Instinct Best Determines What You
Should Eat, So Eat What Your
Normal Instinct Tells You To.
In that series of compromises which we call life there is no compromise
more perplexing than the compromise with the stomach. No problem requires
more earnest thought than the food problem. It is the stomach that makes
men work. There would be no produce exchange were it not for the
stomach--no yellow fields of wheat and corn, no grazing herds of cattle,
no fleets of white-sailed fishing-vessels. Clothing and shelter are
secondary demands. The stomach is master; and, as is ever likely to be the
case with autocrats, it is selfish--wherefore we humor it--we hold out
crutches to it--we offer it tempting inducements to be lenient with us.
A sense of relief, therefore, is produced by reading Dr. Woods
Hutchinson's article, "Some Diet Delusions," in the April _McClure's_; for
therein is advanced the doctrine of "intelligent omnivorousness." Says Dr.
Hutchinson:
Every imaginable experiment upon what would and what would
not support life must have been tried thousands of years
ago, and yet our most striking proofs of how highly men
value their "precious right of private haziness," as George
Eliot shrewdly terms it, are to be found in the realm of
dietetics. The "light that never was on sea or land" still
survives for the most matter-of-fact of us in the memory of
"the pies that mother used to make," and nowhere else do we
find preferences so widely accepted as evidence, and
prejudices as matters of fact, as in this arena. In fact, if
we were merely to listen to what is said, and still more to
read what is printed, we would come to the conclusion that
the human race had established absolutely nothing beyond
possibility of dispute in this realm.
When the Doctors Disagree.
Every would-be diet-reformer, and we doctors are almost as
bad as any of them, is absolutely certain that what
nine-tenths of humanity find to be their food is a deadly
poison. One philosopher is sure that animal food of every
description, especially the kind that involves the shedding
of blood, is not only absolutely unfit for human food, but
is the cause of half the suffering and wickedness in the
world. Another gravely declares that the only thing which,
above all things, is injurious is salt. Another takes up his
parable against pork. Still another is convinced that half
the misery of the world is due to the use of spices; and one
dietetic Rousseau proclaims a return to very first
principles by the abolition of cooking.
Another attacks the harmless and blushing tomato, and lays
at its door the modern increase of cancer, insanity, and a
hundred kindred evils; while Mrs. Rohrer has gently but
firmly to be restrained whenever she hears the mild-eyed
potato mentioned.
There is almost an equally astonishing Babel when one comes
to listen to the various opinions as to the amount of food
required. Eighteen grave and reverend doctors assure us that
overeating is the prevalent dietetic sin of the century,
while the remainder of the two dozen are equally positive
that the vast majority of their patients are underfed. One
man preaches the gospel of dignified simplicity on one meal
a day and one clean collar a week, while the lean and
learned Fletcher declares that if we only keep on
masticating our one mouthful of food long enough we shall
delude the stomach into magnifying it into ten, and can dine
sumptuously on a menu-card and a biscuit.
Fortunately, when it comes to practise, philosophers,
reformers, and doctors alike have about as much influence
here as they have over conduct in other realms--and that is
next to none at all. The man in the street follows his
God-given instincts and plods peacefully along to his three
square meals a day, consisting of anything he can find in
the market, and just as much of it as he can afford, with
special preference for rich meats, fats, and sugars.
Instinct Far Superior to Reason.
Here, as everywhere, instinct is far superior to reason, and
a breakfast diet of sausage and buckwheat cakes with maple
syrup and strong coffee has carried the white man half
around the world; while one of salads and cereals, washed
down with a post-prandial subterfuge, would leave him
stranded, gasping, in the first ditch he came to.
All the basal problems of dietetics were, by the mercy of
Heaven, settled long ago in the farmhouse kitchen, in the
commissary department of the army in the field, in the
cook's galley amidships, and in the laboratory.
There is little more room for difference of opinion upon
them than there is about the coaling of engines. Simply a
matter of size of boiler and fire-box, the difference in
heating power and ash between Welsh and Australian, and the
amount of work to be got out of the machine, multiplied by
the time in which it is to be accomplished.
Dr. Hutchinson proceeds to give reasons why spices do _not_ heat the
blood, why pork is a most excellent food, why fish is no better for the
brain than other things, why vegetarianism is a mistake, and so on. His
principal caution is not to eat in a hurry; his principal advice is,
virtually, to eat whatever seems to agree with you.
All of which brings to mind the story of the old dyspeptic who, after a
long term of misery, one day apostrophized his stomach thus:
"I have humored you for many years. I have coaxed you, coddled you, petted
you. I have gone hungry to please you. I have swallowed bad-tasting
medicines on your account. I have been your servant--but now I am through.
From this time I will eat what I please and drink what I please. If you
protest, I shall ignore you. Hereafter you are the servant, I am the
master. Now make the best of that!"
This brave man's stomach, we are told, was so thoroughly cowed by the
words that it never again demanded a milk diet.