It will be noticed that the time, or attention, required to solve these different problems of nutrition as embodied in different sorts of breads is exactly proportionate to their recognised digestibility, and explains the reason why hot and "soggy" biscuits, after the American fashion, and "Boston brown bread" have been classed as not easily digestible.
Still further proof of my contention in favour of the importance of taste as a guide and guard in the process of nutrition is that, if you soak soft bread, or even toast, in the juice or gravy of any meat, the number of masticatory or tasting movements necessary to fit it for the stomach and satisfy the taste will be about the number required to masticate raw meat from which the juice has come and not such only as would seem requisite on account of the softness of the substance when made pulpy by soaking and which might be forcibly swallowed at once.
Tests like these alone are sufficient to prove my contention, but, when the result of the experiments is so immediate for good in every direction, as it has proved itself to be in all cases tried, there is no longer doubt but that Nature's most important secret relative to human alimentation has been heretofore practically undiscovered; that is, as far as any inquiry I have been able to make sheds light upon the subject.
The result, in all the cases of my observation, has been an immediate response of naturally increased energy; approach of weight toward the normal, whether the subject was over-weight or under-weight; a great falling off of the waste to be discharged by the avenue of the lower intestines and also through the kidneys; relief of bleeding hemorrhoids and catarrh – the diseases suffered by the patients; emancipation from headaches; clearing of the tongue of the yellow deposit – usually called fur – that is an indication of rotten conditions in the stomach; and return of the energy for work which all men and women should have, and which finds expression in healthy children in the form of great energy for play.
The tax upon the lower intestines has been, in my experiments, reduced so that there was no invitation to relief more frequently than once in four or five days, and the quantity of the deposit was less than half the quantity of a usual daily contribution to waste under former methods of taking in nourishment, thereby proving the fact that appetite and taste, when given full chance to serve, serve us well.
This feature (quantity of waste) differed in the cases of the different persons experimented with according to the carefulness with which they obeyed the test injunctions. In some, greed abnormality could not quickly be overcome, but, as the subjects were selected in part from the stratum of society where want is the constant dread, it is not to be wondered at that a lifetime habit of tremor and greed should resist even the dictates of their reason. But it was in these that the revelation excited the highest appreciation at last when they were put in possession of faculties and strength that they had supposed the Creator had denied them in a world of suffering.
There is no doubt but that it is possible to introduce nutrition into the system wherein, or rather wherewith, there is little or no waste material.
One physician, to whom I applied for information, suggested that too fine an application of my method might finally do away with the lower intestines altogether from the same cause that any unused member of the body, and also unnourished members, shrivel and disappear in time.
While this is possible, the means taken towards it are productive of marvellous good results; and, if there were no further use, what purpose would they serve?14
Think of the number of separate complaints that are attributable to trouble of the lower intestines, and think of the relief coming with their return to normal conditions in performing infrequent service with the ease of rejuvenated strength! Such was the case with all of the subjects under test, and it was a revelation which was as the opening of a new life to even those who had suffered least, and had thought themselves fortunate as to health conditions.
I hope I will be excused for using the terms "dirt," "rotten," "glutton," etc. I know they will give a shock to sensitive conventionality, but is it not better to shock conventionality with a proscribed term, if it means just what it says, and nothing else, than to shock the delicate organism of our machinery of life by throwing dirt into its furnace with good fuel, and thereby allowing the glut of ashes therefrom to encumber the journals of our mechanism, to the waste of our power and to the wearing out of our machinery?
Disease is nothing but dirt in the system and the result of dirt. It is our own dirt at that, having been introduced by our own carelessness or as the result of combined ignorance and greed.
Ignorance has excused and does excuse the responsibility; but, when we have providentially been provided a way by Nature to select and sift and prepare perfect fuel for the furnace of our Life-Power-Plant, there can be no further excuse for not following the teaching to the extreme of the last possible refinement.
I will not presume to say what and whom good Doctor Appetite, with the assistance of Doctor Taste, can cure. They have both cured and greatly relieved rheumatism, gout, eczema, obesity, under-weight, bleeding-piles, blotches and pimples, catarrh, "that tired feeling," muddy complexion, indigestion, and yellow-tongue, within four months. It has been revealed that attention to their invitation and warning cures unnatural craving and beautifully appeases appetite desires with one-third the usual food; and, at the same time, they teach an appreciation and enjoyment of food quite new even to bon vivants.
Any person can employ Dr. Normal Appetite and consult Dr. Good Taste free of all charge, and make endless discoveries in the possibility of delightful and healthfully economic nutrition.
