Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1886-05-26
MS ne Flesh Is Heir To.

Il took no more than / wanted,
therefore / did not take too much" is q
very common and q very mistaken con-
~clusion. Appetite is not by any mean
TIE measure Of need. Habit, in this q
IN other things, becomes the master and
dominates In spite Of sound reason and
common sense. Few human beings,
comparatively, have ever known the
sensation Of hunger; fewer still, per-
haps, know how to control the desire
TOR food that passes for hunger.
We begin with childhood by giving
our little ones al they want, and, ordi-
narily. what they want. "He had only
oat meal and cream and fruit for his
breakfast, " said an anxious mother to
the physician who had been hastily sum
nioDed 10 relieve the collie under which
their precious 7-year-old son was with
ing.
"But how much oat meal and fruit?"
The dear woman did not know. She
had not noticed that he swallowed the
first plateful, and was ready for the
second before any one else had begun.
She was too we'll accustomed to his ea-
gerness to get through his meal and be
of to his play, TO mind that the third
plateful disappeared with q few spas
modic gulps; nor did she notice that
three peaches were thrust into his
pocket, to supplement the three swal-
lowed without mastication at the table.
One bountiful plateful of oat meal and
two ripe peaches, what could be better?
Three plates Of oat meal and six
peaches, what could be worse? Yet,
had he died Of the collie his mother
would, doubtless, have wondered at the
afnictive ways Of Providence.
Beginning in this manner at the
nursery and home tables the growing
boys and girls are not likely to become
abstemious IN diet at school. There
they too often try to make up for de-
fective quality by consuming an un-
usual quantity Of food, and, fortunately,
the vigorous sports OF youth and the
demands OF the growing body some
times save them from direct results.
No immediate penalty being exacted,
they lose all sense of wrong-doing, for,
strange as it may seem, there is o con-
science in this matter that is often
heard above the clamor Of appetite.
We would not overload the basket
that carries our eggs home until the
bottom falls out and the contents drop
to the ground; we would not put corn
enough into the mill to stop its grind
ing; yet we constantly interrupt and
clog the processes by which the body is
nourislied, by burdening it with far
more food than it can care for, without
damage to itself.
1t really seems to require more hero
ism to forego one-half or one-third the
usual quantity Of food than to bear an
ordinary illness. II cannot have straw
berries for tea" says a faithful wife,
"for my husband is fond of them and
they are not good for him."
We eat too Notwithstanding of us
do it, yer and over, every day.
Whether we shall ever come to the
place. prophesied recently, where the
nutritive elements extracted from all
foods shall he carried about in vest
pockets, in homeopathic pellets, and all
dining be reduced to a pinch of them,
taken as we rum, we cannot say; hut
n thing is certain. that we shall have
to learn what food really feeds the body,
and how much to take and how
much to let alone.