*“We Eat Too Much by Half”*
By Sereno E. Todd
When passing through the last days of boyhood, I frequently heard an intelligent Quaker remark, “We eat too much by half.” As he was very abstemious in all his habits, he lived to an old age, and died while in comparative health, just as an apple fully ripe falls from the stem when it has developed to complete maturity. After having taken observations for more than fifty years with reference to the wise observation of my Quaker friend, I am fully persuaded that, as a general rule, the Quaker’s maxim is correct. Still, it can not be denied that a goodly number of people do not eat a sufficiency of nourishing food to keep the functions of the body in a healthy and robust condition. But the usual practise is downright gluttony. Untold numbers of both sexes, both old and young, gorge their stomachs, two or three times daily, with heavy and greasy food; and then they fly to enormous doses of “Pain Killer,” or some other poisonous nostrum, with which to rouse the energies of the stomach, and compel it to throw out the hurtful and useless mass of heavy food which can not be appropriated to any desirable purpose. When the veins are swollen with blood, and every pore of the flesh is filled with the juices which have been extracted from rich food, if more nourishment is forced into the stomach, the mass will not be digested, for the reason that the tissues of the body have no use for any more material to repair the natural waste. Hence the contents of the stomach give uneasiness and more or less pain, because the process of digestion is arrested. All through life I have observed, when at social gatherings and at some other places, that, while I would eat only so much as my digestive apparatus could manage with comfort, many persons at my side would swallow plateful after plateful until they could not coax the appetite to take any more; then they would be sick for a half month. In years past I have worked in the harvest-field cradling grain or raking and binding, and at making and securing hay, with men who did not perform as much hard labor as I. They would gorge their stomachs with heavy food three times daily, and take two lunches between meals, while I would take a bowl of bread and milk, two eggs, and some baked apples or stewed pears, and work hard all day, with very little fatigue and discomfort. When laborers at my side would swallow a quart of switchel every hour, and complain bitterly of the excessive heat and fatigue almost unendurable, I would take a piece of ice in my mouth, or swallow only a few spoonfuls of water at one draught. I ate very little meat and heavy food; yet I could pick up two of these excessive meat-eaters (one under each arm) and carry them off. I have in mind scores of people, both male and female, who are always on the sick list, from no other cause than gorging their stomachs with enormous quantities of heavy food, such as meat, fish, and eggs, when they would feel well, happy, and cheerful if they would subsist on a plain and simple diet, taken in small quantities. The human stomach is an organ of the body consisting of many exceedingly delicate and sensitive parts, as delicate as the human eye. When too much food of any sort is forced down into this delicate receptacle, every part will rebel, and cease to act, similarly to a balky horse when the load is too heavy for him. Then, as soon as the stomach can not digest the contents nor expel the unwelcome enemy, congestion will be superinduced, and death will follow in a short time. Many persons can not understand why it is that to-day one kind of food can be eaten with excellent relish and thorough digestion, without pain or discomfort, whereas to-morrow that same sort of food will not digest, but will simply lie like a stone in the stomach. The true reason is that the stomach has been overloaded, or the energies of the stomach are not able to digest its contents. When a person feels well and strong, the stomach will digest all that a normal appetite will take at one meal. But when the appetite is not keen, then beware of what you eat. There is very little danger of starving when the appetite is not keen. My wife and I frequently omit supper when the appetite is indifferent; and we always feel better and more refreshed the next morning than if we had eaten a supper that our systems did not need. If a person is weak and feeble, the energies of the stomach will also be feeble. It is impossible to compel the feeble stomach to digest heavy food. We seldom take any medicine. When either of us feels ill, we eat nothing for one or two days. Then we feel well, without any medicine.—Sereno E. Todd, in Journal of Hygiene.