GOOD HEALTH | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 6, 1878

GOOD HEALTH.

Proper Diet for Man.

MOVEMENTS OF MASTICATION.

ONE very remarkable distinction between herbivorous and carnivorous animals is the difference in the movements of their jaws in the mastication of food. In herbivorous animals there are two distinct movements—a vertical, or hinge-like movement, and a lateral movement. Both of these motions are essential for the purpose of grinding the coarse herbage upon which some of them feed. The lateral movement, however, is unnecessary in the carnivora, as the flesh upon which they feed needs only to be cut into small bits to make it susceptible of digestion. This being the case, the muscles employed in this process are proportionally large and powerful in the herbivora, while they are quite weak or partially wanting in carnivorous animals. It may also be well remarked that in the herbivora the salivary glands are very large and the flow of saliva very copious, while they are small in the other class and the flow scanty. It is interesting to note which of these two classes man most resembles in these particulars. Upon careful comparison we find that the likeness is decidedly strong between man and the herbivora. He has the same lateral motion of the lower jaw, and also quite strong muscles of mastication; but still the similarity is by no means strong enough to warrant us in claiming grass to be the natural food of man, the salivary glands being comparatively small, though they are quite active. All that is established by this comparison is the fact that in his dietetic character man approaches more nearly to vegetable-eating than to flesh-eating animals.

ALIMENTARY CANAL.

Another particular in which the several classes of animals seem to differ quite widely is in the proportionate length of the alimentary canal when compared with that of the body. Naturalists have laid it down as a general rule that the alimentary canal of herbivorous animals is much longer than in carnivorous animals. Thus, in the carnivora this canal is usually from one to eight times the length of the body. In herbivorous animals it is from eight to twenty-eight times that length. In obtaining all these measurements the length is invariably taken from the snout to the end of the backbone. Astonishing as it may appear, this rule is entirely ignored in obtaining the measurement for man, by those who argue in favor of a flesh diet, the length being taken from the top of the head to the bottom of the heel. In this way man has been associated with carnivorous animals. If the true measurement is taken, the comparative length in man is found to be from ten to twelve, which is evidently correct. As will be seen at once, this places man among animals which subsist entirely upon vegetable food. Any one can test these statements for himself, simply remembering that the usual length of the alimentary canal in man is thirty feet. It is an evident sign of weakness when men resort to such manifestly unfair means to establish their theories.

MAN NOT OMNIVOROUS.

But since we have established the fact that anatomy, at least, does not show man to be carnivorous in his nature, perhaps some one may say, as many claim, that man is an omnivorous animal, and so should use both vegetable and animal food. We will consider this objection somewhat carefully. If man is omnivorous in dietetic character, we ought to find a strict correspondence between his alimentary organs and those of omnivorous animals, if we can find such a class. The hog and bear furnish the best examples of this class, although even these animals show a decided preference for vegetable food when in a state of nature. Upon examining the teeth of the hog, which is admitted to be omnivorous, we find no resemblance whatever in either the front or side teeth to those of man. Nothing could be more unlike the cuspids of the human species than are the ugly, protruding tusks of the hog; and the projecting incisors show no greater similarity. The back teeth of the hog are such as indicate a frugi-vorous character, and these bear such a strong resemblance to those of man that they might easily be mistaken for them, but are the only ones which show any similarity whatever, as already shown. All the evidence we can obtain, then, from this source, is in favor of a vegetable diet as the most natural for human beings. We find the same true when we examine the teeth of the bear.

But we have yet found nothing very satisfactory or conclusive in our investigation, having examined no class of animals which presented correspondence sufficiently striking to identify the human species as members of the class. Now unless we find some such class of animals, this problem must still remain unsolved. We are not yet left to abandon the subject, however; for there is still a class of animals which we have not considered.