Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency) Part 10

According to this rule we should go without food when ill, but to do so is contrary to the teachings of medical men. They teach that when people are ill there is much waste, which is true, and that for this reason it is necessary to partake of a generous amount of nouris.h.i.+ng food, so they give milk, broth, meat, toast and other foods, together with stimulants.

Feeding during illness would be all right if the body could take care of the food, which it can not. In all severe diseases digestion is almost or quite at a standstill and the food given under the circ.u.mstances decomposes in the alimentary tract and furnishes additional poison for the system to excrete. Food under the circ.u.mstances is a detriment and a burden to the body. In fevers, the temperature goes up after feeding.

This shows that more poison has entered the blood. In fevers little or none of the digestive fluids is secreted, but the alimentary tract is so warm that the food decomposes quickly. Feeding during acute attacks of disease is one of the most serious and fatal of errors. There is an aversion to food, which is nature's request that none be taken.

When an animal becomes seriously ill, it wants to fast, and does so unless man interferes. Here we could with advantage do as the animals do. Nature made no mistake when she took hunger away in acute diseases, and if we disregard her desires, we invariably suffer for it.

We should make it a rule to take no food, either liquid or solid, during acute disease.

Those who have had no opportunity to watch the rapidity with which people recover from serious illness may take the ground that sick people would starve to death if they were to be treated thus, for some of these acute diseases last a long time. Typhoid fever, for instance, occasionally lasts two or three months. It never lasts that long when treated by natural means, and it is very mild, as a rule. The fever will be gone in from seven to fourteen days in the vast majority of cases, and then feeding can be resumed.

Chronic disease is often due to neglected acute disease, at other times to the building of abnormality through errors of life which have not resulted in acute troubles. While acquiring chronic disease, the individual may be fairly comfortable, but he is never up to par. Most chronic diseases can be cured quickly by taking a fast, but usually it is not necessary to take a complete fast. The desire for food is not generally absent and there is usually fair power to digest. One of the most satisfactory methods, if not the most satisfactory one, of treating chronic disease is to reduce the food intake, and instead of giving so much of the concentrated staples, feed more of the succulent vegetables and the fresh fruits, cooked and raw, using but small quant.i.ties of flesh, bread, potatoes and sugar. This gives the body a chance to throw off impurities. There are always many impurities in a deranged body.

_Third, Be moderate in your eating_: This is often very difficult, for most people do not know what moderation is. In infancy the too frequent feeding and the overfeeding begin. The common belief that infants must be fed every two hours, or oftener, is acted upon. The result is that the child soon loses its normal hunger, which is replaced by abnormal hunger. When food is long withheld it begins to fret. The mother again feeds and there is peace for an hour or so. When mothers learn to feed their children three times a day and no more there will be a great decrease in infant ills and a falling off in the infant mortality. The healthiest children I have seen are fed but three times a day. They become used to it and expect no more.

Another thing that makes it difficult to be moderate is impoveris.h.i.+ng the food through refinement and poor cooking. These processes take away a great part of the mineral salts which are present in foods in organic form. These salts can not be replaced by table salt, for sodium chloride is but one of many salts that the body needs and an excess of table salt does not make up for a deficiency in the others.

Children fed on refined, impoverished foods are not satisfied with a reasonable amount. There is something lacking and this makes itself known in cravings, which demand more food than is needed to nourish. I have noticed many times that children are satisfied with less of whole wheat bread than of white bread, and that the brown unpolished rice satisfies them more quickly and completely than the polished rice. In other words, depriving the foods of their salts is one of the factors that leads to overeating.

Simplicity is a great aid to moderation. It is also necessary to exercise the conservative measure, self-control. Some writers suggest to eat all that is desired and then fast at various intervals to overcome the effects of overeating. In other words, they advise to eat enough to become diseased and then fast to cure the trouble. This is better than to continue the eating when the evil results of an excessive food intake make themselves known, but it does not bring the best results. Such people have their spells of sickness, which are unnecessary. If they stop eating as soon as the disease makes itself known, it does not last long. By exercising self-control sickness will be warded off. By using will power daily it grows stronger and those who force themselves to be moderate at first, are in time rewarded by having moderation become second nature.

