ch_pic6STIMULANTSandCONDIMENTS
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byARTHUR N. DONALDSON, A.B., M.D.of the Faculty of the College of MedicalEvangelists, Loma Linda, California
The Creator intended that the process of eating should be enjoyed. He has gathered the tasteless, insipid food elements together, and mixing in mineral and organic accessories, has produced for the tickling of our palates all the numberless flavors that the combined action of those highly specialized organs of taste and smell have enabled us to enjoy. The tasteless starch is bound up in the palatable potato; the insipid protein, in the pea, the lentil, and the bean; the rather nauseating fat, in the plump, appetizing olive. To the child not yet educated to the perverted demands of his father's palate, the thought, taste, and smell of these aromatic and savory substances produces a desire to eat. By the time he is twenty, he will not be satisfied with the natural flavor of his food. The cook must pepper or ginger it up, andhe must further mustard or Worcestershire it to get it down. His soups are hot, and his salads are hotter. The palatable pleasure in a meal of his childhood is a lost asset. What has brought about this change in the appetite of man?
We all know, from experience, that we handle our food better if we relish it. This is due largely to the fact that the taste organs telegraph ahead to the stomach to prepare for work. The stomach responds by pouring out some digestive juices, and is consequently all ready to begin business the instant the tourist arrives. But when the food is bolted, there is a failure on the part of the taste nerves to telegraph ahead, unless they are stimulated more intensely by the addition of some readily diffusible sapid substance. Are we thus fooling nature?—We are not. Primarily, this unnatural stimulation leads to the most prevalent American dietetic sin; namely, overeating. We do not know when we have had enough. Dr. Wiggers, of Cornell University, has shown that overeating results in the surcharging of the blood stream with elements of digestion; and this, through the operation of physical laws, ultimately leads to arteriosclerosis and its chain of disasters. Secondly, with this unnatural stimulation of the taste nerves, the telegraphic messages to the stomach and the intestine are unreliable. Normally the tract is informed as to the nature of the food about to come, and is thus enabled to pour out a specific juice for a specific kind of food. Obviously this specificity which characterizes all normal processes is broken down, and the digestive function is placed under a handicap, when we cover up the natural taste with condiments.
The idea that condiments and stimulants act favorably in directly stimulating the production of gastric juice and in increasing gastric motor activity, and thus facilitating the digestive process, is a delusion. Professor Carlson,of Chicago University, has shown that these so-called stomachics and appetizers will have done their bit ere they enter the misunderstood stomach. And, our savory sauces and peppers being irritants in the mouth, they are no less irritants to the lining membrane of the stomach. They are always taboo in mild dyspeptic disorders, yet we think them just the appetizers for the run down nervous individual who never enjoys the pangs of hunger. Rather, he should be advised to oxygenate his impoverished blood by a brisk walk, to stir up his eliminative organs by vigorous exercise and the ingestion of water; for these bring no gastric catarrh, no sluggish liver.
It is recognized by every writer on dietetics, that condiments are irritating to the organs of elimination. The kidneys suffer, the ureters suffer, the bladder suffers, and the urethra suffers. We are very quick to stop the use of these substances when the kidneys give evidence of disease, and we will with alacrity drop the hot stuff from our dietary when the bladder and the urethra are inflamed. We do not like the smarting, burning pain produced by their presence. If they are detrimental during disease processes, they are just as detrimental in health. The long continued use of minute quantities of an irritant will incontrovertibly give ultimate evidence of its harmful nature, and we may expect such pathology as congestion of the liver, catarrh of the alimentary tract, hemorrhoids, nephritis, and general nutritive disturbances to be the possible heritage of our stimulating diet.
It is an interesting scientific fact that the highly soluble substances which are used as foods or food accessories are always irritating to the living membranes, particularly to the mucous membranes of the digestive organs with which they come in contact in the process of digestion, whether these membranes are healthy or diseased.Among such substances, we may mention sugar and salt.
Sugar and salt are excellent examples of the sapid, readily diffusible condiment so essential to our table, yet so invariably used to excess. We need about two teaspoonfuls of common salt a day—especially those who enjoy the vegetarian diet. Most vegetables are rich in potassium. This inorganic substance combines with sodium chloride, and is eliminated from the body. Consequently, the greater the amount of potassium in our food, the greater will be the loss of sodium chloride from the blood and the tissues, where it is an essential element, with the resultant need of an increased supply in our diet. Where there is an insufficient use of salt, there is a manifest disinclination to partake of the large variety of earth's products rich in potassium. But we are accustomed to the use of far more salt with our food than is necessary; and in excess, it is positively harmful, and the results of its use are serious.
