Part 12

OVEREATING

Fortunately Nature does not demand exactness. She has made wonderful provision for our errors or our lack of precision. If we eat too much now and then she will cast out the excess. If, however, we habitually overeat, she will store away the surplus in the form of useless fat, or she will decompose it; that is, make an effort to volatilize it and cast it out through the pores of the skin. If our diet is unbalanced, Nature has the power to convert one chemical into another--a secret yet unknown to modern science.

While the tendency of Nature is to maintain normality by casting the debris out of the body, she demands that we obey the laws of motion and oxidation. If we do not observe these laws, the debris or matter she cannot use will accumulate, and congestion and constipation will take place. The excess of food thus actually clogs the system and generates in the intestines the poisons which cause autointoxication.

THE EFFECTS OF OVEREATING

The effects of overeating are so far-reaching, and so common among civilized people that a volume might be devoted to this habit and the subject not exhausted. Here, however, I will review only that which is of most importance to the student of dietetics, namely, the causes and a few of the effects of overeating.

Overeating is due to three specific causes:

1 Eating several articles of food at the same meal which are incompatible

2 Taking stimulants at meals

3 Eating too many things at the same meal

(1) Incompatible foods:

When foods are eaten together that are incompatible they usually result in superacidity and sometimes cause a gnawing sensation in the stomach.

(2) Stimulants with meals:

When one takes stimulants such as beer, liquor or wine with meals, the stomach-cells secrete a deficient amount of hydrochloric acid, causing food to leave the stomach too slowly, thereby allowing fermentation to take place and acid conditions to develop.

(3) Too many things at same meal:

Too many things eaten at the same meal may exhaust the digestive juices and cause a condition of subacidity (lack of acid), which is true indigestion, or it may cause just the reverse, too much acid, and therefore produce the same result as in taking stimulants with meals. (See "Causes of Superacidity," item 2, p. 420).

ABNORMAL APPETITE

In nearly all cases of overeating Nature's only weapon with which to defend herself is hydrochloric acid, thus the stomach-cells become over-trained in the secretion of acid, and the constant irritation caused by acid fermentation produces abnormal appetite. The desire to satisfy this abnormal craving produces more acid, therefore the cycle of overeating and superacidity is complete.

Standard medical works give about sixty different disorders arising from what is termed dis-eases of nutrition. These include diabetes, gout, arthritis, rheumatism, rickets, scurvy, obesity, emaciation, adiposis dolorosa, and various disorders of the liver, heart, and the circulatory system; also constipation and dozens of disorders under the broad term of autointoxication.

The first step in the practise of scientific eating should be to limit the quantity of food, or, in many cases, to take a complete fast for a brief time.

In the slow stages of human development, Nature seems to have accommodated herself to man's omnivorous habits of eating. She will accept many things that are wholly unfit for food without apparent harm if the quantity is not too great. On the contrary, the results of the most scientific dieting will be injurious if a quantity be taken in excess of that which the body can use.

SUPERACIDITY

We will first consider superacidity because it is usually the first disorder that appears in consequence of wrong eating. It is commonly known as "sour stomach."

The chief cause of superacidity is a wrong combination of foods; and particularly an excess of starchy foods and sugars. The starch and sugar breaks down under the action of fermentation, and develops lactic acid. This further inhibits--or prevents--the normal secretion of hydrochloric acid, and, as a consequence, the albumen molecule is insufficiently converted--the transformation of the protein into peptones and proteoses is incomplete.

As with all acid fermentation, gases are produced in the stomach, which give rise to belching and eructations. This fermentation sometimes occasions a feeling as though there were a solid lump in the stomach. This may come on immediately after eating. And then again, it may not come on for two or three hours after the meal--depending entirely upon the activity of the enzymes that are responsible for the fermentation.

HYPERCHLORHYDRIA

Occasionally the hyperacidity is caused by the presence of a superabundance of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. This condition is called hyperchlorhydria, and gives rise to a boring, gnawing sensation in the pit of the stomach, together with an abnormal desire for food.

SUPERACIDITY--THE CAUSE

The chief causes of superacidity are--