The first epoch in the history of a drunkard’s career, if truthfully written, would have to deal largely with several points on the diet question. When we create a necessity for an evil, we certainly should not be surprised if it is in some way supplied; and so, just as long as children are continually taught to eat mustard plasters in the form of condiments and highly seasoned foods, thus physiologically creating a thirst within them that the town pump knows not how to quench, we can not hope for any decrease in the number of inebriates. Such blistering substances are in no sense real foods, and are a source of irritation as long as they remain in the human system.
Many persons naturally possess such a latent craving for drink that all that is necessary to start them in the direction of a saloon is an acute attack of indigestion. Therefore, pastry, and the so-called “rich foods,” which are virtually poor foods even for a healthy person, should be absolutely excluded from the dietary intended to assist in the prevention or cure of intemperance. Great care should also be taken to make proper combinations of foods. Fruit and vegetables should not be eaten at the same meal, or even milk and vegetables. Neither should milk be eaten with fruit.
Another cause of indigestion, and, consequently, an ally to the saloon, is the free use of sweetmeats. Thousands of blue-eyed children, many of them the offspring of drunkards, can daily be seen on the streets, nibbling away at chemically colored substances manufactured from the cheapest of cheap sugar. These children are simply cultivating a perverted taste, which will in many instances sooner or later prove their downfall. Not every child that eats candy will become a drunkard, but the child who does not partake of such substances is less likely to fall a victim to hereditary and other tendencies to the liquor habit.
How liberally the prevailing custom of partaking of the flesh of animals contributes to the condition of drunkenness is well emphasized by Dr. Haig, the eminent English medical authority, in the following: “Like morphine, cocaine, and alcohol, of which we have been speaking, meat itself is a stimulant, and this is the real cause of the difficulty which so many experience in giving it up. . . . I have been told by a patient of mine whose daughter, among other good works, has a home for inebriate women, that her own experience has taught her that flesh diet is the very worst for them, and she does what she can to tempt them away from meat, but she says, ‘You can really see joy in their faces if a large joint of meat is brought in,’ just, I remark, as you would see joy in their faces if a keg of whisky were placed on the table. I also hear from the same source that if the craving for alcohol is overcome, that for meat goes also. . . . We can now see clearly why a non-meat diet is one of the best means of overcoming a craving for drink; but for an excess of meat it would probably never have originated at all.”—Dr. Haig’s “Uric Acid,” pp. 256, 257.
A proper adjustment of the diet is almost an absolute necessity in the curing of intemperance; for the saloon, instead of being the first step in a drunkard’s career, is often the devil’s hospital where he sends those who already have a thirst created within them.
Some may say, “The Gospel ought to take the thirst out of a man.” To such, we can only reply in the words of our Saviour, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” God can rescue a man from the curse of the drink habit regardless of dietetic errors; but He expects him to use good judgment and to utilize the truth He has given him on this subject as well as on all others. An individual who reasons as above is just as presumptuous and unreasonable as if he were to eat a teaspoonful of salt and then expect God to prevent the resulting thirst. One of the most emphatic statements in all the Scripture is: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Gal. 6:7.
“Eat . . . for strength, and not for drunkenness!” Eccl. 10:17. If the tables of modern society could be cleared of a host of things that create a thirst for liquor, there would be more vacant places at the bar table; for the fact is that thousands of drunkards are staggering about the streets to-day for no other reason than that their tables were spread with such food that they were compelled to eat for “drunkenness” if they ate at all.
What the poor, struggling victim of the drink habit needs is pure, wholesome, nourishing, but non-stimulating food, obtained from the natural products of the earth, and prepared in a palatable manner. Fruit should be partaken of in abundance. In fact, our experience has taught us that four meals per day, consisting exclusively of various fruits, strictly adhered to for a couple of days, has often been the means in the hands of God of removing the shackles of drink from many a poor inebriate, even when his hopes were practically crushed by his long record of previous failures to be emancipated.
Fruit juices, buttermilk, non-alcoholic koumiss, cereal coffee, and cold water should be the only beverages allowed. All starchy foods should be subjected to oven heat until they are thoroughly browned. By this process the starch is dextrinized and is thereby rendered much more digestible, and can be readily absorbed before the germs have an opportunity to produce fermentative products which irritate the already over-irritated nerves.
Dr. Brunton has well said that cookery ranks above all the fine arts; for, while the beautiful picture, which stimulates the nerves of sight, remains on the wall; and the piano, which stimulates the nerves of hearing, does not have to be swallowed; the food which is prepared by the ignorant cook who knows nothing of human physiology, nothing of the science of dietetics,—this food, which stimulates the nerves of taste, actually has to be taken inside the body. Therefore it is far more important that the cooking should be correct, than that the music should be exquisite or the painting artistic. Just so long as dough balls can be made from the bread which we eat, and ordinary grains are only cooked sufficiently to convert them into paste that will successfully resist the action of almost all the digestive juices,—so long we may expect that cooks will make business for the liquor dealer, the drug-store, and the undertaker.
