Part 16

Separation, neutralisation, alkalination, saccharidation, of the proteid and carbohydrate elements of common foods and perhaps a partial emulsification of fats are all possible in the mouth and are more easily and quickly done there than inside the body. Much care in Mouth-Treatment is an assurance of economy and safety in Alimentation.

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED

One of the objections usually provoked by the suggestion that all tasteless residue remaining in the mouth after the taste or nutriment has been dissolved out of it should be removed is generally expressed in this wise, "How is it possible to remove refuse from the mouth while eating without appearing disgusting to others at table? You have to swallow things to get rid of them."

This is merely a bugbear prejudice. It has no good reason.

Do you not remove cherry pits, grape skins, the shell of lobster, bone, etc., when you encounter them? Then why not remove the fibrous matter found in tough lean meat, the woody fibre of vegetables or anything rejected by instinctive desire to discard it after taste has been exhausted, and which is a protection provided by beneficent Nature? In well selected and well cooked food there is little found that the juices of the mouth in connection with the teeth cannot take care of and prepare so as to be acceptable to Nature's Food Filter.

If fibre is found in the food it can be put upon the fork in the same manner that a cherry pit is usually handled and transferred to the plate without observation.

Another fancied objection to thorough mastication is that it interferes with the sociability of a meal.

This is also a senseless bugbear. It is true that one cannot converse freely with large morsels of food in the mouth. It is also true that it is nothing less than a gluttonous custom to greedily take a big mouthful of food, and, if accosted with a question, to bolt it in order to answer.

It will be found easy to carry on conversation without disagreeable interruption and yet follow Nature's demands in properly masticating food by taking small morsels into the mouth. It will be found also to add to the real pleasure of eating, and eventually will become a habit by choice.

Another objection raised by those who are afflicted with the habit of gluttony is the lack of time permitted by their business occupation.

The time needed to appease the natural appetite of a hearty and active man, to compensate for the daily waste and keep the weight at normal, is from thirty to forty-five minutes for twenty-four hours. This requires attention and industrious mastication. Divided into three meals it is less than a quarter of an hour for each meal.

Epicurean habits, however, incline one away from three meals a day and make two meals sufficient for ordinary activity.

One objector, on the spur of momentary discussion, claimed that in travelling by railway the time allowed for eating would not permit Epicurean methods.

The author arrived at Mobile, Ala., recently with a workingman's appetite and had only twenty minutes in which to get off the train, on again, and satisfy the appetite. There is an excellent lunch counter now at Mobile, and on the counter there was a tempting array of things to eat and drink. Appetite chose at once a fat, rich ham sandwich, a glass of creamy milk and a hexagonal segment of a mince pie. The twenty minutes was ample time for disposing of the sandwich and the milk, and meantime the mince pie had been wrapped in silk paper and placed in a paper bag to furnish Epicurean enjoyment for twenty miles on the road, enhanced by the beauty of a panoramic landscape.

If I had crammed the pie and the sandwich and the milk into my stomach in seven or eight minutes, which, by actual observation, is the gluttonous rate of despatching a station meal, I would have lost two-thirds of nutriment, more than one-half of taste and would have perhaps taken on twenty-four hours of discomfort, possibly inviting a cold. I would have created an "open door" for any migrating microbes that were floating about in my atmosphere looking for strained tissue or fermenting food in which to build their disease nests.

Observation proves that you do not get much more nutriment out of your food than saliva prepares in some way for digestion, gulp though you may, but you can take in a load of disease possibilities in trying to force the food past or otherwise evade proper salivation.

SPIT IT OUT

Whatever does not insalivate easily is surely dangerous.

There is nothing more pronounced of expression by its influence on inclination than the impulsive desire to spit out of the mouth anything that seems unprofitable to the senses.

INSTINCTIVE DISCRIMINATION

Muscles have been provided for this purpose (separating, collecting, and spitting-out anything which the instincts protest against) that are more facile than those of an elephant's proboscis, and these muscles move things to and fro in the mouth or expel them if they are undesirable.

If you acquire the habit of consulting the Swallowing Impulse and practise only involuntary swallowing in eating you will find that these muscles are very discriminating and will instinctively assist in the rejection of unprofitable matter.

Their sense of touch will soon discriminate against unprofitable food even when the sense of taste is fooled by some alluring sauce or condiment.

Nature is truly a marvel of good sense if you give her a chance to express her likes and dislikes without restraint.

Natural Appetite is the best possible judge of what the system needs, and the senses which Nature's Food Chemist employs in her work are unerring in their selection whenever they are permitted to act as intended by Nature.

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GIVE NATURE A TRIAL

Try Nature's way for a week or a month and you will never have a desire to be even mildly gluttonous again.