The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1880-11-26
DO WE TATTOO MUCH .
A Suggestion that Most People Con-
sumo More Food than They Need. ID
From the London Spectator. aI

From the London Spectator. sii OF,
Nothing consumes the general wealth Of
the world like the feeding Of itspopulations,
and It is by no means yet completely settled
that the majority, of men, once above the re-
strictions of poverty, do not eat good deal
too much. An idea has been very generally
spread that 1t Is healthy to eat very often,
till certain classes, and more especially ser
wants, eat five times day; and the medical
aphorism, that he who eats often should eat
very little At time, Is very often forgotten.
The Lancet OF September 4th, In . curious
| ly cautious article, hints that the modern
world eats too much In positive bulk OF food
"A statement certainly true Of great bread
eaters, q distinct and well marked type
and thinks the modern regularity Of meals
has induced US to regard appetite Is the
guide, rather than hunger, which IL the true
one. Regularity Of meals developes appetite,
not hunger. We rather, question the pre-
vious proposition, - ahungry man Ii apt to
eat too much, but we believe that the extern
sion Of wealth and the extreme public ignor--
ance upon the subject tend to foster habit
Of taking too many meals. Men and women
eat three In ten hours and q hah-breakfast
ut 10 q. m, lunch at / 80 p. m. and dinner at
Z 80 p. ma division of the twenty-four
hours of the day which can hardly be heal
thy. 1t leaves thirteen hours and . half
without food, while In the remaining ten and
half there are three meals. 1t would be
better, we imagine, for sedentary men to re-.
duce theirs to two, taken at considerable in
tervals or, IL that Is too worrying, to confine
the intercalary meal to the merest mouthful,
taken without sitting down, and with no pro-
vision to tempt the appetite. Lunch for
those who work with the brain Is the destruc-
tion Of laboriousness,j and for those who
work with the hands Is the least useful OF
the meals 1t Is very doubtful whether the
powerfully built races Of upper India, who
eat only twice day-at 10 .. m, and at 10 p.
m.--are not in the right, exactly equalizing,
as they do, the periods Of abstinence, though
It Is difficult to decide from the example Of
hereditary teetotal vegetafians,d the bulk Of
whose food is out Of all proportion to its
nourishment. The great evil to be removed
however, Is not so much the midday meal -
the great ignorance, even among sducsted
men, Of the quantity Of food Indispensable to
health and the quantity most bene fetal TO u.
On the first point most men know nothing,
or at most only the amount Of q conyict's1
ration, which is fred at the standard found
l,,~ ho,- l~t,< anf
and Is no rule for ordinary mankind. Can
not the doctors tell rs some handy rule Of
thumb about thisf They have told US that
the beneficial quantity Of alcohol is the
equivalent Of pint Of ordinary claret day,
but what Is the beneficial quantity Of food2
1t must differ according to diet, physique and
occupation, but still there must be some for
mula which will conveyrin intelligent fash
ion the average maximum for men of differ
ent weights. We believe most men would
be surprised to find how very low ID Ia, and
how very much they exceed IL, especially iR1
Ine consumption or meaIs sg'yegeraIIaiDus
which some among rs exalt As . apanacea, hasf
been tried for thousands Of years. BY mil-i
lions Of people, and has, - Q rule, failed, the
desh-eating peoples out-fghting, Hout-workt
ing and out-thinking the eaters Of vegetables
only; but between vegetarianism0 and the
fesh-eaiing habits OF velito-do EnglishmeR
there Is wide distance. Mr.. Banting, .tooD
wrote wild exaggerstions, but the way In
which Englishmen Of reasonable intellectual
capacities will swallow crumb Of bread,
often not half-baked, by the pound at time,
would account even for severer melancholy
than that under which they labor. We want
an intelligent rule, to be obeyed ordisobeyed,
but to be remembered.