Part 13

Cheese, of course, is open to all the objections urged against unsterilized milk and butter, and in addition has a disagreeable quality all its own. The cheese eater may at any time swallow a serious or even a fatal dose of “cheese poisons,” which are substances produced in cheese by the action of germs. These are not ordinarily present in sufficient quantity to render their presence apparent; nevertheless, a great number of cases of cheese poisoning are annually reported by various boards of health all over the country. Cheese made from sterilized milk is less open to these objections. A delicious cottage cheese may be made from Yogurt milk.

The too free use of sugar at the table and in cooking, not only in its pure form, but in the shape of preserves, syrups and sweet beverages, has been shown to be a most prolific source of injury to the stomach. Sorghum, maple sugar, and maple syrup are essentially the same as cane sugar and molasses. It has been shown that if we eat freely of fruits we will obtain all the sugar our system requires in a form that is easily digestible.

The constitution needs quite a good deal of fat; wholesome fats are contained in nuts, and in cereals, and are also provided liberally by ripe olives and olive oil. Emulsified fats are those in which the minute particles are broken up; and these are far more readily absorbed by the tissues of the body. The fat in ripe olives is emulsified fat—as likewise is olive oil when used in mayonnaise dressing. It should not be mixed with vinegar, however, as vinegar is an irritating substance that works harm, when used freely, to the mucous membrane of the stomach. Lemon juice is not only much safer, but makes a much more delicious dressing.

The objection which applies to vinegar, applies also to pepper, mustard, and other condiments and spices.

The too free use of salt, of which nearly everyone is guilty, is another habit upon which modern physiologists frown. While salt is essential, it is contained as an element in many foods, and there is no more reason why it should be sprinkled upon each and every article of food that is taken than we should have castors containing all the other kinds of inorganic salts, that the system needs, and which are supplied to it in fresh foods. Salt using is merely a habit, and a disastrous one, since it has been shown to be one of the factors in the causation of kidney troubles, such as Bright’s disease.

The large use of glucose in the form of candy, syrups, adulterated honey, and various sweets which are in common use, is said by physiologists to be responsible for a large number of cases of diabetes, a disease which is rapidly increasing in America. There is now produced a malt sugar, called malt honey or “meltose,” which can be used freely for all the purposes that cane sugar is used.

The case of food reform against fish would merely lead to the relating of the arguments against meat. Fish contains nearly seven per cent. of uric acid. It is exposed like meat to the presence of tape worms and other parasites. Even when fresh out of the water its flesh is filled with fatigue poisons, the result of its struggles to escape from the net or the hook; and Mosso of Turin and other authorities have shown that these fatigue toxins have a bad effect upon the body. No food will so quickly decompose and putrefy as fish, and unless perfectly fresh it will always be found full of the putrefactive bacteria which are the active agents in causing autointoxication.

It may be stated, however, that the person who follows that careful and helpful mode of eating recommended and practiced with such marked benefits by Horace Fletcher and his converts, will assuredly minimize the dangers that lurk unsuspected by the uninformed in many of our commonly used foods, and will derive a greater benefit from all food than it is possible for those to gain who eat in the hasty and careless fashion characteristic of most Americans.

VII

HOW OFTEN SHOULD WE EAT?

WE have discussed the question how to eat and what to eat; there remains the question of when to eat. English people, as a rule, eat four meals a day. The French are practically a two meal a day nation, eating a very light breakfast.

Of late years there has been a strong tendency on the part of American dieticians to advocate a reduction in the number of daily meals, the ideal aimed at being the establishing of the custom of two meals a day, with at least six hours intervening between them.

It may be asked whether appetite is not a safe guide to follow, and whether it is not the part of wisdom to follow personal inclination in the choice and quantity and number of meals. Does not a study of dietetic customs and habits definitely decide the essential rules of dietetics? While it is true that habits and customs are very strong factors in everybody’s life, yet it is also true that they are very unreliable guides. We are constantly acquiring new habits, and sloughing off old ones; and even the most deeply impressed of habits may be changed for others. And while the common customs of mankind would seem to indicate that three or four meals a day is the rule, at least among civilized nations, yet the facts are that the most primitive people take one meal a day, and the great majority of people in the world, as a rule, eat certainly less than three.

TWO MEALS A DAY THE BEST

Physiological facts argue for the two meal plan, or else for very light and easily digested food, if an extra meal be taken.

Healthy digestion requires at least five hours for its completion, and one hour for rest before another meal is taken. This makes six hours necessary for the disposal of each meal. If food is taken at shorter intervals than this, when ordinary food is eaten, the stomach will be allowed no time for rest. Again, if a meal is taken before the preceding meal has been digested and has left the stomach, a portion remaining, one is likely to undergo fermentation, in spite of the preserving influence of the gastric juice; thus the whole mass of food will be rendered less fit for the nutrition of the body, and the stomach itself will be likely to suffer injury from the acids developed.

These facts make it plain why eating between meals is a gross breach of the requirements of good digestion. The habit of nibbling at confectionery, fruit, nuts, and other things between meals, is a positive cause of dyspepsia. No stomach can long endure such usage. There is a continual irritation of the mucous membrane of the stomach, and a continual excitation of the glands, which, in the long run, work great harm.

