HOW TO EAT.

To the average individual who eats everything in sight, who accepts as correct anything that is jumbled together and dished up by cunning Chinamen, greasy Africans and uneducated foreigners, knowing as little of the chemistry of foods and their nutritive value as they do about the inhabitants of Sirius, this title will be amusing.

They will no doubt regard it as presuming upon their intelligence. They will expect to see on the next page instructions as to how to draw their breath, though the fact is that but few people know how to do either. The majority use about one-third of their lung capacity and eat with less intelligence than a cornfield goose.

There are several thousand taste-buds called “papillæ” on the top and root of the tongue. There are six groups of salivary glands that work in harmony and in pairs. The two largest groups are called the parotid glands. They are located in front of the ears on each side of the mouth.

When the mouth receives food that is approved by the taste-buds each motion of the jaw in mastication pumps out of these glands small particles of saliva which pour it into the mouth.

The most delicious thing to the taste, therefore, is that thing which will exercise—put into operation or call into activity the greatest number of these tasters. Therefore, the combining or mixing of foods in the mouth becomes not only of paramount importance, but the principal factor in digestion, and in the enjoyment of what we eat.

One article of food may call into use but one set of tasters, while two or three articles whose properties chemically agree, may put into use the entire six groups. Hence the logical place to mix and make combinations of food is in the mouth. It is the crucible in which everything that goes into the stomach should be tested and prepared, for the obvious reason that the taste-buds occupy the very important position of being the police of the stomach. If they have not been perverted, and abused, they will stand ever on guard to see that nothing goes into that strange factory without protest except that which will make good blood, muscle, bone and brain.

They will perform this service for us perfectly if we train and treat them decently; but if we abuse and pervert these delicate organs by heaping upon them and forcing them to accept stimulating, irritating and unnatural things, they cease to perform their functions, and sullenly accept almost anything we choose to load upon them.

Luigi Cornaro was a Venetian nobleman and philosopher. He became a physical wreck at 40. He ceased philosophizing about ethics and such things and decided to ascertain why.

He very soon solved the problem. It was over-eating. He began by restricting himself to 12 ounces of solid food per day. As he advanced in age he still further reduced his daily ration, until he partook of only one egg a day, in addition to a very little wine and water.

After adhering to this custom for many years and enjoying perfect health, he one day partook of two ounces of solid food, an experiment which nearly cost him his life. Some of his best works were written between the ages of 86 and 95. He lived to be 103 years old, while the best medicine men of his day told him at 40 that he could never reach the age of 50.

In subsisting wholly upon uncooked food, the natural tendency is for all the organs that are employed in converting food into energy to become normal, and make no demands except those required by nature. They require more mastication, which is nature’s greatest guard against over-eating; but until the system adjusts itself to the new régime, it is best to partake of only about half the quantity one would eat were the foods cooked, but masticate them twice or three times as long.

If people would masticate their food until it ceased to taste, removing from the mouth the residue, if any, and involuntarily swallowing the liquid (soup) therefrom, it would quadruple the pleasure of eating and eliminate forever from the catalogue of human ills indigestion, constipation and overeating.

In commencing the use of uncooked foods, one must not fail to remember that the taste and appetite so long fed on fired and devitalized foods must be reckoned with. If they accept the new diet, all is well; but should they rebel, give them some of the old charcoal and ashes now and then. But give them plenty of live, vital foods again, and they will soon accept them. Then will one begin to live in a new world.

Until taste and hunger are sufficiently well trained to demand such food as the system needs, it is well to employ our learning to aid them. We should avoid the continuous use of such things as contain similar nutritive elements, that is to say, we should not eat too much of any one thing. We should acquaint ourselves with the composition of the leading articles of diet, which will enable us to select intelligently our daily menu until abnormal appetite is changed to natural hunger.

No greater question can possibly command the thoughts of people than the study of nature’s infallible laws of feeding. When the proper energy and vitality are given to the body by correct food a certain amount of motion becomes imperative. We would not need to take lessons in physical culture. We would be forced to obey the demands of the body, thus sending to the lungs an extra amount of blood, which would cause deep breathing, or extra oxidation of waste matter.

Therefore, if the great natural law of feeding was obeyed, we would instinctively carry out the laws of motion and breathing, which would give us not only perpetual insurance against disease, but emblazon the way to perfect health.