The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-04-06

Cambridge, and Assistant Master at
Rugby School, Amateur Tennis
Champion of England and America;
Author of Muscle, Brain and Diet"
In this article 1 wish to say some
thing about the theory of eating, start
ing with the problem of how to eat.
For this is the simplest of all the prob
lens in connection with food.
1t has been said (by DR.. Maudslev)
that he who can not control his mus
Giles can not control his mind. This is
most obvious in. the case of the mus
cles of breathing. The man who can
only breathe the short, sharp, shallow
surface breath is, / believe, Invariably
incapable of controlling his mind. The
man who can breathe the full, deep,
upward breath through the nose is al
most always self possessed and self
controlled. But the saying applies also
to the muscles of mastication. He
who is incapable of eating slowly is
incapable of controlling his mind. Mind,
1 do not say that "he who does not
many people who have scon-.
troll of their mind, and can eat
slowly, but do not.
Eat Leisurely if You Can.
The great exponent of slow eating is
Mr.. Horace Fletcher. His theory is
that we should never make an effort
to swallow anything; we should chew
each mouthful of food until it practi-
cally swallows itself. l have tried this
plan, and a mouthful of bread and
cheese has taken me from 200 to $50
bites. A mouthful of fruit has taken
less. But to carry out this rule in pub
lie seems to me hardly feasible. He
who tried to carry it out would be per-
petually kicked in imagination, If not
actually, and imaginary kicking is in
some ways worse for the kicker than
actual kicking. 1t is such a strain TO
wish to kick a man, and not to be able
tot
Yet, if any one could masticate IN
this wav for a week he would be very
far on the way towards complete con-
troll of his temper, to say nothing of his
digestion. 1t is important to be able
to at thus. Not one in a hundred
in an ordinary city can; and / sup
pose not one in thousand in New
York city can. Let us try to realize
a few of the advantages of this slow
eating, not carried to such an extent
but let us say, coming nearer to Glad
stones rule of about 80 bites. For, of
course, the number will depend on the
individual, the teeth, the food, ETC.
There may be some who should eat.
their food very fast and mast:cate it
very little. Not long ago a man at
the London Aquarium ate oyster shells,
tin tacks, sawdust, glass and the heel
of a boot. 1t seems that his inside
needed some extra amount of work;
perhaps he had the gizzard OF an os-
trich.
And those who do eat fast might
also justify themselves by comparing
themselves to the omnivorous pig.
which certainly does gobble up the
slush of the tub at a prodigious rate
But for most of us slow eating is pref
cradle. BY careful chewing we prac-
tice general self-control, patience and
money: we break up our food into
small portions, and so we save diges-
tive and excretive energy. The amount
incalculable BY chewing our food
we mix with it saliva, which is GER
tainly needed to digest starch, and,
perhaps, as we shall see, even helps
to digest milk and other foods; though
few authorities would admit the truth
of this. And mastication does help
the teeth. Dentists seem all to
agree about this as the most impor-
tant factor in keeping the teeth
healthy. Besides this, the slower we
eat, the less we need to eat.
Eat Your Food Dry.
Yet our tendency is to swill down
our foods like porridge and vegetables