This is an excerpt from the book THE MIRACLE OF FASTING by Paul and Patricia Bragg

Do you want to live a longer, happier, healthier life and save hundreds of dollars annually? Following The Bragg Healthy Lifestyle with water fasting one day a week not only provides life extension values, but an extra big savings of 15% off your annual food bill.

 Don't be a Slave to Foods

Most humans are slaves to foods; they must have breakfast, lunch and dinner at regular meal hours every day, year in and year out. They eat whether they are hungry or not, and their poor bodies are burdened by overeating . . . and usually poor nutrition as well! No wonder we have so many physical wrecks! One of the greatest nutritional teachers in the world, Professor Arnold Ehret, said, "Life is a tragedy of nutrition." How true is the old trite saying, "Man digs his grave with his knife and fork!" Many people never give their stomachs a rest. They continually stuff and work the digestive and eliminative functions with an overabundance of food. This excessive burden means that the functions of digestion and elimination become so overworked and so exhausted that they simply collapse. The entire body then becomes enervated! Millions suffer from fatigue.

Fasting – the Key to Super Energy

Fasting is the key which unlocks Mother Nature's storehouse of energy. It reaches every cell in the body, the inner organs and generates the Life Forces. No one can do it for you! It's a personal duty that only you can perform. No one can eat for you. And I believe that 99% of all human suffering is caused by wrong and unnatural eating. The efficiency of any machine depends upon the quality and amount of fuel for generating power it is given. And that goes double for the human machine!

Some people will blame everything on earth except food as the cause of their physical miseries and premature ageing. Why they are suffering is always a mystery to them. The average person does not know how horribly unclean the inside of their body is, caused by years and years of overeating, eating when not really hungry and, in many cases, wrong-minded eating of dead, devitalized foods. All these unhealthy habits build up internal poisons and clogging toxic wastes in their bodies.

Put the person who brags that he "enjoys perfect health" on a complete distilled water fast for 5 or 6 days. His breath will become putrid and his tongue will have a foul-smelling, white coating. His urine will become dark and evil-smelling. This definitely proves that his whole body is filled up with decayed and uneliminated toxic materials brought in by eating the wrong foods.

The continual accumulation of increasingly foul body poison is the buried or latent unknown ailment. When Mother Nature wants to get rid of this ailment by a "crisis" commonly known as sickness, people look for an easy "quick fix" to get rid of their troubles. They usually ignore the miraculous one Mother Nature has given us which has no dangerous side effects: FASTING!

Fasting is as Old as Man

The instinct that leads us to fast when the body is sick or wounded resides in the cells of every living being. The reason sick or wounded animals refuse to eat is that the instinct of self-preservation takes away their hunger so they will not eat. In this way, the Vital Force (which would otherwise have to be used in the digestion of food) is concentrated at the site of the injury to remove waste products, thus purifying and healing the body. The fasting instinct is so powerful and of such vital importance that, even though semi-civilized man has strayed from the natural path, he is still greatly influenced by this wonderful saving scheme of Mother Nature! If he would obey the silent voice of this infallible, natural instinct and stop eating when hunger has been withdrawn, he would soon get well. Better still, he would never get sick again, provided he ate natural food, lived in a natural environment and lived a sane, sensible, healthy and natural life.

Since the infallible intelligence of the living organism withdraws the sensation of hunger when there is an excess of food or when the body has been wounded, the desire to fast begins when either of these happen.

 Fasting – The Safe, Perfect Cleanser

Of course, if you are loaded with toxic poisons, fasting will flush these poisons out of the body and you will feel a little uncomfortable, but these are momentary experiences and should cause no concern. This means only that fasting is working for you. You know you are fasting to purify the body of the accumulated toxic poisons and waste. When you feel uncomfortable, you can say to yourself, "This is only temporary. This will pass as soon as these old toxins are flushed out of my body." And what miracle rewards you'll receive for the small, temporary discomfort you may have experienced.

Your eyes become brighter and all the natural senses of the body seem to be sharper! After a fast, your food tastes better – the fruits and the vegetables taste so marvelous, because of your newly revitalized taste sense! Your body seems to be tireless and you will sleep like a baby after a fast. There are so many rewards from a fast that only a person who has actually fasted can truly realize the great benefits that are achieved.

Fasting – A Natural Instinct and Great Purifier

Sickness is Mother Nature's way of showing you that you are filled with toxic wastes and internal poison. Dead people don't have colds. It is only when you are alive and have Vital Force that you have physical problems. By fasting, you are working with Mother Nature to help expel the wastes and poisons you have accumulated in your body. Every animal in the wilderness knows fasting, for it's the only method animals use to help overcome any physical trouble that befalls them. This is pure animal instinct. We humans have lived so long in this soft civilization that we have lost this natural instinct to fast when health problems occur in our bodies.

In your life you may have experienced physical suffering, when you felt no desire for food – it might even have repulsed you. Then, kind but ignorant relatives or friends may have told you to "eat to keep up your strength." The very last thing you needed was food, because your body was signaling you to stop eating. Mother Nature wanted you to fast so she could use your Vital Force to cleanse and then heal your body.

The soft voice of Mother Nature is often hard to hear and understand. By fasting, your extra-sensory instinct becomes very keen. The fast sharpens your mind and tunes you in with the gentle inner voice of Mother Nature and God. Fasting has made my inner body, mind and soul alert! My body and mind work better after each fast. I know yours will, too! Fasting is for sure a miracle!