CHAPTER XI. HOW TO EAT.
It is a settled fact that man naturally chews his food. The few faddists
who maintain that we should bolt our nourishment, after the manner of
the dog and others of the lower animals, can no longer get a hearing; we
know that we should chew our food. And if it is natural that we should
chew our food, the more thoroughly we chew it the more completely
natural the process must be. If you will chew every mouthful to a
liquid, you need not be in the least concerned as to what you shall eat,
for you can get sufficient nourishment out of any ordinary food.
Whether or not this chewing shall be an irksome and laborious task or a
most enjoyable process, depends upon the mental attitude in which you
come to the table.
If your mind and attitude are on other things, or if you are anxious or
worried about business or domestic affairs, you will find it almost
impossible to eat without bolting more or less of your food. You must
learn to live so scientifically that you will have no business or
domestic cares to worry about; this you can do, and you can also learn
to give your undivided attention to the act of eating while at the
table.
When you eat, do so with an eye single to the purpose of getting all the
enjoyment you can from that meal; dismiss everything else from your
mind, and do not let anything take your attention from the food and its
taste until your meal is finished. Be cheerfully confident, for if you
follow these instructions you may KNOW that the food you eat is exactly
the right food, and that it will "agree" with you to perfection.
Sit down to the table with confident cheerfulness, and take a moderate
portion of the food; take whatever thing looks most desirable to you. Do
not select some food because you think it will be good for you; select
that which will taste good to you. If you are to get well and stay well,
you must drop the idea of doing things because they are good for your
health, and do things because you want to do them. Select the food you
want most; gratefully give thanks to God that you have learned how to
eat it in such a way that digestion shall be perfect; and take a
moderate mouthful of it.
Do not fix your attention on the act of chewing; fix it on the TASTE of
the food; and taste and enjoy it until it is reduced to a liquid state
and passes down your throat by involuntary swallowing. No matter how
long it takes, do not think of the time. Think of the taste. Do not
allow your eyes to wander over the table, speculating as to what you
shall eat next; do not worry for fear there is not enough, and that you
will not get your share of everything. Do not anticipate the taste of
the next thing; keep your mind centered on the taste of what you have in
your mouth. And that is all of it.
Scientific and healthful eating is a delightful process after you have
learned how to do it, and after you have overcome the bad old habit of
gobbling down your food unchewed. It is best not to have too much
conversation going on while eating; be cheerful, but not talkative; do
the talking afterward.
In most cases, some use of the will is required to form the habit of
correct eating. The bolting habit is an unnatural one, and is without
doubt mostly the result of fear. Fear that we will be robbed of our
food; fear that we will not get our share of the good things; fear that
we will lose precious time--these are the causes of haste. Then there is
anticipation of the dainties that are to come for dessert, and the
consequent desire to get at them as quickly as possible; and there is
mental abstraction, or thinking of other matters while eating. All these
must be overcome.
When you find that your mind is wandering, call a halt; think for a
moment of the food, and of how good it tastes; of the perfect digestion
and assimilation that are going to follow the meal, and begin again.
Begin again and again, though you must do so twenty times in the course
of a single meal; and again and again, though you must do so every meal
for weeks and months. It is perfectly certain that you CAN form the
"Fletcher habit" if you persevere; and when you have formed it, you will
experience a healthful pleasure you have never known.
This is a vital point, and I must not leave it until I have thoroughly
impressed it upon your mind. Given the right materials, perfectly
prepared, the Principle of Health will positively build you a perfectly
healthy body; and you cannot prepare the materials _perfectly_ in any
other way that the one I am describing. If you are to have perfect
health, you MUST eat in just this way; you can, and the doing of it is
only a matter of a little perseverance. What use for you to talk of
mental control unless you will govern yourself in so simple a matter as
ceasing to bolt your food? What use to talk of concentration unless you
can keep your mind on the act of eating for so short a space as fifteen
or twenty minutes, especially with all the pleasures of taste to help
you? Go on, and conquer. In a few weeks, or months, as the case may be,
you will find the habit of scientific eating becoming fixed; and soon
you will be in so splendid a condition, mentally and physically, that
nothing would induce you to return to the bad old way.
We have seen that if man will think only thoughts of perfect health, his
internal functions will be performed in a healthy manner; and we have
seen that in order to think thoughts of health, man must perform the
voluntary functions in a healthy manner. The most important of the
voluntary functions is that of eating; and we see, so far, no especial
difficulty in eating in a perfectly healthy way. I will here summarize
the instructions as to when to eat, what to eat, and how to eat, with
the reasons therefor:--
NEVER eat until you have an EARNED hunger, no matter how long you go
without food. This is based on the fact that whenever food is needed in
the system, if there is power to digest it, the sub-conscious mind
announces the need by the sensation of hunger. Learn to distinguish
between genuine hunger and the gnawing and craving sensations caused by
unnatural appetite. Hunger is never a disagreeable feeling, accompanied
by weakness, faintness, or gnawing feelings at the stomach; it is a
pleasant, anticipatory desire for food, and is felt mostly in the mouth
and throat. It does not come at certain hours or at stated intervals; it
only comes when the sub-conscious mind is ready to receive, digest, and
assimilate food.
Eat whatever foods you want, making your selection from the staples in
general use in the zone in which you live. The Supreme Intelligence has
guided man to the selection of these foods, and they are the right ones
for all. I am referring, of course, to the foods which are taken to
satisfy hunger, not to those which have been contrived merely to gratify
appetite or perverted taste. The instinct which has guided the masses of
men to make use of the great staples of food to satisfy their hunger is
a divine one. God has made no mistake; if you eat these foods you will
not go wrong.
Eat your food with cheerful confidence, and get all the pleasure that is
to be had from the taste of every mouthful. Chew each morsel to a
liquid, keeping your attention fixed on the enjoyment of the process.
This is the only way to eat in a perfectly complete and successful
manner; and when anything is done in a completely successful manner, the
general result cannot be a failure. In the attainment of health, the law
is the same as in the attainment of riches; if you make each act a
success in itself, the sum of all your acts must be a success. When you
eat in the mental attitude I have described, and in the manner I have
described, nothing can be added to the process; it is done in a perfect
manner, and it is successfully done. And if eating is successfully done,
digestion, assimilation, and the building of a healthy body are
successfully begun. We next take up the question of the quantity of food
required.
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