The same reasons which are advanced against the habit of eating between meals fit the case of irregularity of meals. Those who have regular duties, regular hours of work, should have regular meal hours. The human system is continually forming habits, and seems in a great degree dependent upon the performance of its functions in accordance with the habits that are formed. This fact is especially observed in respect to digestion. When meals are taken at regular times the stomach becomes accustomed to receiving food at those times, and is prepared for it. If meals are taken irregularly, the stomach is taken by surprise, so to speak, and is never in that state of rest in which it should be for the prompt and perfect performance of its functions. The habit which many business and professional men form, in the stress of their occupations, of allowing their meal hours to be intruded upon, at times depriving themselves of a meal, will undermine the best digestion in the long run. There is no physiologist who would not endorse the following words of Kellogg: “Every individual ought to consider the hour for meals a sacred one, not to be intruded upon under any ordinary circumstances. Eating is a matter of too momentous importance to be interrupted or delayed by ordinary matters of business or convenience. The habit of regularity in eating should be cultivated.”

DON’T EAT BEFORE SLEEPING

The meal which most people would find it advantageous either to drop altogether, or to reduce in quantity, is supper. The physiological law which is now come to be recognized is, that the brain must be active to insure good digestion; and that the stomach must be empty to insure good sleep. That sense of drowsiness which so often follows a hearty meal is not a physiological condition; it is not evidence of a naturally sedative effect in eating; but is really an evidence of indigestion. Those who practice eating before retiring often sleep soundly until an hour or two after midnight, then awake, and find difficulty in getting to sleep again. This is due to irritation of the solar plexus set up by the labor of digesting under unfavorable conditions. The lack of appetite for breakfast after a late supper is evidence of the exhausted state of the stomach. Fruits and cereals are the ideal supper rather than the ideal breakfast—though good at any time!

DRINKING AT MEALS

It is nearly always the case that a hasty or over-hearty eater is also in the habit of drinking copiously of water or other fluids at his meals. He “washes his food down” instead of legitimately drinking. The body, of course, needs liquid, but, as a rule, meal times are not the times for the taking of this liquid supply; except for what is contained in the food itself. The hasty eater thus associates two great evils.

Liquid of any kind in large quantity is inimical to digestion, because it delays the action of the gastric juice, and weakens its digestive qualities, and also checks the secretion of saliva. In case the fluid taken is very hot, as tea, coffee, cocoa, or a considerable quantity of soup—it relaxes and weakens the stomach. On the other hand if it is very cold, it checks digestion by cooling the contents of the stomach, and reducing its temperature to a degree at which digestion cannot proceed. Even a small quantity of cold water, ice cream, or other very cold substance will create a serious disturbance if taken into a stomach where food is undergoing digestion. The process of digestion cannot be carried on at a temperature that is less than the body, which is about one hundred.

The old notions about the processes of digestion were chiefly drawn from the experiments of Dr. Beaumont made nearly a hundred years ago up in Northern Michigan, around Mackinac; with a Canadian hunter, Alexis St. Martin, as the subject. Most people have probably read of St. Martin and Beaumont in the physiologies they studied in their school days. Beaumont was a very capable physician, and a man of the truest scientific spirit. It happened that through an accident he was given an opportunity to make the most valuable contribution to the study of the stomach of man that so far had been furnished by any investigator. The hunter, St. Martin, had suffered a gunshot wound in his stomach, and Beaumont kept him alive for years with the wound open so that he might study the movements of the man’s interior organs. For the first time, here was a human body with a window in it, so to speak, and through this window the scientist patiently watched and studied for years. Of course, however, the window gave only a limited view of what was going on inside this particular house of life, and a great number of Beaumont’s ideas and theories have been proven erroneous; nevertheless, he obtained much important knowledge. When Dr. Beaumont peered through that curious window which he made in the stomach of Alexis St. Martin, he noticed that when the latter drank a glassful of water at the usual temperature of freshly drawn well water, the temperature of the food undergoing digestion fell immediately to 70. The process of digestion was checked absolutely and did not resume until the body had regained its proper temperature, which it did not do for more than half an hour.

Another way in which drinking at meals proves harmful is because of the fact that particles of food not thoroughly masticated are washed from the mouth into the stomach. If any drink at meals is taken at all, it should be a few minutes before eating. Of course, sipping of a little water will not be harmful, if care is taken not to sip at the time when food is in the mouth. It will be found, however, that unless the meal is composed of very dry foods, there will be little inclination to drink at meals. When, however, the food is rendered either fiery or irritating with spices, and other stimulating condiments, it is small wonder that there is an imperious demand for water or liquid of any kind to allay the irritation.

HOW THE BODY PRODUCES “APPETITE JUICE”

He who is really hungry, however, has no need of condiments, and usually small relish for them.

The old saying that hunger is the best sauce is one of those proverbs of the people which modern science is proving to be firmly established on truth. No sauce can equal appetite. Experiments by Professor Pawlow of St. Petersburg, Director of Department of Experimental Physiology in the Imperial Literary School of Medicine, have shown that there is a real “appetite juice” formed by the body when it is hungry.