Regularity in Eating by Dio Lewis

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 34.

Regularity in Eating.

By Dio Lewis

If there is one table-law about which all persons are agreed, it is that our meals should be taken at stated and regular periods. People may differ about vegetarianism, about sweets, about pies and cakes, about tea and coffee; but I have never met a person who would insist that regularity was of no consequence—that it was just as well to take two meals to-day and five to-morrow; to take dinner at one o'clock to-day and three to-morrow, and five the next day. Without understanding the physiological law, all are agreed that regularity is important.

A long journey by rail does not derange the stomach because of sitting in an unventilated car, for the traveler may occupy a still worse place in the pursuit of his business at home; neither is it because of the character of the food furnished at the railway lunch rooms, for the food at home is often worse; but the stomach derangement which nearly always comes with the long railway trip is, in great part, to be traced to irregularity in the times of eating.

In a recent trip, we took breakfast the first morning at half-past nine o'clock, the next at seven, and so with the other meals; only one day we had no dinner at all. When we reached San Francisco we were all suffering from indigestion; some were conscious of no discomfort in the stomach, but not one of us escaped the dullness and depression of spirits which come of imperfect digestion. Among the table-laws, this one of regularity is pre-eminently important.—Dio Lewis.