The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1905-10-21


When Tired.
am more and more convinced as
the days go by that it is not so much
a question of what you eat as how you
eat. The matter OF diet consists large
ly in not eating too much. We should
eat to live; not live to eat. The aver
age, or may say, the great majority,
of the human family eat too much, too
often and too ignorantly. One-fOurth
of what we eat keeps Us, the remain
ing three-fourths we keep-at the risk
of u lives. Man is the only animal
hat will eat when i'll. Do not give
yourself unnecessary pain for an hour
just for the sake of tickling your pal
ate for a minute.
Some persons are satisfied il only
they can get full, no matter of what.
The feeling of fullness seems TO be
their guide a. to when they have had
enough. A few days ago l heard of q
mar of very large abdominal dimen-
sions (and eXtensiOn) who was asked
if he paid any attention to the subject
of eating; if he had any rule as to
the amount he ate at each meal. He
said he had a very definite rule. 1T
is this" said he. Il always sit six
inches from the table, n when my
body touches the table l know l have
had enough"
How to Eat.
Proper m~astication; that Is, thor
ough mastication, is the secret Of the
whole matter. However, l do not ad-
yocate the method of counting the
number of times that each mouthful of
food should be masticated, as one
should not study mental arithmetic
when eating. Get into the habit of
m~asticating every particle of food so
thoroughly that it is liQuidized ere
swallowing. Do not let it go until you
have extracted from it every particle
of taste. Bear in mind that the long
er you keep food in the mouth the
less time you will have to keep it in
the stomach. Not only this. but we
should recognize the fact that the
mouth has work to do that the stom-
ach cannot do. Digestion begins in the
mouth. Here the food should mix
thoroughly with the saliva, which is
slightly alkaline. This acts directly
upon the starchy foods (white bread,
rice, potatoes. etc., converting them
Into sugar. The foods are mex re-
Ceived into the stomach, there to meet
with the gastric juice. This medium
is of acid reaction. Then, by what is
known as the churping process Of the
stomach. the contents are reduced to
a viscid fluid mass known as chyIne.
The proteid parts of the food (as found
in lean beef, mutton, smoked ham,
Goldfish, beans, peas, lentfls, eggs.
cheese, grains, dried fruits, nuts, etc.)
are converted into an absorbable sub
stance called p%eptones. When diges-
ton is completed, the pyloric valve
opens and the chyme passes into the
duodenum, or second stomach. This
substance is now composed of digested,
u~ndigested and partially 6igested
foods. You will observe that the en-
tire process of digestion is not really
in the stomach. That is the
reason that l am trying to impress
you the desirability of thoroughly
the food with the saliva (alka-
line medium), because the starchy
foods and fats are not digested in the
stomach (acid medium). but must
await their arrival in the duodenum
(alkaline medium. Fake. for in
mashed potatoes. The major
ity Of persons think they need no
mastication. They are so well pre-
pared Chat depends) that they are
quite ready for the stomach. Not SO,
matter how fine they may he. They
should mix thoroughly with the saliva
In order to convert the starch into
dextrine; for their digestion cannot be
completed until they reach the duoden-
UNI. This applies with equal force to
all foods that contain starch.
l no longer wonder that Americans,
as a rule, are q race of dySpeptics.
How to eat seems Of so little impor-
as compared with what to eat.
The result is we have a national dis
ease for which there is no better name
than Americanitis. Truly, many a
digs his grave with his teeth; !
not only il over-eating, but by INSULT
cient m~astication. ,
We followed the process of the food, {
it were, to the duodenum. Here, p,
then, we have a substance composed of 6
the starch which was changed into T
ieXtrine, also starch which has I'M r
1ergone little or no change, fats Who'll 6
y unchanged, and the proteids which |
we're not changed into %peptones. 7
These are now acted upon by the bile i
pancreatic juice which, in turn, f
converts the starch into dextrine, the
into peptones and emulsifes /,
he fats. Next comes absorption r
through the minute blood vessels of the r
ntestines and then that all-important
of assimilation. There are thou
ands of persons whose digestion