People should always stop eating before they are full. Those who eat until they are uncomfortable are gluttons. They should be cla.s.sed with drunkards and drug addicts.

If discomfort follows a meal it is a sign of overeating. It would be well to read this in connection with the chapter that treats of overeating.

_Fourth, Thoroughly masticate all food_: Horace Fletcher has written a very enthusiastic book on this subject. Enthusiasm is apt to lead one astray, and even if thorough mastication will not do all that Mr.

Fletcher believed, it is very important, and we owe Mr. Fletcher thanks for calling our attention to the subject forcibly.

Thorough mastication partially checks overeating.

Our foods have to be finely divided and subdivided or they can not be thoroughly acted upon by the digestive juices. The stomach is well muscled and churns the food about, helping to comminute it, but it can not take the place of the teeth. All foods should be thoroughly masticated. While the mastication is going on the saliva becomes mixed with the food. In the saliva is the ptyalin, which begins to digest the starch. Starch that is well masticated is not so liable to ferment as that which gets scant attention in the mouth. Starches and nuts need the most thorough mastication. If thorough mastication were the rule, meat gluttons would be fewer, for when flesh is well chewed large quant.i.ties cause nausea.

Milk digests best when it is rolled around in the mouth long enough to be mixed with saliva. To treat milk as a drink is a mistake, for it is a very nouris.h.i.+ng food.

All kinds of nuts must be well masticated. If they are not they can not be well digested, for the digestive organs are unable to break down big pieces of the hard nut meats.

The succulent vegetables contain considerable starch. If mastication is slighted they often ferment enough to produce considerable gas.

Fruits are generally eaten too rapidly, and therefore often produce bad results. Even green fruits can be eaten with impunity if they are very thoroughly masticated.

Those who are fond enough of liquors to take an excess should sip their alcoholic beverages very slowly, tasting every drop before swallowing.

This would decrease their consumption of liquor greatly.

Even water should not be gulped down. It should be taken rather slowly, especially on hot days. During hot weather many drink too much water.

This tendency can usually be overcome by avoiding iced water and by drinking slowly.

These four rules should be a part of your vital knowledge. If you forget everything else in this book, please remember them and try to put them into practice:

_Eat only when hungry.

During acute illness fast.

Be moderate in your eating.

Thoroughly masticate all food._

CHAPTER IX.

CLa.s.sIFICATION OF FOODS.

Food is anything which, when taken into the body under proper conditions, is broken down and taken into the blood and utilized for building, repairing or the production of heat or energy.

There are various forms of foods, which can be divided into two cla.s.ses: First, nitrogenous foods or proteins. Second, carbonaceous, foods, under which caption come the sugars, starches and fats. Salts and water are not usually cla.s.sified as foods, though they should be, for life is impossible without either.

The chief proteins are: First, the alb.u.minoids, which are represented by the alb.u.min in eggs, the casein in milk and cheese, the myosin of muscle and the gluten of wheat. Second, the gelatinoids, which are represented by the ossein of bones, which can be made into glue, and the collogen of tendons. Third, nitrogen extractives, which are the chief ingredients in beef tea. They are easily removed from flesh by soaking it while raw in cold water. They are rich in flavor and are stimulating. They have absolutely no food value. Beef tea, and other related extracts, are not foods. They are stimulants. In truth they are of no value, and those who purchase such preparations pay a high price and get nothing in return.

The sugars and starches are grouped under the name of carbohydrates, which means that they are a combination of water and carbon. There are various forms of sugar. About 4 per cent of milk is milk sugar, which agrees better with the young than any other kind of sugar. It is not so soluble in water as the refined cane sugar, and therefore not so sweet, but it is fully as nouris.h.i.+ng. Honey is a mixture of various kinds of sugars. Cane sugar is taken princ.i.p.ally from sugar beets and sugar cane.

There is no chemical difference between the products of canes and beets.

Sugars can not be utilized by the blood until it has changed them into other forms of sugar.