The suggestion was originally given by the author in crudest form with the assurance of physiologists that trial of it involved no risk, but, on the contrary, that it led in the right direction toward preventing disease. I felt that it was too important to be withheld from those who do not know the existence of Nature's perfect way provided by the Senses of Appetite and Taste.
Record of careful tests and results will probably follow in another volume. The author has entered the field of investigation to find deterrents to Nature's perfect development and will not rest while any remain.15
With even the crude hint, that health can be secured and maintained by consulting and respecting Appetite and Taste, each person having either can assist in the investigation.
SUGGESTION AND DIRECTIONS
For initial experiment, do not change any of your present habits of living as to time of meals, kind of food, etc.
Following the directions given hereafter will undoubtedly lead to just the right thing for you in these regards.
There is no doubt but that the early morning meal is not productive of the best results in nutrition and strength, but it is better to have Appetite suggest the necessary change in accustomed habits. Dr. Dewey's advice in the "No-Breakfast" regimen is excellent. The getting-up craving is not an earned appetite.
Forced abstinence from a heavy morning meal will surely bring about normal conditions of appetite which are best adapted to perfect nutrition, so that if the invitation to give up the morning gorge voluntarily does not overcome perverse habit, the heroic denial may be tried.
The value of the discovery lies in recognising the fact that Taste still has important work to do with passing food while yet there is taste, and that what remains after Taste ceases to express itself should not go into the stomach.
The ease with which one will learn to enjoy and "hang on" to food in the mouth, even milk and soup, after he has learned a good reason for doing so, will quickly create a counter habit which is in accordance with Nature's perfect way.
When one has discovered the delight of that last indescribably sweet flash of taste, which Taste offers as a pousse café to those who serve it with respect, he will find any food that Appetite selects is needed for his nutrition, and is good.
Remember this! Salt, sugar, some sauces and spices which are used to make food palatable may be in themselves nutritious, but do not let them mislead you. The tendency is to relish them and think that they represent the food they disguise, which, however, is often only an excuse for them, and has very little nutrition itself. In this case a morsel of food is taken into the mouth, the sauce or spice which it carries meets immediate response from Taste and disappears, whereupon the indigestible food morsel is swallowed in indigestible condition so as to admit another sauce-laden supply.
The most nutritious food does not require sauces. It may seem dry and tasteless to the first impression, but, as the juices of the mouth get possession of it, warm it up, solve its life-giving qualities out of it and coax it into usefulness, the delight of a new-found delicacy will greet the discoverer.
It may be difficult, at first, to avoid swallowing food before it is thoroughly separated, the nutriment dissolved and the dirt rejected, but after a little practice there will be no difficulty. On the contrary, there will be an involuntary habit of retention established that will be as tenacious of a morsel of food till that last and sweetest taste has been found, as a dog is tenacious of a savory bone.
Did it ever occur to gum chewers that the gum is simply an exciter of saliva, and that the sweet taste is the nutritious dextrin in the saliva and has nothing to do with the gum? In the ordinary "watering of the mouth" the same sweet taste is experienced.
Another important fact in this connection, and which belongs in the list of "directions" because it is a leader, is, that perfect nutrition is a source of ample saliva, the effect thereby reproducing the cause in friendly reciprocity.
It will be found that, when normal conditions have been attained through attention to the inspection, selection and rejection of Taste, when the tongue has lost its malarial yellow scum and when Hunger is represented by healthful Appetite and has dismissed bilious and insatiable Craving from its service, there will at all times be a delicately sweet taste in the mouth which will prevent craving for anything else. For instance, a person in possession of normal taste conditions may pass a confectionery shop or a fruit stand without temptation to eat of their wares, for they would spoil the taste already in possession of the mouth.
The expert wine tasters in Rhineland, where the full flavour of the luscious fruit is retained in the wine as Nature put it there, never drink wine. They breathe it into the mouth and atomise it on the tongue with utmost relish. To them the swallowing of the precious juice without dissipation by taste is an unpardonable sacrilege. The Bavarians also, whose beer is the best in the world, practically do not drink beer as Americans are accustomed to seeing it drunk. They sit over a stein of beer for an hour, reading or chatting with friends. The epicurean drinkers of what has been termed eau de vie in France sit and sip a "pony" of their beloved Cognac while they enjoy a view of pastoral loveliness or a throng of passers-by in a boulevard of Paris. None of these people drink anything but water and hence are not drunkards; and, at the same time, they have full enjoyment of Nature's most stimulating and delicious compounds in a form preserved by Nature for the use of man.