Sugar is a pure carbohydrate; yet, by reason of its nature and use, it must be classed as a condiment. It, too, when used freely, brings on gastrointestinal catarrh through its direct irritant action, and affords unexcelled media for the growth of intestinal flora.
Stimulants
There are practically four strong stimulants to which civilized people are addicted; namely, alcohol, tobacco, tea, and coffee. Of the action of all, it may be said that the fatigue of nerve and brain is soothed by a spur. That is the work of a stimulant,—to goad the worn system to added effort, to produce an abnormal, false energy. Thus the individual is led on to a state of actual exhaustion without a warning note from his fatigued system. His energy is actually dissipated rather than increased. Theresults are shown in his heart, his nervous system, and his eliminative organs. Admiral Peary, speaking of the use of coffee in the rations of polar explorers, states that with the added effect of intense cold, it so stimulates the nerves as to cause the men to exhaust themselves, and soon wear out, by doing more than they can endure.
The actual extent of injury from the moderate use of tea and coffee has not been scientifically determined. The difficulty is, as Irving Fisher states it, "Sensitive people do not keep moderate." A little unnatural stimulation calls for a little more, and the tendency is to create a demand for something stronger. Fisher has truthfully declared that to abstain is much easier than to be moderate.
The claim that alcoholic beverages give added strength is a fallacy. The narcotic action of alcohol benumbs the sense of fatigue. From reliable clinical and laboratory findings, we are warranted in asserting with authority that alcohol lowers the power of all mental processes. The muscular efficiency is reduced. The ability of the body to protect itself against disease is undermined. The policemen of the body—the white corpuscles—are rendered more or less inactive—paralyzed; and the formation of other resistive elements of the blood is restricted. In other words, vital resistance is below par. Alcohol is furthermore a heart and circulatory depressant, and is no longer used by competent physicians as a circulatory stimulant. In short, it lowers mental and physical efficiency, and of course will naturally give its stamp to the unfortunate offspring.
Tobacco, too, blunts the edge of fatigue and worry. But its effect is transient, and the stimulation is followed by depression, which of course calls for more of the stimulant. Statistics tell us that where the weed is prohibited, efficiency is increased, and morale is improved.
Among the serious consequences of smoking, we find cancer of lip, tongue, and mouth, and serious cardiovascular changes. In a series of one hundred cases of cancer of the tongue and mouth, Dr. Abbe, of New York, found that ninety were inveterate users of tobacco; and he gives the stimulant the credit of being the ætiological factor in a high percentage of all malignant growths in this region. Tobacco not only directly affects the heart muscle, but its nicotine, through stimulation of the suprarenal gland, causes the production and throwing into the blood of an excessive amount of adrenalin, which brings about a tremendous rise in blood pressure, and of course an increase in the burden that the heart must carry. The ultimate result is arteriosclerosis, tobacco heart, nephritis, and very possibly a closing of the scene with a paralytic stroke.
Professor Fisher very aptly appeals against the introduction of more poisons into a system already burdened with poisons of its own elaboration.
We are not at liberty to ignore nature and her laws. Our bodies are not our own. When the Creator has opened to us of heaven's abundance for the sustenance of life, and has given us a dietary that answers every need of palate and body, we are palpably in error before our Maker when we question His wisdom, and take into our systems those substances which we know to be destructive to mind, soul, and body.
Ourcountry, however, is blessed with an abundance of foodstuffs; and if our people will economize in their use of food, providently confining themselves to the quantities required for the maintenance of health and strength, if they will eliminate waste, and if they will make use of those commodities of which we have a surplus, and thus free for export a larger proportion of those required by the world now dependent on us, we shall not only be able to accomplish our obligations to them, but we shall obtain and establish reasonable prices at home.—Woodrow Wilson.
Ourcountry, however, is blessed with an abundance of foodstuffs; and if our people will economize in their use of food, providently confining themselves to the quantities required for the maintenance of health and strength, if they will eliminate waste, and if they will make use of those commodities of which we have a surplus, and thus free for export a larger proportion of those required by the world now dependent on us, we shall not only be able to accomplish our obligations to them, but we shall obtain and establish reasonable prices at home.—Woodrow Wilson.