19 Facts About Horace Fletcher

Horace Fletcher left home at sixteen and throughout his career worked as an artist, importer, manager of the New Orleans Opera House and writer.

Horace Fletcher suffered from dyspepsia and obesity in his later years, so he devised a system of chewing food to maximize digestion.

Horace Fletcher was a member of The Boston Club of New Orleans and founding member of The Bohemian Club of San Francisco.

Horace Fletcher argued that his mastication method will increase the amount of strength a person could have while actually decreasing the amount of food that he consumed.

Horace Fletcher advised against eating before being "Good and Hungry", or while angry or sad.

Horace Fletcher stated that different foods have different waste materials, so knowing what type of waste one was going to have in one's body was valuable knowledge, thus critical to one's overall well being.

Horace Fletcher promoted his theories for decades on lecture circuits, and became a millionaire.

Horace Fletcher lived in the Palazzo Saibante with his wife, Grace Fletcher, an amateur painter, who studied in Paris in the 1870s and was influenced by the Impressionists, and her daughter, Ivy.

Horace Fletcher inspired Russell Henry Chittenden of Yale University to test the efficacy of his mastication system.

Horace Fletcher was tested by William Gilbert Anderson, director of the Yale Gymnasium.

The tests claim that Horace Fletcher outperformed these Yale athletes in all events and that they were very impressed with his athletic ability at his old age.

Horace Fletcher posited several analogies between machines and the human body.

Just some of the comparisons that Horace Fletcher drew included: fuel to food; steam to blood circulation; steam gauge to human pulse; and engine to heart.

Horace Fletcher believed that the only true indication of one's nutrition was evidenced by excreta.

Horace Fletcher advocated teaching children to examine their excreta as a means for disease prevention.

Horace Fletcher, 69, died of bronchitis in Copenhagen on January 13,1919.

Horace Fletcher was a key figure of the American "Golden Age of Food Faddism".

Horace Fletcher believed that his mastication system could cure alcoholism, anaemia, appendicitis, colitis and insanity.

Horace Fletcher believed that his system could improve bowel movements; however, the bowel must have a certain amount of indigestible bulk to stimulate it to action.