The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-04-18
We Eat too LUCE


We all eat too much. Weknow it by
experience. We speak not as doctors,
| but as ordinary human beings. We
speak by the evidence of avoirdupois,
and not by the evidence of scientific
Investigation. You eat too much,
reader. Not that your surplus food
/ does You any particular harm-Ee
mean merely that the system has no
\ use for it-Rnd SO does not put il to any
use.
Commence tomorrow morning, and
eat just half your usual allowance of
breakfast; take lighter lunch than
usual, and only half q dinner. Do the
same thing on Saturday, repeat the ex-
| pertinent on Sunday, and SO on through
| next week. You viii md instead of
| accommodating hunger you will soon be
entirely satisfied each night. Further,
| whatever in flesh. Your cheeks will
be none the less full. II you are
/ plump, the ball OF flesh on each side
will be as soft and as large as it is now.
Your arms will be still enveloped in an
unctious layer of adipose tissue. In
short, you will find that you are the
same man or woman that you have al
ways been, SO far as weight and flesh
are concerned.
"But have a good digestion-what
becomes of this extra fOod2n Nature
does nothing at all with it. She uses
what she chooses to use, and ignores
the remainder.
The lover of nature tells us to follow
the appetite-not to attempt to regulate
| it-that nature is her own best guide.
| This is logical advice, certainly. But
1t Is useless to deny that the palate is
not always the uniuterested agent of
the stomach. The placing of the ami
NAL body at the disposal of an intelli-
gent Imagination. with safety to each,
was the most difficult problem of the
| creation. In very many directions the
| Imagination is constantly prevailing on
the body to injure itself. Every excess
of passion, intemperance, glutTony, or
RIGHTEOUSNESS, is the effect of the i'm
agination. The reason that ami
mails have no small vices-or
| large ones either-is that the body
asserts its wishes and its necessi-
ties more emphatically than that which
corresponds with our Imagination.
Now, in the matter of food, we TenenI-
Der the pleasures of taste, and we have
all of us induced our pRlates to make a
false report of the demand of our
stomachs-in other words, we have ac-
lcustomed 1t to enjoy food after the
stomach has received enough. Accord
ingly we sit at the table and eat on the
average, about twice MS much as our
| body needs or uses. Nature, indeed,
accommodates herself to the arrange
ment, and does not trouble us-we are
speaking of ordinary men and not OF
gluttons-she even permits us to hatter
ourselves that we are Satisfying the
cravings OF hunger''-following the
natural appetite"-eating with modern-
ton. In the meantime she takes what
we thus force upon her, uses what she
likes, and growls at us for giving her
too much work only when she is COM
PEELED to do so In self-defence.
But If Nature does not object, why
should we not enjoy the pleasures OF
taste? Because the more we do in one
direction the less we can do in smother
There is too much for us to do in the
wide word to waste our physical-and
so our mentnl-energies, in disposine
of matter for which we have no use
Until u person has tried, as we have, :
half food system, he has no idea of how
much of his energy he has wasted, by
merely eating more than he needs
The criterion of this is found in the
new life, vigor and elasticity which {
+ man possesses when he has accustomed
, himselfto eat about half as much as IL
. has supposed necessary to his existence
Try the experiment, reader-try it to
, morrow, and do not give up because n
) first you have a craving which yoJ
mistake for demand OF the stomach
I You will soon learn how much yOl
you need, and after that you can de
pend entirely upon the suggestions o
, your palate.