The taste of these students of nutrition becomes so discriminating that they can distinguish a wine or a beer or a cognac, as they would distinguish between intimate friends and strangers. The year, the vineyard, the state of the weather, or any accident that may have surrounded the development of the fruit are as distinguishable to these epicures in the essential juices as are the marks on men which indicate prosperity, happiness or any stamp of environment whatever.
An epicurean cannot be a glutton. There may be gluttons who are less gluttonous than other gluttons, but epicureanism is like politeness and cleanliness, and is the certain mark of gentility.
A physiological chemist, a friend of the author, who is responsible for the suggestion that the function of saliva in turning the starches of our food into nutritious glucose may never have been fully given a chance to act, thus accounts for the last delicate sweet taste which is attained by complete mastication. It is then a perfect solution, and hence the delicacy of the taste.
For illustration, try a ship's biscuit – commonly called hardtack – and keep it in the mouth, tasting it as you would a piece of sugar, till it has disappeared entirely, and note what a treasure of delight there is in it.
Taste will teach the experimenter more than I can even suggest. I simply offer an introduction to Doctor N. Appetite and to Doctor G. Taste and state some of their excellences that I have discovered through their attentions to myself and others under my direction.
I will, however, give a resumé of my own experience as a guide.
PERSONAL CASE, INITIAL CONDITION
Age, 49 years; height, 5 feet 7 inches. Extremes of weight for fifteen years (in ordinary clothing) minimum, 198 lbs.; maximum, 217 lbs. Chest measure, varying but little, if any, 42 inches; waist measure (tailor's) 43 to 44 inches. Usual weight during the time, about 205 lbs.
My experiments began near the middle of June, but with no systematic application until the middle of July, 1898; weight on June 1st, probably over 205 lbs., in summer clothing.
SPEEDY IMPROVEMENT
On October 10th, as a result of the experiments, weight 163 lbs., and stationary; chest measure same as before, but waist measure reduced to 37 inches, or one inch below the "tailor's ideal," and nearly down to the "athlete's ideal."
The energy and desire for activity with immunity from fatigue, which was the characteristic equipment of twenty years ago returned, but not, of course, the trained muscular strength or suppleness of athletic days.
The food invited by Appetite at this stage, the nutriment in which counter-balanced the waste in each twenty-four hours, consisted of about thirty ordinary mouthfuls of potato, bread, meat, or anything selected by Appetite, masticated and manipulated to the end.
One meal a day was taken for convenience, and because it seemed, under the then existing circumstances, hot summer weather, to be the time set by Nature for eating. "I rise in the morning," as a champion pugilist once put it, "when my bed gets tired of me," which at the time was usually before, or at, daylight, and began writing or other work. By one o'clock I usually was "worked out," but had already disposed of practically a day's work. Then, in the middle of the day, when all the animals rest and some of them chew the cud, I took my meal. I had not, meantime, experienced a moment of craving for anything since the meal of the day before, but I sat down with an epicurean appetite.
The article of food on the menu that first attracted me, I fixed my desire upon. At the time it was usually a meat or a fish, and there accompanied it only a cup of coffee, nine-tenths milk, bread and butter, and potato. Sometimes the meat selected was an entrée, and was garnished with rice and other fruits or vegetables.
About thirty mouthfuls of these, disposed of in something less than twenty-five hundred acts of mastication or other movement of the mouth, and taking about thirty minutes to thirty-five minutes, satisfied the appetite so perfectly that all the ices and desserts on a sumptuous bill of fare had no attraction.
In the meantime, water was drunk, in small portions slowly, and ice water at that, without restriction, to satisfy thirst, but not when any food was in process. In the mouth the water was almost instantly brought to body-temperature and its coolness was very agreeable to all the senses. I now rarely take any water except in very hot weather when perspiration is active and then only enough to quench thirst, excess giving discomfort and necessitating more perspiration. Water injures digestion by being taken with meals only because it is used to wash down food not yet prepared for the stomach. It is the unfit food that is carried down by it and not the water that does the harm.
One cup of café au lait, well sweetened, sipped and enjoyed according to the epicurean method, satisfied all desire for other sweets and created a harmony of variety that was simply perfect, while it was perfectly simple.
