PART I.
THE BREAKFAST.
The subject of “diet and digestion” is a well-worn theme, and more books and papers are written upon this than upon any other medical subject.
But though the tale is old, there are variations and embellishments which are quite new; and it is in an original manner that we wish to speak to you on this old but oft-forgotten subject of physiological diet.
We are going to teach you health from the kitchen and dining-room, two of the most important sources of human suffering, and the chief sources of income of the physician.
For it is in the kitchen that indigestion begins, and if your cook is faultless, and rightly understands her business, you will not get indigestion, save through your own indiscretions in the dining-room.
It is commonly supposed that the chief fault in diet is eating to excess, that is, violation of the laws of moderation. But this is not the commonest mistake, for in most cases where too much food is eaten, it is from faulty methods of eating, and from taking unsuitable food.
The Americans suffer from indigestion more than do any other people in the world; the French suffer perhaps the least. Yet the average Frenchman eats more than the Yankee, but he has made a science of feeding, and notwithstanding that he eats more than the American, he eats it better and more rationally, and therefore his organs digest it more rapidly.
You think it is disgusting to make a science of feeding—pandering to one of the lowest of pleasures? No, you are mistaken; the science is not only just, it is necessary for health. Of course, if your science consists in elaborating dishes to tickle your appetite, to enable you to eat more than you need, it is very wrong. But here it is not science which is to blame, but the person who abuses science.
As soon as we are down in the morning we think of our stomachs, of our breakfast. It is no good telling us that it is irrational to eat breakfast; that as we have done no work yet we need no nourishment; for we thoroughly disbelieve in this argument. It is much better for everyone to take something at breakfast-time, but whether she should make a good square meal at breakfast, and take but a small luncheon, or just pick a little something at breakfast, and make a good meal at midday, depends entirely upon what she is used to.
Many persons take a little fruit before breakfast, and it is not at all a bad plan, for fruit is the natural and best aperient. Because of the difficulty of obtaining fruit and vegetables many of us Londoners eat too much meat, which is very wrong, for excessive meat-eating brings many diseases in its train.
All fruits are not equally digestible, and some kinds are so difficult to digest that they should only be taken by those who are in robust health. All stone-fruit, especially cherries, and all nuts are very indigestible. Fruit is always best when it is picked just before it is eaten, and those who possess the luxury of an orchard or country garden of their own should eat a little fruit from the trees, in the season, every morning before breakfast, when the combination of the fresh fruit and the crisp morning air will do much to brace up the system for the day.
Unripe fruit is no favourite with the stomach, and it may produce severe griping and colic. Much more injurious is over-ripe or decomposing fruit, a very common cause of so-called English cholera.
Certain persons have peculiar idiosyncrasies for certain fruits, especially for strawberries, and at the beginning of the strawberry season attacks of nettle-rash accompanied with severe indigestion, due to eating the fruit, are extremely common.
Now let us go to breakfast. There are plenty of things to choose from; only think a little beforehand, and have some reason for your choice.
Here is the menu:—
Tea, Coffee, Cocoa, Milk.
Rolls and Butter.
Oatmeal Porridge.
Eggs and Bacon.
Fried Fish.
Bloaters.
Marmalade.
What will you take to drink? “Oh, tea is so indigestible, coffee is so bitter, cocoa is so unrefreshing, and milk swarms with tubercle germs! So give me any that you like.” Why? Is this the science of dieting? Who has prepared this meal, that she serves up tea that is indigestible, coffee that is bitter, and milk that swarms with tubercle bacilli? Give her notice at once, and prepare the drinks for yourself; or rather, bring us the necessary implements, and we will show you how to prepare tea that is not indigestible, and milk that is quite free from germs.
There is a great deal of nonsense talked about the indigestibility of tea. That tea as it is usually served is an indigestible and highly nauseating decoction we readily admit; and also that if it is indulged in to excess at all hours of the day, as it is by so many poor seamstresses, it is injurious to the “nerves.” But in moderation, properly made tea is as digestible as any hot liquid can be, and is infinitely more readily digested than any of the numerous substitutes which have been introduced to supersede it.
This is the way to make tea. What is this? A silver tea-pot! Take it away and sell it, and buy a brown earthenware one for fivepence-halfpenny. No good tea was ever made in a silver pot. Which tea shall we have—Indian, Ceylon, or China? China undoubtedly, for though it is much weaker than Indian tea it contains very much less tannin, which is the indigestible ingredient of tea.
We are afraid that you must take the kettle back to the fire and boil the water again, for while we have been talking the water has got cooled, and tea must never be made with water that is not boiling, because it readily dissolves the tannin but leaves the caffeine—to which the stimulating property of tea is due—behind.
