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.
EAT FOR STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE.
By David Paulson, M.D.
THERE is a vast amount of difference between immediate strength and endurance. A man may step into a gymnasium and surprise every one by some exhibition of strength in lifting a very heavy dumb-bell, and may be considered a very strong man; and from one point of view he is; but a very important phase of the question to consider is. How often can he repeat this? There are many who, upon the spur of the moment, can lift heavy weights, but who would utterly fail in doing ordinary work for even half a dozen hours continuously. The amount of food that is stored away in the muscles which is available for an emergency determines largely the amount of endurance that a man possesses. Many people are satisfied if their diet is such that they can at once feel the strength from it, even tho they become weary from a slight exertion; but the food which is the most satisfactory is that which enables a man to work hour after hour at wearing and taxing labor without any special sense of fatigue, to have fulfilled to him the promise of the Scripture, “They shall run and not be weary.”
Dr. Haig, in a book recently published on the subject of “Diet and Food,” has the following to say in the preface with reference to food:
“Diet, as at present used, is often the product of a vast amount of ignorance; it is the cause of a hideous waste of time and money; it produces mental and moral obliquities, destroys health, and shortens life, and generally quite fails to fulfil its proper purpose.”
These are the words of a man who has spent years in studying this question from a scientific standpoint. It is not until quite recently that the distinction between stimulation and strength is becoming more and more apparent. A few years ago when a man took a dose of strychnine and felt stronger, or a strong cup of coffee, and thus banished his sense of weariness and sleep, or a meal composed largely of beefsteak, and felt at once more capable of working than before, it was imagined that in some mysterious way he had actually received strength, instead of merely sapping out a little more of his stored-up energy which nature had in reserve for use in emergency.
Dr. Haig further states: “Stimulation is not strength, but force rendered a little more quickly available; and it is always followed (and must be so) by an exactly corresponding amount of depression, when the force used up is not available, and has to be replaced.” Then, proceeding to show how meat stimulates, he says:
“I think that this action of meat as a stimulant and producer of quickly worked-off force has a good deal to say to the fact that as we have come to eat more and more meat, we have come to have a larger and larger number of meals in the day; and now, while the cheese and vegetable feeder can do well on two, or at most three meals a day, the flesh feeders often take four, or perhaps five.
“It follows, also, that quite an exaggerated and erroneous estimate has been formed of the power of meat to produce force, because its stimulating effect has been mistaken for power, and the depression which follows has either been overlooked, which is possible at first, or, later, has been counteracted by alcohol, tobacco, and other more harmful stimulants; but the man who gets his albumens from a less-stimulating source, having no early stimulation, has also no subsequent depression, and so probably never feels the want of any alcohol at all.
“Hence it comes about that those who took alcohol on a flesh diet generally very soon give it up when they give flesh up, and smoke also very little, having no craving for any stimulant, while if what most meat eaters say was true,13that meat is very much better nourishment, and more supporting than milk, cheese, fruit, and vegetables, it ought to be exactly the other way, and those who live on the latter foods should require to take alcohol, and be unable to do without it.”
The fact here brought out should be carefully noted, that it is the small tippling with these stimulants that produces the necessity for stronger stimulants sooner or later, and irritating substances like condiments, and so-called stimulating substances like tea, coffee, and flesh meats, are surely paving the way for drunkenness, because the strength which they apparently produce is soon worked off, and a man then craves something which he thinks will give him more strength, and alcohol, cocaine, and morphine exactly supply this want for a little time, until the nervous system, deprived of all the reserve nervous energy, breaks down entirely, and the man is left a complete wreck. Those who live upon the simple products of the earth are constantly storing their muscles with more food available for energy, and their nervous systems are not at the same time constantly irritated by any waste products.
During the last few years in many of the long-distance walking matches and bicycle races, this has become so apparent that it is attracting universal attention. A noted case of this was a seventy-mile walking match in Berlin the early part of the summer. There were some half dozen vegetarians and eight or ten meat eaters in this race. All the vegetarians arrived at the goal before a single one of the meat eaters came in. Mr. Barnett, known to the cyclist world as the "Nebraska cyclone rider," during the summer of 1894 won the first prize in twenty-three out of twenty-five long-distance bicycle races, the second prize in the twenty-fourth, and the third prize in the twenty-fifth. He lived exclusively upon fruits and grains. He was then persuaded if he would give up his vegetarian ideas and train upon meat he would be able not only to win the long-distance races but the short-distance as well. He put himself under one of the best trainers in America, and the result was that in a few months he was broken in health and unable to hold the ground that he had gained, and did not regain his health until he again trained upon the simple products of the earth. Scores of instances might be cited illustrating the same thing. In view of these facts, the question of the Scriptures becomes important, "Why spend ye your money for that which is not bread?" Animal food and other stimulants are excessive in price, and do not give the endurance of either body or mind that the simple, inexpensive products of the earth can produce. Furthermore, the man who lives largely upon flesh foods is having his blood poisoned and corrupted, and becomes an easy prey to disease, while the man who lives upon the pure products of the earth is building up resistance against disease, which enables him to go with freedom on his ministry of mercy where it would not be safe for a man who dines upon corpses to be found.