I did not try to work, or think, for some time after the meal; that is, I did not force thought; but reading, a cat nap, a walk, a matinée, a ball game, or a ride in a trolley car were recreations which I was able to enjoy as a sort of pousse café for two or three hours after the meal, and then the energy for work returned, so that if there were something yet to be done in the time before the accustomed bed hour, another day's work was easily accomplished.
Athletic work, physical labour, extreme activity in any form, all benefit by the same treatment, as I have since been able to prove both personally and by experiment with others. The only difference is the greater waste of tissue, and the greater need for restorage, demanding an evening meal and possibly an earlier midday meal.
Exercise, work, activity – anything that creates a demand for nutriment is the especial friend of Taste. It gives healthy appetite and hence there is plenty for Taste to do and he likes to be of service.
At first, rules have to be followed in order to serve Economic Nutrition to the best advantage, but they soon become habits of life, or living, that will naturally come of themselves from attention to Taste according to these directions.
It has been our experience, that if there are any diseases growing out of overstraining of the lower intestines, kidneys, liver, etc., they will soon disappear.
Perfect nutrition does away with the waste until there will be no invitation to discharge oftener than once in four or five days, when the response will be easy and final, with less than half the quantity of an ordinary daily contribution.
There are wealth, health, strength, long life, abundant usefulness and much resultant happiness offered as a reward for learning and following Nature's Perfect Way.
When we learn that obeying Nature's Laws emancipates us from the slavery to cravings of unnatural appetite, releases us from constant attention on meals, does away with at least half the drudgery of woman's work and makes us immune from the attacks of microbes of disease, it is then no hardship to take a few lessons in the Art of Economic Nutrition.
Every artificial method that has been suggested to coax Nature into changing her problems to suit man's poor interpretation has failed, but Nature has been patient withal. Her door to reform is never closed, and her patience is boundless towards prodigal and foolish children.
Nature has put the keenest of the senses at the threshold of life to serve both as hosts and servants, but Appreciation has heretofore failed to recognise their true office, while Ignorance, blinded by Greed, has spurned and abused the best of servants.16
SOME PERTINENT QUERIES
If Nature has revealed a perfect way to the easy solution of all of her problems, as related to the affairs of animals and plant life, WHAT SENSE is there in thinking that she has discriminated against her Chief Assistant in Cultivation, Man?
If Nature has provided animals with keen discrimination in the matter of healthful food, WHAT SENSE is there in doubting her good intentions toward the highest form of animal in this regard?
If Taste is the sentinel of the stomach and also the purveyor and inspector of nutrition, WHAT SENSE is there in ascribing to it the lowest place in the list of the senses?
If we enjoy eating, and are eating, partly, for the pleasure of it, WHAT SENSE is there in throwing away a morsel until the taste has been extracted?
If "dirt" is "matter out of place," which is the accepted definition, WHAT SENSE is there in calling unnutritious food by any other name?
If taste is the evidence of nutrition, and ceases to act upon dirt, WHAT SENSE is there in hurrying food past the sentry-box of Taste without giving the inspector time to select the nutrition and reject the dirt?
If the last flash of taste in dealing with a morsel of food is the best of all, WHAT SENSE in believing that Nature did not furnish that allurement for the wise purpose of inducing mastication to the end of taste?
If saliva is the medium of Taste, without which there is no expression of taste, WHAT SENSE is there in thinking that it is nothing but a lubricant, to enable food to be easily swallowed?
WHAT SENSE is there in slighting nutrition in the beginning when we know that the derangement of the process will continue throughout all the involuntary stages within the digestive organs, inviting disease and causing suffering?
THERE IS SENSE in carefully attending to the voluntary preparation of the food for the stomach, so that the involuntary functions of digestion and of assimilation may be performed with natural ease and freedom, thereby defying and preventing disease!
If we can save two-thirds of present consumption and yet furnish all that is necessary for perfect nutrition, WHAT SENSE is there in wearing out our Mind-Power Plant with a glut of surplus?
Unless a person has a pressing engagement with his own funeral, WHAT SENSE is there in hurrying with his meals?
If we can devote ten thousand actions of the jaw, daily, to senseless or vicious gossip, WHAT SENSE is there in denying adequate jaw service to the most important function of living?
WHAT SENSE is there in a rich person glutting his Mind-Power Plant with more food-fuel than it needs, just because he happens to have an abundance to glut with, or glut on?
WHAT SENSE is there in calling any glutton "a gentleman"?
WHAT SENSE is there in calling any glutton "a lady"?
If what Taste rejects, after having selected nutriment out of a morsel of food is dirt, WHAT SENSE is there in allowing it to contaminate and burden the delicate organs of digestion?
