Edgar Cayce's Everyday Health. Carol Ann Baraff

would do well to keep in mind that including juices and broths in the diet is a way of providing the nutritional benefits of meat without overtaxing the intestinal system:

      Let the diet be those that add building forces to system without giving too much strain on digestion. Rather the juices or broths from meat, than the meat itself.

      192-1

      A repeated precaution to observe when including any meat in the diet is to make sure it is as clean as possible and comes from a high quality source. Recurrent issues with E coli bacteria and other hazards make these warnings obvious.

      Lest vegetarians, raw food proponents, and metaphysically minded folks become too alarmed by all this focus on meat, it must be noted that many readings do approve of meat-free meals, days, and even diets, at least for periods of time. However, if vegetarianism is to be embraced as a superior path, this usually means adding a lot more vegetables and fruit than most people are used to eating. Those with enough self awareness are advised to simply monitor their food cravings and include meat a couple of times a week, or whenever it seems to be needed. Ideas about eliminating meat in order to become more spiritual are shot down in short biblical order with the warning that this could do more harm than good:

      Q. Does meat affect one’s spiritual understanding?

      A. If there is that consciousness in self that is affected. But rather, as the conditions, the experiences, the surroundings of each soul become spiritualized; for “It is not that which goeth into a man that defileth him but that which cometh out.” But to attempt, where the bloodstream—where the body-building forces of the nature’s warriors within self have been builded for generations, those that have required the stability or stamina of meat—to relieve self of same entirely is to take from the revivifying influences of that body. For, spirituality by the flesh is as the spiritual life in its essence, a growth.

      443-6

      In other words, removing meat from the diet too quickly could cause a drastic loss in energy and stamina. So although less reliance on animal protein just might be an evolutionary trend, or even an ideal, we blood type O’s, in particular, sure need our daily protein, and it’s hard to get enough from the vegetable world alone. Would anyone care for some organic beef juice?

       A Toast to Wine

      It should come as no surprise to learn that current findings on the health benefits of wine amply confirm Edgar Cayce’s enthusiastic endorsement. Even the Concord grapes favored in the readings have been getting a lot of favorable press (pun!) lately. Those who delve into this material find that it’s literally loaded with therapeutic uses for various kinds of alcohol. This is a strong position when one considers that most readings took place during and shortly after Prohibition!

      Drinkable varieties make a rather large topic with recommendations for red wine alone numbering at least eighty. Approval for other grape beverages can also be found, as is evident in scattered references to white wine, champagne, brandy, sherry, and cordial. Proprietary tonics containing wine as an ingredient, such as Wyeth’s Beef, Iron, and Wine, are endorsed in another sixty or so readings. Then there are the non-grape options, such as eggnog with spirits frumenti (apparently a grain-based distillation) or the occasional beer endorsed for its yeast content.

      To separate therapeutic value from beverage associations, the readings encourage users of red wine, in particular, to treat it as a food with specific nutritional benefits:

      Wines and brandies are rather good . . . Wine, red wine, as a food rather than as a drink, is rather preferable for the body.

      261-28

      Internal stimuli to the system of wine or champagne, or the like, will aid in centralizing the circulation, though this should not be too strong as to cause congestion in any portion.

      264-25

      Stimulant is always needed where there is the tendency for the depressions. This will be helpful to the body . . . Wine—red wine—is sufficient.

      264-47

      . . . Wine, if it is taken as a food, is good for the body—but never by itself nor just as a drink.

      303-20

      Although wine alone may be acceptable, most readings advise combining it with carbohydrates such as dark or whole grain bread or crackers:

      Red Wine, and not too sweet. Nor too much of it nor too often but this is very good—especially when starches are taken.

      257-226

      . . . Small quantities each day of a red wine with black bread would be strengthening, and make for an alteration in the digestive forces here that will be the more helpful.

      482-6

      Taken in moderation, this combination is considered universally beneficial:

      Wine is good for all, if taken alone or with black or brown bread. Not with meats so much as with just bread. This may be taken between meals, or as a meal; but not too much—and just once a day. Red Wine only.

      462-6

      It is important to observe these guidelines as only whole grains carry blood and health-building nutrients that are supplemental to those found in the wine. Wheat, rye, and pumpernickel (check labels for whole grain content) are all suitable sources:

      . . . Also we find that a little (not much) Red Wine taken with brown or sour bread (that is, black bread), or with Ry-Krisp or the like, in the late afternoons will be well to add to the diet. About a jigger or half a jigger at a time, this also sipped.

      528-6

      Wine is a food if taken with brown or black bread, or whole wheat or rye bread.

      365-4

      Not when retiring; but about two ounces of red wine in the late afternoon—with black or brown bread—would be very, very well. It is strengthening, blood and body building. Let the bread, though, be sour bread; preferably what is ordinarily known as “Jew bread.”

      340-31

      Also, rather than any strong drink, there should be red wine taken with bread; for it is a food. Not beer, not ale. Occasionally white wine, or red wine; or the mixed—that are not heavy—are very good. But red wine taken regularly with bread—black bread—is good.

      257-151

      The readings make it clear that this combination is most beneficial when treated as a meal in itself, meaning without the addition of other foods (so sorry, cheese fans). The best time of day is late afternoon or in the early evening shortly before dinner:

      . . . Wine taken as a food, not as a drink. An ounce and a half to two ounces of red wine in the afternoon, after the body has worn itself out; that is, two, three, four o’clock in the afternoon—or cock-tail time. Take it as a food, with brown bread. Not beer or ale, nor any of the hard drinks—but red wine!

      578-5

      . . . Sips of the food values are the more strengthening. The red wine should be rather as the meal once a day, with the black bread only; preferably in the afternoon when greater strength is needed and the reaction will be the better.

      325-66

      . . . red wine would be excellent if taken as a meal with black or sour bread, in the evenings or late afternoon.

      437-7

      When serving as a digestive stimulant, the wine is best taken in amounts of no more than an ounce or two at a time and then sipped very slowly:

      . . . Take with sour bread or brown bread at those periods when there is needed the stimulation from the general activity of the system; that is, at three, four to five o’clock in the afternoon is the period when an ounce to an ounce and a half may be taken with the bread and be beneficial.