The Power that Wins (1928)

AUTHOR: Trine, Ralph Waldo

KEYWORDS:  food and diet, health

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen)

As the longish subtitle states, this is a book that offers “Henry Ford and Ralph Waldo Trine in an Intimate Talk on Life – the Inner Things – the Things of the Mind and Spirit – and the Inner Powers and Forces that Make for Achievement.” Ford and Trine discuss a number of spiritual issues. In doing so, they also touch on the question of mental and physical health, “a vital healthy body developed and maintained through natural simple living” (68-69). Ford believes that “[s]ome day a sick person will not be looked upon as unfortunate but blamable” (69). They are particularly interested in the “connection that exists between the right kinds and elements of food and the health of the body” (118) because they are both convinced that much ill health is “due to faulty eating—primarily to eating too much denatured and therefore unnatural food, eating bad combinations, and in many cases overeating,” as Trine remarks. To which Ford replies: “Yes, most of the ailments of people come from eating too much, or eating wrong things. I even go so far as to think a great deal of crime is due to this, as well as despondency. Ailments are caused by, if not entirely due to, faulty eating” (107). He later reinforces this point: “The three errors of diet are eating too little, eating too much, and eating the wrong things” (112).

As to the correct choice of food, Ford suggests that “[t]here is no need of meat for food, especially red meat” (111). Trine promotes “fresh things,” particularly vegetables and fruits like “lettuce, cabbage, spinach, celery, tomatoes, artichokes, fresh peas and beans, and things of that type,” including avocado (112-113). He emphasizes that he has “cut out everything of a heavy nature in food. Flesh foods I do not use anyway” (115). Instead, he has made it “a practise to eat all the fresh green things I could get—fresh vegetables, cooked and uncooked” (116).     

Trine and Ford are primarily interested in diet as a means of self-optimization. Thus, Ford suggests:

Here is a line of investigation that I believe could be pursued with great benefit: food specialists should try to find some food or combination of foods that will help to develop strong will-power. There are food regulations for almost every kind of physical disorder, why should there not also be a possibility of feeding a man so that he may be built up against mental or moral weakness? (119)

Ford claims that he does not wish to “advise anybody on food” (120) and Trine insists that he is not “a food crank” (121), but they are interested “in the fundamental principles relating to right food and right eating” to prevent and counteract “ill health and weakness of body, and even of mind” (121-122). According to Trine, although he does not use the term in his conversation with Ford, veg*nism is one of these fundamental principles.