive system of our bodies, is the thing that prolongs our lives.
In this period of rest (24 hours), the poisons that we ate in the previous meal are not capable of doing us any harm (when it is minor food poison), for the idleness of the stomach destroys this poison that would upset us or shorten our lives to a great extent. Therefore, we live a longer life if we eat correctly and do not eat three meals a day. Only one meal a day is sufficient for adults no matter what their occupation may be.
Milk and bread (wheat bread) alone will keep us alive indefinitely, and it is the best and the most easily digested food. We have plenty of supplements for milk and bread, so eat them, but eat them only once a day. This will reduce your doctor bill almost 90 percent, and if you eat once every two days, you will not have any doctor bills. So, do not tell the doctor that I told you this, (smile).
As you know, I contracted bronchial-asthma and I have learned that there are no drugs that the public has access to which actually serve as a cure. But I am doing fine now, and eating once a day and once every other day does not give the mucous time to accumulate and choke the bronchial tubes and tract.
All praises are due to Master Fard Muhammad, as it is written of Him in the Scriptures, that He comes to prolong our lives and to do away with sickness and death. If we live right, He teaches us we will enjoy life for a long, long time.
(Reprinted from “How To Eat To Live,” Book One, 1967.)