DAVID PAULSON, M.D.
THE HOME
SPEED THE TRUE.
By M. A. Maitland
God speed the true, who art Thyself the truth.
God speed the true,
In twilight eld, noon strength, and flush of youth,
Who say and do
What need not fear the quick eyes of the light;
Whose promise is an earnest of their might
To cleave a way along the pass of right,
Come smile or frown.
God speed the true, and let the false go down.
—M. A. Maitland.
THE STILL HOUR.
By Gladden
O MASTER, let me walk with Thee
In lowly paths of service free;
Tell me Thy secret; help me bear
The strain of toil, the fret of care;
Help me the slow of heart to move
By some clear, winning word of love;
Teach me the wayward feet to stay,
And guide them in the homeward way.
—Gladden.
The Difficulty of Doing Good
It is not quite so easy to do good as those may imagine who never try.—Richard Sharpe.
A Child’s View of Evolution
In his examination at school a little child gave the result of his research in the field of evolution as follows:—
The doctrine of evolution began with the beginning of life, and grew higher and higher until it at last regenerated into monkey. This process was so slow that neither the monkey nor the man knew anything about it.
Perhaps if older children were sufficiently free from scientific prejudices to enable them to speak the truth of their innermost minds with the same frankness as the little child, they would bear a similar testimony concerning evolution.
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A QUICK REPLY.
THAT quick wit is not confined to cities was proved last spring by a young woman who was rambling along one of our roads.
She was dressed smartly; and, when she met a small, bare-legged urchin carrying a bird's-nest with eggs in it, she did not hesitate to stop him.
"You are a wicked boy!" she said. "How could you rob that nest? No doubt the poor mother is now grieving for the loss of her eggs."
"O, she don't care," said the boy, edging away, "she's on your hat!"—Cape Ann Advertiser.
THE STARS.
By Eliza A. Otis
BUT O, the stars, the far-off, silent stars,
Holding their own within the blue of night,
Twinkling in glory on our wondering sight—
Their beams down-falling like the silver spars
From some swift meteor, moving on through space,
Upon our earth; ears silent, yet the face
Of Nature turneth to them, and her ears
Catch the full chorus of all starry spheres.
—Eliza A. Otis.
BREAKFAST MENU.
By John Harvey Kellogg
FRESH fruits.
Rice with fruit dressing.
Sliced nutlets and cream sauce.
Poached eggs on granose.
RICE WITH FRUIT DRESSING.—Cook a pound of rice in four quarts of water; add a little salt to the water while cooking. Boil the rice twenty-five minutes. Drain the water off the rice, fold a towel in two, lay one-half the towel in a colander, and turn the cooked rice in it; cover with the other half; half fill the saucepan with boiling water in which the rice was cooked; put the colander on the saucepan, and let the rice keep warm. Heat some fruit juice, thicken with a little braided corn-starch, and serve over the rice.
SLICED NUTLETS AND CREAM SAUCE.—Bring a quart and a half of milk to a boil; add a little braided flour to thicken to the consistency of cream. Cut a half pound of nutlets into halves and cut each half into three slices; lay them in the cream and let cook very slowly for half an hour.
Serve on toast, and with cream.
POACHED EGGS ON GRANOSE.—Fill a frying-pan full of water; add a little salt; break the eggs into a saucer, being careful not to break the yolk; as the water boils, drop in the eggs. The eggs must be covered with the water. Cook for one minute and a half. Heat some granose flakes in the oven and lay in a dish. Dip the eggs up with a skimmer, arrange them nicely on the granose, and serve.
J. E. PATTERSON.
Communion With God
“By means of the telectroscope, an instrument which has just been invented, photographs, or pictures of scenes, objects, or written matter, can be transmitted over the telegraph wire. By means of this invention and the electrophone, we shall shortly be enabled both to see distinctly and converse with our friends at long distances. But if man can do this, what can God not do? Between Him and His are channels of communication far surpassing anything in human science. The greatest scientific thoughts are but guesses at what angels know. And yet he who holds communion with God may think God's thoughts after Him. He who knows God (and every one may) has a higher, broader knowledge than this world can give, even tho he be not educated in the schools.”
