Starvation
Food must be taken into the body in sufficient quantity and quality so that bodily function may be maintained. The term starvation is a technical one meaning a lack of sufficient food, although it is used loosely to mean a condition resulting from lack of assimilation. After the food in the stomach has been completely digested and the process of assimilation has reached a certain stage, vibrations are carried from the tissue cells to the brain. These enable the intelligence to know in what stage of assimilation the food is, and these vibrations are interpreted as hunger, the sensation being localized in the stomach. In the normal individual this sensation will appear soon enough to enable the introduction of food into the stomach so that its digestion may be completed before any injury from lack of nutrition occurs to the tissues. In other words, a provision has been made whereby food will be called for in sufficient time to enable Innate Intelligence to prepare this food for the tissue cells, so that there will be a new supply as soon as the process of assimilation has been completed. If food is not taken into the stomach when the sensation of hunger is manifested this sensation in the course of time will result in extreme bodily weakness and faintness. In certain incoördinations sensations may be produced which will be interpreted by the educated mind as hunger. Therefore, it is necessary to make a distinction between the sensations of hunger and the sensations from incoördinations of the stomach. In a dyspeptic condition there is an almost constant sensation of hunger, and the individual may eat much more food than can be digested. Very often, in these cases, the food is taken into the stomach so rapidly that there is not sufficient time for the gastric secretions to act upon it. In this way much more food may be taken into the stomach than is actually required by the tissue cells. It is obvious that we must have a proper amount of food in balanced rations, and also that this food be properly digested in order to be assimilated by the tissues. If food is not properly digested it can not be assimilated.