Re: Herbert M. Shelton and people quoting his literature

I know this is an old thread, but I want to resurrect it because the sentiment expressed by the OP is timeless. I agree that Shelton is greatly overrated and the reason for this is simple: there is no serious literature on fasting and people are forced to make do with what's available.

To start, many an advise given by Shelton is plain wrong and the reason is simple: he never fasted himself (it appears he may have done a short, few-days fast in the beginning, when he was familiarizing himself with the method, but after that he had not fasted a day in his life). Shelton believed fasting was for sick people, and he did not include himself among the sick. His preferred method of maintaining health was his diet.

The most blatantly wrong of Shelton's advice is obligatory bed rest and lack of cleansing procedures such as enemas. Even Bragg, who practiced fasting himself, knew the importance of physical activity during a fast. Bragg did not like enemas either (no-one does lol but you gotta do what you gotta do) -- and he got away by doing only short, 7 to 10-day fasts.

I believe that Shelton confined his clients to bed for the simple reason: this was convenient _for_him_ -- he did not have to provide nice grounds, where his clients could stroll during a day, nor the facilities and personnel to administer enemas and such. Nowadays there is no successful fasting clinic without a place to take a walk, gym, sauna, massage, colonics, etc. These are the things that greatly facilitate a fast. If only Shelton practiced fasting himself, he would have known this. Instead, he followed his reasoning when deciding how a fast should be conducted.

Regarding inactivity, it is a well-known fact that people confined to bed rest (due to illness) loose both muscle and bone -- WHILE EATING their full! This is simply due to inactivity and lack of physical stress on the bones. Imagine how much worse these losses must be when one is also fasting!

I could go on and on about Shelton's blunders, or Bragg's distilled water for that matter, but the time is short. The worst of their (and others) "contributions" could not be helped, for the simple reason that not much was known about the metabolism of fasting in their time. That knowledge began in the late 1960s with Cahill and Owen. Alas, the scientists called fasting starvation, a scary word for most. They did not write popular books but dry scientific reports that always lacked the most important piece of info any would-be faster craves -- and that is how people feel, what they experience during various stages of a fast and what results they obtain after.. (was it worth it?)

It is true that there is no good literature on fasting and until this void is filled, people will continue to cite Shelton and Bragg & Co. But the info is out there, on pubmed, though one has to read hundreds of papers for the past 50+ years to get a coherent picture. I've done that and so can you :) Tweet