DRINKING AT MEALS
It is nearly always the case that a hasty or over-hearty eater is also in the habit of drinking copiously of water or other fluids at his meals. He “washes his food down” instead of legitimately drinking. The body, of course, needs liquid, but, as a rule, meal times are not the times for the taking of this liquid supply; except for what is contained in the food itself. The hasty eater thus associates two great evils.
Liquid of any kind in large quantity is inimical to digestion, because it delays the action of the gastric juice, and weakens its digestive qualities, and also checks the secretion of saliva. In case the fluid taken is very hot, as tea, coffee, cocoa, or a considerable quantity of soup—it relaxes and weakens the stomach. On the other hand if it is very cold, it checks digestion by cooling the contents of the stomach, and reducing its temperature to a degree at which digestion cannot proceed. Even a small quantity of cold water, ice cream, or other very cold substance will create a serious disturbance if taken into a stomach where food is undergoing digestion. The process of digestion cannot be carried on at a temperature that is less than the body, which is about one hundred.
The old notions about the processes of digestion were chiefly drawn from the experiments of Dr. Beaumont made nearly a hundred years ago up in Northern Michigan, around Mackinac; with a Canadian hunter, Alexis St. Martin, as the subject. Most people have probably read of St. Martin and Beaumont in the physiologies they studied in their school days. Beaumont was a very capable physician, and a man of the truest scientific spirit. It happened that through an accident he was given an opportunity to make the most valuable contribution to the study of the stomach of man that so far had been furnished by any investigator. The hunter, St. Martin, had suffered a gunshot wound in his stomach, and Beaumont kept him alive for years with the wound open so that he might study the movements of the man’s interior organs. For the first time, here was a human body with a window in it, so to speak, and through this window the scientist patiently watched and studied for years. Of course, however, the window gave only a limited view of what was going on inside this particular house of life, and a great number of Beaumont’s ideas and theories have been proven erroneous; nevertheless, he obtained much important knowledge. When Dr. Beaumont peered through that curious window which he made in the stomach of Alexis St. Martin, he noticed that when the latter drank a glassful of water at the usual temperature of freshly drawn well water, the temperature of the food undergoing digestion fell immediately to 70. The process of digestion was checked absolutely and did not resume until the body had regained its proper temperature, which it did not do for more than half an hour.
Another way in which drinking at meals proves harmful is because of the fact that particles of food not thoroughly masticated are washed from the mouth into the stomach. If any drink at meals is taken at all, it should be a few minutes before eating. Of course, sipping of a little water will not be harmful, if care is taken not to sip at the time when food is in the mouth. It will be found, however, that unless the meal is composed of very dry foods, there will be little inclination to drink at meals. When, however, the food is rendered either fiery or irritating with spices, and other stimulating condiments, it is small wonder that there is an imperious demand for water or liquid of any kind to allay the irritation.