The use of sugar is rapidly increasing. Several centuries ago it was used as a drug. It was doubtless as effective as a curing agent as our drugs are today. Until within the last sixty or seventy years it has not been used as a staple food. Now it is one of our chief foods. Not so very long ago but ten pounds of sugar per capita were used annually, but now we are consuming about ninety pounds each annually, that is, about four ounces per day. Many people look upon sugar as a flavoring, which it is in a measure, but it is also one of our most concentrated foods.

That this great consumption of sugar is harmful there is no doubt.

Physicians who practiced when the use of sugar was increasing very rapidly called attention to the increasing decay of teeth. Sugar, as it appears upon the table is an unsatisfied compound. It does not appear in concentrated form in nature, but mixed with vegetable and mineral matters, and when the pure sugar is put into solution it seeks these matters. It is especially hungry for calcium and will therefore rob the bones, the teeth and the blood of this important salt, if it can not be had otherwise. The most noticeable effect is the decay of the teeth.

I have read considerable literature of late blaming sugar for producing many diseases, among them tuberculosis and cancer. Improper feeding is the chief cause of these diseases, but to blame sugar for all ills of that kind is far from arriving at the truth. Cancer and tuberculosis killed vast numbers of people before sugar was used as a staple. If we wish to get at the root of any trouble, it is necessary for us to bury our prejudices and be broad minded.

People who eat much sugar should also partake liberally of fresh raw fruits and vegetables, in order to supply the salts in which sugar is deficient. Lump sugar is practically pure, and therefore a poorer article of diet than any other form of sugar, for man can not live on carbon without salts.

Grape sugar and fruit sugar are the same chemically. Another name for them is dextrose, and in the form of dextrose sugar is ready to be taken up by the blood.

Children like sweets, but it is just as easy to give them the sweet fruits, such as good figs, dates and raisins, as it is to give them commercial sugar and candy, and it is much better for their health.

Children who get used to the sweet fruits do not care very much for candies. The sugar in these fruits is not concentrated enough to be an irritant and it contains the salts needed by the body. Hence it does not rob the body of any of its necessary const.i.tuents. Because the fruit sugar, taken in fruit form, is not so concentrated and irritating as the common sugar, the child is satisfied with less.

Sugar is an irritant of the mucous membrane and therefore stimulates the appet.i.te. This is true only when it is taken in excess in its artificial form, and it does not matter whether it is sugar, jelly or jam. For this reason jellies and jams should be used sparingly, because it is not necessary to stimulate the appet.i.te. Those who resort to stimulation overeat. When much sugar is taken, it not only irritates the stomach, but it even inflames this organ.

Sugar is a preservative, and like all other preservatives it delays digestion, if taken in great quant.i.ties, and four ounces per day make a great quant.i.ty. The digestive organs rebel if they are given as much of sugar as they will tolerate of starch. When taken in excess sugar ferments easily, producing much gas, which is followed by serious results.

Sugar is changed into forms less sweet by acids and heat. The ferment invertin also acts upon sugars.

Sugar is a valuable food, but we are abusing it, and therefore it is doing us physical harm. The quant.i.ty should be reduced, and families who are using four ounces per person per day, as statistics indicate that most are doing, should reduce the intake to about one-third of this amount. It would be well to take as much of the sugar as possible in the form of sweet fruits.

It is a fact that sugar is easy to digest and that one can soon get energy from it, but feeding is not merely a question of giving digestible aliments, but a question of using foods that are beneficial in the long run. The moderate use of this food is all right, but excess is always bad. Starches need more change than sugars before they can be absorbed by the blood, but they give better results. Chemically there is but small difference between starch and sugar. The starch must be changed into dextrose, a form of sugar, before it can be utilized by the body.

The human body contains a small amount of a substance called glycogen, which is an animal starch or sugar. This glycogen is burned. Sugar is a force food. It combines with oxygen and gives heat and energy. The waste product is carbonic acid gas, which is carried by the blood to the lungs and then exhaled.

Honey and maple sugar are good foods, but overconsumption is harmful.

Sugar eating is largely a habit. Because the sugar has so much of the life and so many of the necessary salts removed in its refinement it is a good food only when taken in small quant.i.ties. Nature demands of us that we do not get too refined in our habits, for excessive refinement is followed by decay. It is easy to overcome the tendency to overeat of sugar.