General Principles by David Paulson, M.D.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 19, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 38.

General Principles

By David Paulson, M.D.

SOME POINTS REGARDING FOOD. No. 1.

General Principles.

IT does not hurt the conscience of the average street boy to drop bad coins in the penny-slot machines. This fairly represents the amount of conscience most people have on the subject of what they put into their stomachs. The "best eating-house" does not at all mean one where the best food can be secured, food that contains properties that will build up brain, muscle, and blood, but one where the palate can be tickled the most. For the sake of the gratification of four inches of taste area, many are willing to allow the rest of the thirty feet of alimentary canal to go through any amount of agony.

It sometimes seems as if the cooks and undertakers have gone into partnership. We are now living in an age when labor-saving machinery enables a man to do the work that it formerly required ten men to do. Meanwhile, on account of the inventive genius of the cooks and caterers, humanity is fast becoming so weak that it now takes ten men to do the work of one. A prominent physician a few years ago asked thirteen hundred young men and women the question, "How many of you are as strong as your parents?" And only half a dozen of them dared hold up their hands in the affirmative.

The time devoted to studying the kinds of food that can form good blood and build up sound brain is far from wasted. It is the blood that heals; but if it is made from garbage, we can not expect it to have much healing and restoring power. The real root of the widespread ignorance on this subject is the fact that the average parent is far more proud that his boy can draw an artistic map of Asia, than he would be if the boy knew just what to eat. What is needed is health-food restaurants, cooking-schools, and the establishment of medical missions and lectures upon this subject to stand as beacon-lights and missionary agencies. These might usher in a better day. When the average girl graduates from high school, nobody supposes that she is able to go home and show her mother how to prepare a better meal of victuals.

Some say that this diet question is complicated, and somehow we must live and eat instinctively. Why not try to buy and sell land by instinct? A factory can not be run by instinct. People expect to go through painstaking preparation for such lines of business; but it does not require one-tenth as much brain energy to learn the essential facts about foods as it requires to become competent to run a factory, or to bring out a new invention.

DAVID PAULSON, M.D.