stomach should be humored and given nothing that it digests with difficulty; others believe that it should be gradually trained to digest any nutritious food. Some believe that no animal food should be eaten; others believe that animal food is as valuable as any. Some believe that all food should be eaten raw, but this would irritate a delicate stomach. It is doubtless best to use no stimulant, either tea or coffee, pepper or alcohol. Some eat fast and drink freely at meals; it is better to eat slowly and drink very little or none at all while eating, nor soon afterwards. Some eat five meals a day, and between meals if anything that tastes good is offered them; others eat only two or three meals a day, and never between meals, thus allowing the digestive organs time to rest. Some omit breakfast and some omit supper. Some prepare most of the food with grease; this is a tax upon digestion. Physical workers often believe in eating the peelings and seeds of fruits, and partaking freely of weedy vegetables, such as cabbage, turnip tops, string beans. Mental workers usually try to reject all woody fiber and indigestible pulp from the food before swallowing it. Some eat large quantities of food and digest a small portion; others eat little but digest nearly all.
The Power of Adaptation of the Digestive Organs.—Of course
some habits of eating are better for the health than others, yet the undesirable
ways often bring so little injury that they are not discontinued.
This shows that the food tube has great powers of adaptation to different
conditions. But there are limits to this adaptation; there is an
old saying that what is one man's meat is another man's poison. A
brain worker cannot follow the same diet as a field hand without working
at a disadvantage. An irritable stomach may be injured by coarse
food that would furnish only a healthful stimulus to a less sensitive one.
A business man who has little leisure at noon should take the heaviest
meal after business hours. In general, it may be said that it does not
make so much difference what is eaten as how it is eaten, and how
