and health. The sense of taste and the wants of the system act in perfect harmony. So it should be with man. That which most perfectly gratifies the appetite should be the best adapted to promote health, strength, and beauty.
But appetite, like all the other instincts or feelings of our nature, is liable to become perverted, and to lead us astray. We acquire a relish for substances which are highly hurtful, such as tobacco, ardent spirits, malt liquors, and the like. We have "sought out many inventions," to pander to false and fatal tastes, and too often eat, not to sustain life and promote the harmonious development of the system, but to poison the very fountains of our being and implant in our blood the seeds of disease.
Attend to the demands of appetite, but use all your judgment in determining whether it is a natural, undepraved craving of the system which speaks, or an acquired and vicious taste, and give or withhold accordingly; and, above all, never eat when you have no appetite. Want of appetite is equivalent to the most authoritative command to eat nothing, and we disregard it at our peril. Food, no matter how wholesome, taken into our stomachs under such circumstances, instead of being digested and appropriated, becomes rank poison. Eating without appetite is one of the most fatal of common errors.
We have no room, even if we had the ability and the desire, to discuss the comparative merits of the two opposing systems of diet—the vegetarian and the mixed. We shall consider the question of flesh-eating an open one.
Your food should be adapted to the climate, season, and your occupation. In the winter and in northern climates a larger proportion of the fatty or carboniferous elements are required than in summer and in southern latitudes. The Esquimaux, in his snow-built hut, swallows immense quantities of train-oil, without getting the dyspepsia; still, we do not recommend train-oil as an article of diet; neither can we indorse the eating of pork in any form; but these things are far less hurtful in winter than in summer, and to those who labor in the open air than to the sedentary.
Live well. A generous diet promotes vitality and capability for action. "Good cheer is friendly to health." But do not confound a generous diet with what is usually called "rich" food. Let all your dishes be nutritious, but plain, simple, and wholesome. Avoid highly seasoned viands and very greasy food at all times, but particularly in warm weather, also too much nutriment in the highly condensed forms of sugar, syrup, honey, and the like.
If you eat flesh, partake sparingly of it especially in summer. We Americans are the greatest flesh-eaters in the world, and it is not unreasonable to believe that there may be some connection between this fact and the equally notorious one that we are the most unhealthy people in the world. An untold amount of disease results from the too free use of flesh during the hot months. Heat promotes putrefaction; and as this change in meat is very rapid in warm weather, we can not be too careful not to eat that which is in the slightest degree tainted. Even when it goes into the stomach in a normal condition, there is danger; for if too much is eaten, or the digestive organs are not sufficiently strong and active, the process of putrefaction may commence in the stomach and diffuse a subtle poison through the whole system.
Hot biscuits; hot griddle cakes, saturated with butter and Stuart's syrup; and hot coffee, scarcely modified at all by the small quantity of milk usually added, are among the most deleterious articles ever put upon a table. While these continue to be the staples of our breakfasts, healthy stomachs and clear complexions will be rare among us. Never eat or drink any thing HOT.
Good bread is an unexceptionable article of diet. The best is made of unbolted wheat flour. A mixture of wheat and rye flour, or of corn meal with either, makes excellent bread. The meal and flour should be freshly ground; they deteriorate by being kept long. If raised or fermented bread is required, hop yeast is the best ferment that can be used. [For complete directions for bread-making, see Dr. Trall's "Hydropathic Cook-Book."]
The exclusive use of fine or bolted flour for bread, biscuits, and cakes of all kinds, is exceedingly injurious to health. The lignin or woody fiber which forms the bran of grains is just as essential to a perfect and healthful nutrition as are starch, sugar, gum, and fibrin, and the rejection of this element is one of the most mischievous errors of modern cookery.
Johnny-cake, or corn bread, is an excellent article, which is not yet fully appreciated. It is palatable and wholesome. Hominy, samp, cracked wheat, oatmeal mush, and boiled rice should have a high place on your list of edibles. Beans and peas should be more generally eaten than they are. They are exceedingly nutritious, and very palatable. In New England, "pork and beans" hold the place of honor, but elsewhere in this country they are almost unknown. Leaving out the pork (which, personally, we hold in more than Jewish abhorrence), nothing can be better, provided they are eaten in moderation and with a proper proportion of less nutritious food. They should be well baked in pure, soft water. A sufficient quantity of salt to season them, with the addition of a little sweet milk, cream, or butter while baking, leaves nothing to be desired. If meat is wanted, however, a slice of beefsteak, laid upon the surface, will serve a better purpose than pork. Potatoes, beets, turnips, carrots, parsneps, and cabbages are good in their place.
But Nature indicates very plainly that fruits and berries, in their season, should have a prominent place in our dietary. They are produced in abundance, and every healthy stomach instinctively craves them. Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, whortleberries, cherries, plums, grapes, figs, apples, pears, peaches, and melons are "food fit for gods." We pity those whose perverted taste or digestion leads to their rejection. But some are afraidto eat fruits and berries, particularly in midsummer, just the time when nature and common sense say they should be eaten most freely. They have the fear of cholera, dysentery, and similar diseases before their eyes, and have adopted the popular but absurd idea that fruit eating predisposes to disorders of the stomach and bowels. Exactly the reverse is the fact. There are no better preventives of such diseases than ripe fruits and berries, eaten in proper quantities and at proper times Unripe fruits should be scrupulously avoided, and that which is in any measure decayed as scarcely less objectionable. Fruit and berries should make a part of every meal in summer. In winter they are less necessary, but may be eaten with advantage, if within our reach; and they are easily preserved in various ways.
We might write a volume on the subject of food, but these general hints must suffice. If you would pursue the inquiry, read O. S. Fowler's "Physiology, Animal and Mental," and the "Hydropathic Cook-Book," already referred to.
Eat when the stomach, through the instinct of appetite, demands a new supply of food. If all your habits are regular, this will be at about the same hours each day; and regularity in the time of taking our meals is very important. Want of attention to this point is a frequent cause of derangement of the digestive organs. We can not stop to discuss the question how many meals per day we should eat; but whether you eat one, two, or three, never, under ordinary circumstances, take lunches. The habit of eating between meals is a most pernicious one. Not even your children must be indulged in it, as you value their health, comfort, and good behavior.
We can not tell you, by weight or measure, how much to eat, the right quantity depending much upon age, sex, occupation, season, and climate, but the quantity is quite as important as the quality. Appetite would be a sure guide in both respects were it not so often perverted and diseased. As a general rule, we eat too much. It is better to err in the other direction. An uncomfortable feeling of fullness, or of dullness and stupor after a meal is a sure sign of over-eating, so whatever and whenever you eat, eat slowly, masticate your food well, and DO NOT EAT TOO MUCH.
If we eat proper food, and in proper quantity, we are seldom thirsty. Inordinate thirst indicates a feverish state of either the stomach or the general system. It is pretty sure to follow a too hearty meal.
Water is the proper drink for everybody and for every thing that lives or grows. It should be pure and soft. Many diseases arise wholly from the use of unwholesome water. If you
