, 1886-06-04
WHY FOLKS EAT MORE.
A REASON FOR THE INCREASING
CONSUMPTION OF NUTRlMENT.

CONSUMPTION OF NUTRIMENT.
The Significance of Changes in Our Food
Consumption-Lazy Races Eat Less
Than the industrious Ones-she Great
Demands of Modern Life.
The significance of changes In our. food
consumption seems not to be generally
recognized, If, indeed, 1t is commonly
Known that there are my material
changes. 1t is quite n well established fact
that, while the quality OF food has greatly
gained, the amount OF nutriment that each
individual consumes has increased and
that In many articles the increase is enor-
nous. 1t can not be made absolutely Ger
tain that people eat more foo in weight
than they did, say, fifty years or more; but
mere weight is immaterial, for n conspicu-
GUS improvement of the food of the present
over that of the past is In its nutritious
properties, 80 that even though the weight
be less now, we get more nutriment. In
many articles. however, the weight has
increased by large percentages. The means
are not at hand for making an exhausting
showing of relative food consumption at
different periods, but nevertheless such
materials as are available, SO far as they
go, warrant some differences that can
hardly be questioned.
The fact can hardly be questioned that
the per capita food consumption has
enormously increased. The inference
usually drawn from this fact is that life
is more pleasurable than it used to be,
which is, of course, true enough. No
only have the gustatory nerves been in
troduced to more prolonged delights, but
the physical vigor that distinguishes n
well-fed man from one h is poorly fed
has become the good fortune of the race.
Though the world may now be living
within only a year or so of starvation, it is
kept far enough ahead to be beyond all the
peradventures of misfortune in the pro
duction OF food supply, II happy situation
that was not always that of our ances-
tors.
The reason for our increasing food con
sumption lies In the law of the equival-
ence of forces. Our dependence for main
taining physical and mental energies is
the nutriment that goes into our stom-
achs, and we can get no more OF these en-
ergies than are contained in our food, just
as the work OF n steam engine is the me
chanical equivalent of the neat contained
in the coal that fires the furnace. The re
quirements of progressing civilization de
mand more abundant power in the indi-
yidual to meet them, the increase being
somewhat in physical power, perhaps,
comparing the extremes of a long period,
but the greatest increase being in mental
and nervous power.
THE DEMANDS OF MODERN LIFE.
The people OF lazy races eat less han
the people OF industrious ones. Observe
the regularly fed Me xican or Indian and
notice how much less he eats than the
New Englander. There is nearly rs great
n difference in the ood consumption of
the southern poor white and the active
and vigorous men Of the north, as j have
repeatedly noticed when seeing them eat
together. Universally in animal life, force
expended. mental and physical, bears a
relation TO food consumed, Thu inactive
snake will live on n toad for months; a
small bird, Darwin has shown, would not
do well unless he ate his weight in worms
every days.
What the great demand OF modern life
is upon the human body, and particularly
is nervous structure, appear upon noting
how little must have been sufficient to
maintain the kind of life that existed, say.
a century ago. There was brute force
expen ed then and not much else;
there was then no fine social and indus
trial adjustments to be made, there was
n little feeble thought and the striking
force of the energy expended was insig-
nifcant beside what we now get by null
tiplying the mass of our active energy by
Its speed. Tn serious increase In nervous
diseases proves how much greater the
strain now Is than our fOrefathers had to
endure To sustain the greater demands
of progressive living, the food eaten must
bear some correspondence with the energy
that it is necessary to obtain; not that in
telligence, nerve power and physical re-
sistance have no source but food; the in
heritance of the organism aud its train
ing are not ignored, but power can not be
used until it is supplied in some form of
equivalence, and the human body depends
for this supply on its food, which reap
pears in Infinite degrees of utilization ac-
cording to the ability to assimilate and
transform
This increasing consumption OF food has
called upon our digestive system to make
adjustments that they are not always able
to do, and civilized man is unhappy under
dyspepsia, which is aggravated by seden-
tary life, unrelieved by due physical exer-
else, and by some excessive eating caused
by the deliciousness of the food, which our
modern cooks know so well how to make.
But changing needs must in time end In
suitable adjustments, and among people
who ARE in the line of progress, dyspepsia
and nervous diseases must lose at last their
worst features. There is one thing in these
statistics that temperance agitators ignore
and that Is, Notwithstanding the large in
toxicating liquor bill of the nation, the
per capita consumption Of distilled spirits
has declined 81 per cent. in forty-iive years,
the reason being hat this drink is becom-
ing incompatible with progressing ~civiliza-
tfAV. fha small nRraua IN lLrunf hrtfnf.
probably indicating a stationary or deteri-
Grating condition OF some branches of the
lowest working classes. 49, George X.
Holmes In Gnnd u-nnsekeenin