Now we will pour the boiling water over the tea and leave it to draw for one minute only before pouring it into the cups.
“But it is so weak, I can see the bottom of the cup through it.” Quite right; so you should. The caffeine and the flavour of the leaves are instantly diffused into the boiling water. If you leave the tea to draw for some minutes, excess of the tannin is dissolved, which precipitates the caffeine and renders the tea indigestible and unrefreshing.
And the deepening of the colour. What do you think causes that? Dirt and extractives, materials far better left behind with the leaves with which to sweep the carpet.
Milk must be boiled the moment it enters the house. Infected milk is so common and so readily infects those that drink it, that it is a serious mistake not to sterilise it at once.
No milk should be put upon the table which has not been boiled. Boiling kills all bacteria; it therefore kills the germs of typhoid fever and tuberculosis which are very commonly found in milk. Indeed, milk is one of the commonest agents by which these two diseases are spread. There are numerous milk boilers in the market, notably those of earthenware with holes in the lid, through which the milk can flow to and fro when in the act of boiling.
What will you take to eat? But in the first place it is no good sitting down to eat solids unless you have good teeth. Bad teeth and absence of teeth are two of the commonest causes of indigestion.
Decayed teeth cause indigestion, because they swarm with germs which secrete poisons which are swallowed with the food and irritate the stomach.
Absence of teeth is the commonest of all causes of lifelong dyspepsia, and the first step in the treatment of any form of long-continued indigestion should be a visit to the dentist.
Also it is no good having sound teeth unless you use them. Teeth were given to you to chew with, and you must chew every morsel of food, and chew it well, giving at least twenty “grinds” to each mouthful.
It is bolting food which causes so much indigestion. It is bolting which causes so many persons to eat too much, and it is bolting which has rendered the go-ahead Yankee the proverbial martyr to dyspepsia.
If you eat slowly, and thoroughly masticate your food, you will lose your appetite when you have eaten enough, and so you will not eat too much without knowing it. But if you shovel in your food like pitching bricks into a cart, the stomach is nonplussed, and you may go on eating and still be hungry long after you have taken sufficient food; and you will not know that you have eaten too much until your unfortunate stomach attempts to digest its contents.
Now back again to our menu. Eggs and bacon is perhaps the commonest breakfast dish in England. And a thoroughly good and wholesome dish it is, too, if properly cooked. Of course if the eggs are stale and the bacon is half raw and swimming in grease, it is indigestible; but properly cooked fresh eggs—preferably poached and underdone—and crisp grilled bacon is a very digestible food. It is curious that although pork is one of the most indigestible of meats, bacon is tolerated by the most delicate and disordered stomachs.
Fried fish is another excellent breakfast dish. Whiting, soles and plaice are the three most digestible of fried fish. Herrings and eels are bilious and difficult to digest.
Hot rolls and butter are proverbially indigestible. But our close wool-like bread is far more difficult to digest than the light, more glutinous bâtons of the French breakfast. Indeed, these light rolls, consisting of little more than holes stuck together, are not so very indigestible. Why we cannot get them in England we do not know.
Oatmeal is the national breakfast dish of the Scotch. The Highlander makes his meal of oatmeal before his long day in the open air. The English lord, when he goes deer-stalking in the Grampians, also takes oatmeal for his breakfast, and finds it a wholesome and sustaining food. But when he returns to Mayfair, he would no more think of eating oatmeal for breakfast than he would dine off sawdust.
The Scotch brag greatly about the value of oatmeal as a diet, and they would persuade us Londoners that oatmeal is the best breakfast dish we can take. But when we say that it makes us heavy, and gives us indigestion, they always answer, “That is because you do not make it properly.” But that is not the reason. Oatmeal is a very nutritious food, but it is not easily digested; and so, although the Scotch peasant likes it, and can digest it because of his outdoor life and laborious occupation, the Londoner, with his sedentary life in a smoky city, cannot digest it. And for him it is an unsuitable diet.
Last and least as regards expense, but most important from the numbers who eat it, is the homely bloater.
Dried fish is not very easy to digest, but is highly nutritious and is cheap. And when you can get nutritious food at a cheap rate, you must expect to give a little extra trouble to digest it. Smoked salmon is far and away the worst form of dried fish. It is much the most indigestible, it is very expensive, and it is not really half so tasty as a kipper.
A little bread and marmalade forms a pleasant end to the breakfast. But what does this mean—“Good-bye, I am so glad to have had breakfast with you, but I must rush off to catch my train, as I have to be in the City by 9.30 A.M.” What! Running to catch a train immediately after a meal? Then in future you had better belong to that class that eats no breakfast. Better have an empty stomach than a full one which you will not allow yourself to digest.
(To be continued.)