Part 26

Nature has put the keenest of the senses at the threshold of life to serve both as hosts and servants, but Appreciation has heretofore failed to recognise their true office, while Ignorance, blinded by Greed, has spurned and abused the best of servants.

SOME PERTINENT QUERIES

If Nature has revealed a perfect way to the easy solution of all of her problems, as related to the affairs of animals and plant life, WHAT SENSE is there in thinking that she has discriminated against her Chief Assistant in Cultivation, Man?

If Nature has provided animals with keen discrimination in the matter of healthful food, WHAT SENSE is there in doubting her good intentions toward the highest form of animal in this regard?

If Taste is the sentinel of the stomach and also the purveyor and inspector of nutrition, WHAT SENSE is there in ascribing to it the lowest place in the list of the senses?

If we enjoy eating, and are eating, partly, for the pleasure of it, WHAT SENSE is there in throwing away a morsel until the taste has been extracted?

If "dirt" is "matter out of place," which is the accepted definition, WHAT SENSE is there in calling unnutritious food by any other name?

If taste is the evidence of nutrition, and ceases to act upon dirt, WHAT SENSE is there in hurrying food past the sentry-box of Taste without giving the inspector time to select the nutrition and reject the dirt?

If the last flash of taste in dealing with a morsel of food is the best of all, WHAT SENSE in believing that Nature did not furnish that allurement for the wise purpose of inducing mastication to the end of taste?

If saliva is the medium of Taste, without which there is no expression of taste, WHAT SENSE is there in thinking that it is nothing but a lubricant, to enable food to be easily swallowed?

WHAT SENSE is there in slighting nutrition in the beginning when we know that the derangement of the process will continue throughout all the involuntary stages within the digestive organs, inviting disease and causing suffering?

THERE IS SENSE in carefully attending to the voluntary preparation of the food for the stomach, so that the involuntary functions of digestion and of assimilation may be performed with natural ease and freedom, thereby defying and preventing disease!

If we can save two-thirds of present consumption and yet furnish all that is necessary for perfect nutrition, WHAT SENSE is there in wearing out our Mind-Power Plant with a glut of surplus?

Unless a person has a pressing engagement with his own funeral, WHAT SENSE is there in hurrying with his meals?

If we can devote ten thousand actions of the jaw, daily, to senseless or vicious gossip, WHAT SENSE is there in denying adequate jaw service to the most important function of living?

WHAT SENSE is there in a rich person glutting his Mind-Power Plant with more food-fuel than it needs, just because he happens to have an abundance to glut with, or glut on?

WHAT SENSE is there in calling any glutton "a gentleman"?

WHAT SENSE is there in calling any glutton "a lady"?

If what Taste rejects, after having selected nutriment out of a morsel of food is dirt, WHAT SENSE is there in allowing it to contaminate and burden the delicate organs of digestion?

An indigestible morsel of food is like a runaway team in a crowded street. WHAT SENSE is there, then, in demoralising things in the thoroughfare of our life organism by admitting unruly substance?

An indigestible morsel of food in the stomach, and all the way through the intestines, is like a "bull in a china shop." WHAT SENSE is there, then, in smashing the delicate utensils in the laboratory of our Mind-Power Plant by rushing "bulls" past Sentinel Taste?

A SCIENTIFIC POINT

Physiological Chemistry declares that an important function of saliva is turning the starch of foods into dextrose--sugar--which is one of the high forms of nutrition.

An eminent physiological chemist, who is a friend of the author, and who has been experimenting with the suggestions offered by the discovery of new uses for Taste in securing perfect economic nutrition, says that the inexpressibly sweet flavour which comes with the last expression of Taste in connection with a morsel of food, especially dry breads, which are largely starch, is evidence of perfect conversion of the starch to sugar by the action of the saliva.

The sweet taste spoken of begins to be apparent in dry French bread after about twenty movements of the mouth, and increases until the whole morsel is dissolved and disappears into the stomach, leaving behind it a most delicious after-flavour. According to the quantity in the mouthful this process will take from fifty to one hundred movements of the mouth and require from half a minute to one minute.

In this connection remember, please, that if you bolt a whole slice, or a whole loaf of bread in the meantime, as soon as it is wet enough to swallow, you will get little, if any, more nutriment out of it, and none of the exquisite taste that Nature's way offers as an allurement for obeying her beneficent demands. The way of Nature is the epicurean way; the other way is nothing less than piggish gluttony.

Even if time for eating is limited, nothing is gained by bolting food. Thirty mouthfuls of bread thoroughly dissolved in the mouth will supply nutriment for a strong man for twenty-four hours, and the eating of it in the way recommended will give pleasure unknown in hurry.

My physiological chemist friend assures me that I am right in asserting that man should not drink anything but pure water, and that for the purpose of quenching thirst. If anything is good enough to drink at all it is too good to waste on an unwilling stomach when grateful and hungry taste-buds are eager for it.