Evening star., 1933-01-05

The idea of "eat, drink and be merry
has come down through the ages,
chiefly because 1t Is striking phrase,
we believe.
The truth is that with all animals.
and with millions Of human beings
the daily food taking Is very serious
business.
One has but to watch a dog feed to
know at once that there is no merri-
ment whatever in the process.
Dogs often frisk, seem to smile. over
things which appeal to their canine
sense of fun, very well developed sense
with them.
When it comes to eating, however,
they are all business.
And a cat. as BELTS an eminently
sensible animal, refrainS from mixing
laughter with its meals, on purely prac-
tical grounds. It takes too much time.
Speed is the essence of enoughl Eat
before some one can take it away from
you.
All other creatures, except man, eat
in much the same manner. with one
eye on the food, and another on the
rest of the world
Man alone manages to mix smiles
with his dinner, if he has dinner.
He does this, first, because 1t is the
custom: second. because 1t helps digeS-
ton; third, because it is fun. and
| fourth, because it stretches out the
pleasant process to its ultimate length
The knowledge of the food scientist,
so called, is on his side. Merriment at
meals, we have been told a thousand
| times, aids digestion, whets the appe-
tite, makes the saliva flow. stirs up the
secretion of certain juices essential to
proper handling of the foods consumed.
Vat oil hot Ill
| are thousands, no doubt millions, of
persons who eat as If the very devil
were after them. and they must hurry
before he takes their food away.
Often enough this is an inheritance,
If not purely. then as result of hav-
ing been brought up in a household
where others hurried at meals. The
scientists have fuSsy habit of dis
claiming inheritance of such things, but
If the results are just the same, why
quibble over It?
Many persons eat so fast that they
become all out Of breath And we do
not refer to those gross feeders one
sees occasionally in restaurants, who
approach their faces to their platters
as to trough, but only to many very
proper diners who nevertheless eat in
a tremendous hurry.
Those who happen to fall into this
category know that the habit of quick
eating is very difficult one to break
Try as they may, full dinner never
takes more than 20 minutes with them,
even when they willingly would stretch
1t out to an hour or an hour and q half.
Those delightful persons who man
age to talk and laugh, and, incident
ally, eat, for full two hours or more
at table, as some OF them do, are re-
garded with wonder, astonishment and
some envy by speedy consumers of
foodstuffs.
No doubt they talk more than they
eat and laugh more than they talk.
Yet, looking at them fairly, they seem
no more healthy than any one else.
Health Is, after all, a great deal more
eats, although that may have some
thing to do with it.
Fast eating, as we have said, is a
hard habit to break, even by those who
know better. Often a stay Of several
months in bed, when one Is fed
through tube, will not suffice to break
the habit of lifetime
Such a person will find that there
is medium, however, between what is
really fast and what is, at least for
| him, much too slow.
Having determined upon this proper
eating pace, he will make up his mind
to follow 1t.
Here, again, human beings are
sharply divided into classes, and, as in
all such groups, one group never seems
to understand the other, nor to want to
understand the other. The slow eater
| wonders how any one can possibly
get away with an entire dinner in