BAD DIETETIC HABITS by David Paulson

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 21, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 21.

BAD DIETETIC HABITS.

By David Paulson

THE prophet Isaiah, looking down the ages, saw tables loaded with articles which he could not recognize as food. Perhaps he saw the scavengers of earth, sea, and sky; the blistering condiments; the foul-smelling vinegar; the scorching pepper; beverages containing drugs as surely as if they had been purchased at a drug-store; food substances combined with such fiendish ingenuity that they must undermine and disorganize both digestion and physical strength; and in the following graphic words he describes what he saw: “For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.” Isa. 28:8.

If vinegar is taken into the stomach, it not only irritates the delicate lining of the stomach, but also materially hinders digestion. This may be demonstrated by putting a little saliva with some starch in a test-tube; in a few minutes the starch will be changed into sugar just the same as if it were in the stomach; but if vinegar is added, the starch will not be changed at all. Thus it is evident that vinegar is fulfilling a higher purpose in furnishing a suitable medium for its characteristic eels to swim in than when it is mingled with food for human consumption. Spices and highly seasoned foods blister the inside of the stomach, and physiologically create a thirst which water can not satisfy. Thus the kitchen often becomes a vestibule to the saloon. The Scriptures admonish us to “eat for strength, and not for drunkenness.”

The ordinary method of cooking grains for a few minutes simply makes chicken feed of them. Such food has a tendency to sour and ferment while passing through the digestive organs, producing poison which specifically poisons and demoralizes the nervous system as effectually as anything that is sold for this very purpose. Who can estimate how many there are in the graveyards to-day because of a persistent attempt to subsist largely on paste and dough, which, because of their indigestibility, really pave the way for many serious and obstinate diseases?

Practically a diet which will not ferment will exclude sweets, for cane-sugar has a tendency to set up fermentation. Such a diet will include foods that are well cooked. It is impossible to boil starch a sufficient length of time to make it fit for human consumption; thus it is necessary that all grains and other foods containing starch be subjected to oven heat, which is more than a hundred degrees hotter than boiling heat. Bread should be sliced and placed in the oven at a slow heat until it is thoroughly rebaked, and wafers, crackers, etc., should be subjected to the same process. Ordinary rice may be placed in the oven and left until it is slightly brown; and if it is then soaked over night in water, it can be cooked as readily as before. Potatoes should be thoroughly baked, or, if this is not desirable, after being cooked they may be mashed and spread out on a bread-tin or made into balls, and baked until a nice brown crust forms. Mush made from oatmeal and other grains may be made quite thick, cooled a short time, and then spread out in a layer about an inch thick in a bread-tin, and baked in the oven until a crust forms on the top and bottom. Bread crumbs should be sprinkled over the bottom of the bread-tin to prevent the mush sticking to it.

Fried food is hermetically sealed by the grease which covers it, so that neither saliva nor gastric juice can act upon it; consequently no digestive activities can begin until the food reaches the small intestines. Meanwhile, various fermentations are produced, manifesting themselves in the symptom called “heartburn.”

It is not a good plan to filter through the human body the waste products and the poisons that are found in flesh-meats. A man who partakes of a meal largely composed of half-cooked starch, and as a consequence has a sour stomach, knows that it was the food which produced the bad condition; but the man who eats beefsteak three times a day has no acid fermentation in his stomach, and he attributes the other serious maladies that are settling down upon him to a “dispensation of providence” or “hard luck,” and goes right on sealing his death-warrant. Careful experiments have demonstrated that when a vegetarian lives upon flesh food for a few days, the secretion of his kidneys becomes several times more poisonous than before. Thus it is evident that an individual who partakes of flesh food must always have a larger amount of poison in his blood on the way to be eliminated.

Tea and coffee contain substances that are in reality violent poisons. A beverage that can compel a nerve to say that it is rested when it is tired, that can chase away the necessity for sleep when it still exists, that can produce trembling nerves at an age when they ought to be steady and firm; in other words, that can cause an apparent felicity which does not exist, can not but be harmful. Dr. Haig has said, “All stimulation is wrong, for thus we merely enjoy to-day by mortgaging to-morrow; and just as we rise a few inches above our normal level to-day, we shall fall to-morrow the same amount below it.”

Overeating and eating between meals overtax the digestive organs, and are, of course, injurious. It is an error to crowd food into the stomach while some of the previous meal is still there. We should eat at regular intervals and at fixed times, and the meal-hours should be placed far enough apart to afford the stomach opportunity for rest. Let us remember that food may remain in the stomach five hours under perfectly natural conditions.

There is no food in water; but it is needed in abundant quantities on the inside of the body to cleanse the tissues, for the same reason that it is necessary to bathe the outside of the body. This is no indication, however, that water is to be taken during the meal-hour, any more than it is necessary to bathe at meal-time. Water, if taken with the food, dilutes the digestive juices, and thus interferes with digestion.

The food should be well masticated. Bouchard has said, “We must eat slowly and without mental worry.” We should cast off care and all taxing thought during the meal-hour, for gloominess and a worried state of mind may materially hinder digestion.

DAVID PAULSON, M. D.