What to Eat by B. F. Richards

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 1, 1899

What to Eat

By B. F. Richards

HOW TO LIVE A CENTURY. No. 1.

WHAT to eat, when to eat, and how to eat should be the study of to-day. The American people are called by the people of other countries "a nation of dyspeptics," and as we look at the pinched, sour faces, and hear the groans coming from a stomach-complaining race, we naturally conclude that we are entitled to the name.

The shelves in our drug stores are burdened under the weight of patent medicines, each claiming power and properties within itself to cure every ill flesh is heir to. Pamphlets, papers, circulars, cards, almanacs, fences, and barns are covered with advertisements claiming to do the same. Pantry, cupboard, and closet shelves are full of empty bottles, showing that a suffering nation has drained their contents to the dregs, in moments of despair, hoping in this they might find relief. But disappointment awaits us here, for we are not removing the cause.

Doctors are conveniently located everywhere; medical colleges with many different ideas concerning the healing art are each year turning out men and women by the hundreds as successful graduates; but notwithstanding all of this, the wail and cry of a suffering people grows longer and louder.

Listen, suffering one, listen. Let your common sense serve you a moment, and you will see that relief is nigh, yea, even within your own doorway.

It was the food you ate, when you ate, and how you ate, that caused the indigestion, which has brought on your stomach troubles. So if you would find relief, begin where you are, and learn (1) what, (2) when, and (3) how to eat. Then and not till then will you have learned how to live a century.

What to Eat.

Wholesome food. But let us stop a moment before we explain what wholesome food is, and reason together. We have come to a place where we need help. We must have it, for many of us have grasped at the last straw, and with it we are going down to an early grave, full of sorrow and acquainted with grief. Would it not be a good plan (since the past way of living has proved a failure) to adopt some well-tried method that has been crowned over and over again with success, and see what it will do for us?

We have everything to gain and nothing to lose by living on a simple, plain diet.

There is not a thing over which we have control that produces so marked an influence over our body as the food we eat.

Every action, breath, thought, or motion breaks down some portion of the delicate building in which we live. The food we eat promotes growth in supplying heat and force, and furnishes material to repair these wastes and losses which are constantly taking place.

The blood nourishes the brain and other organs of the body, and the blood is made of the food we have eaten. It is an undisputable fact that poor food makes poor brains, poor blood, poor muscles, and poor bodies, and while in this condition, we can easily see that the body is incapable of doing first-class work.

Does it not seem strange that people do not give more time to the study of food elements, since their very life, health, and happiness depend largely on the knowledge they possess of those things?

A poison is not a food, but is the opposite. It does not build up, or repair broken-down tissue, but, on the contrary, it interferes with the vital processes so as to cause sickness and death.

Mustard, spices, pepper, ginger, pepper-sauce, Worcestershire, and other hot sauces, also vinegar, and other condiments possess stimulating or irritating qualities. They do not possess any positive nutritive food value in themselves, but often when taken even in small quantities occasion irritation of the mucous membrane, and by their stimulating influence the stomach is at first excited beyond its natural activity, only to suffer afterwards from reaction, and is left in a diseased state, unable to secrete gastric juice sufficiently to meet the requirements of the system in digesting food. And, as a result, chronic disease is apt to follow.

In the beginning, when man was created and placed on the earth, his body was perfect and absolutely free from disease, and in order for the man to keep his body in this same condition, a "bill of fare" was necessary. So the Lord told him what he could eat: "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for MEAT." Gen. 1:29. And as long as he continued to live on the original menu, his life was prolonged till he reached the ripe old age of eight or nine hundred years; but as soon as he became dissatisfied and ate food of his own choosing, a rapid decline and shortening of life's span suddenly comes in view.

Fruits, grains, and nuts grow in abundance to-day, the same as when the Lord said, "Bring forth," and the same original bill of fare that He gave to man in the beginning, with its life-blessing qualities, is within reach of each member of the human family. So it is for us to study their nature, prepare and combine them properly, eat regularly, remain well, live long, and be happy.

B. F. RICHARDS.