An indigestible morsel of food is like a runaway team in a crowded street. WHAT SENSE is there, then, in demoralising things in the thoroughfare of our life organism by admitting unruly substance?
An indigestible morsel of food in the stomach, and all the way through the intestines, is like a "bull in a china shop." WHAT SENSE is there, then, in smashing the delicate utensils in the laboratory of our Mind-Power Plant by rushing "bulls" past Sentinel Taste?
A SCIENTIFIC POINT
Physiological Chemistry declares that an important function of saliva is turning the starch of foods into dextrose – sugar – which is one of the high forms of nutrition.
An eminent physiological chemist, who is a friend of the author, and who has been experimenting with the suggestions offered by the discovery of new uses for Taste in securing perfect economic nutrition, says that the inexpressibly sweet flavour which comes with the last expression of Taste in connection with a morsel of food, especially dry breads, which are largely starch, is evidence of perfect conversion of the starch to sugar by the action of the saliva.
The sweet taste spoken of begins to be apparent in dry French bread after about twenty movements of the mouth, and increases until the whole morsel is dissolved and disappears into the stomach, leaving behind it a most delicious after-flavour. According to the quantity in the mouthful this process will take from fifty to one hundred movements of the mouth and require from half a minute to one minute.
In this connection remember, please, that if you bolt a whole slice, or a whole loaf of bread in the meantime, as soon as it is wet enough to swallow, you will get little, if any, more nutriment out of it, and none of the exquisite taste that Nature's way offers as an allurement for obeying her beneficent demands. The way of Nature is the epicurean way; the other way is nothing less than piggish gluttony.
Even if time for eating is limited, nothing is gained by bolting food. Thirty mouthfuls of bread thoroughly dissolved in the mouth will supply nutriment for a strong man for twenty-four hours, and the eating of it in the way recommended will give pleasure unknown in hurry.
My physiological chemist friend assures me that I am right in asserting that man should not drink anything but pure water, and that for the purpose of quenching thirst. If anything is good enough to drink at all it is too good to waste on an unwilling stomach when grateful and hungry taste-buds are eager for it.
Don't drink soup! Don't drink milk! Don't drink beer! Don't drink wine! Don't drink syruped sodas for the taste of the syrups! Sip everything that has taste so that Taste can inspect it and get the good out of it for you!
TASTE'S APPEAL
Water has no taste, therefore, Taste does not call it to a halt, but says, "Go right on and do your work, there is nothing in you that I can improve; thank you for giving me a freshening up in passing. If people only knew what you and I know they would be wiser, wouldn't they? They would learn a thing or two about keeping their Mind-Power Plant in fine order and get rid of all their physical ailments, and be strong and happy, and live to be a hundred and fifty years of age with their faculties unimpaired. I say! you are on the outside and can give people a hint; why don't you tell them what I am here for! They set me down for a 'capper,' like one of those fellows that stand outside of cheap restaurants and invite passers to come in and eat. They don't know I am an expert in nutriment and can protect them from any harm in eating. I offer them also a first-class bonbon taste, at the finish of my work to induce them to stay by and help me to do proper work, but they are all in such a blamed hurry that they never wait for the bonbon, and the result is that loads of dirt and indigestible stuff get by me and make endless mischief in the machine. I hear about it often enough you may be sure. All the sewer gas the indigestion produces comes back this way, spoils my comfort, and dulls my strength. You see, you can have a chance, perhaps, to learn for yourself and tell the people what I can do for them. I'm lodged in here in the dark where they can't see me and I have no means of informing them.
"I wonder why it is that Mother Nature makes such a mystery of her blessings. She never advertises and never exhibits her best things plainly. All her precious metals are hidden away in narrow seams in the ground; her pearls are guarded by close-mouthed oysters at the bottom of the ocean; electricity is as slippery as an eel and absolutely invisible; in fact, Nature is the most retiring, in her habits, of all the expressions of Deity; and, consistent with herself, she has put me in here, in the dark and speechless, provided with powers of selection and discrimination, which, if understood and made thorough use of, will do for man all that he can desire.
"The funny part of it is that the animals, other than man, use me instinctively and live their appointed time; while man, in his usual big-headed way, centuries and centuries ago, gave me the lowest place among the Senses, classed my chief agent and assistant, Saliva, as merely a 'pusher' of food into the stomach, and ever since he has been in too much of a hurry to live quick to take the time to live long; and that's what's the matter with the world."17