The next important step in the regulation of diet, is to determine the QUANTITY which ought to be eaten.
To ensure easy digestion and sound health, the quantity of food ought always to be proportioned to the wants of the system; but this can be done only by a constant reference to the individual’s constitution and circumstances, and not by attempting to lay down any standard as admitting of universal application.
We have seen that, where waste is great and growth active, an abundant supply of food is required, and that, in accordance with this relation, it is in such circumstances that the desire for food is most keenly felt. Generally speaking, appetite is a safe guide as to quantity; but, in following its dictates, we must take special care neither to eat so fast as to prevent it from giving timely intimation that we have had enough, nor to confound the mere gratification of taste, or the yearning of a vacant mind, with the natural craving of unsatisfied want. Dr Beaumont’s remarks on this subject are characterized by so much soundness of judgment, that no apology can be required for soliciting the attention of the reader to the following very pertinent extract from his work.
“There is no subject of dietetic economy,” says Dr Beaumont, “about which people err so much, as that which relates to quantity. The medical profession, too, has been accessory to this error, in giving directions to dyspeptics to eat until a sense of satiety is felt. Now, this feeling, so essential to be rightly understood, never supervenes until the invalid has eaten too much, if he have an appetite, which seldom fails him. Those even who are not otherwise predisposed to the complaint, frequently induce a diseased state of the digestive organs by too free indulgence of the appetite. Of this fact, the medical profession are, generally, not sufficiently aware. Those who lead sedentary lives, and whose circumstances will permit of what is called free living, are peculiarly obnoxious to these complaints. By paying particular attention to their sensations during the ingestion of their meals, these complaints may be avoided. There appears to be a sense of perfect intelligence conveyed from the stomach to the encephalic centre, which, in health, invariably dictates what quantity of aliment (responding to the sense of hunger and its due satisfaction) is naturally required for the purposes of life; and which, if noticed and properly attended to, would prove the most salutary monitor of health, and effectual preventive of disease. It is not the sense of satiety, for this is beyond the point of healthful indulgence, and is Nature’s earliest indication of an abuse and overburden of her powers to replenish the system. It occurs immediately previous to this, and may be known by the pleasurable sensation of perfect satisfaction, ease, and quiescence of body and mind. It is when the stomach says enough, and is distinguished from satiety by the difference of the sensations,—the former feeling enough—the latter too much. The first is produced by the timely reception into the stomach of proper aliment, in exact proportion to the requirements of Nature, for the perfect digestion of which a definite quantity of gastric juice is furnished by the proper gastric apparatus. But to effect this most agreeable of all sensations and conditions—the real Elysian satisfaction of the reasonable epicure—timely attention must be paid to the preliminary processes, such as thorough mastication and moderate or slow deglutition. These are indispensable to the due and natural supply of the stomach at the stated periods of alimentation; for if food be swallowed too fast, and pass into the stomach imperfectly masticated, too much is received in a short time, and in too imperfect a state of preparation to be disposed of by the gastric juice.”
“The quantity of gastric juice, either contained in its proper vessels or in a state of preparation in the circulating fluids, is believed to be in exact proportion to the proper quantity of aliment required for the due supply of the system. If a more than ordinary quantity of food be taken, a part of it will remain undissolved in the stomach, and produce the usual unpleasant symptoms of indigestion. But if the ingestion of a large quantity be in proportion to the calls of nature, which sometimes happens after an unusual abstinence, it is probable that more than the usual supply of gastric juice is furnished; in which case the apparent excess is in exact ratio to the requirements of the economy, and never fails to produce a sense of quiescent gratification and healthful enjoyment. A great deal depends on habit in this respect. Our Western Indians, who frequently undergo long abstinence from food, eat enormous quantities when they can procure it, with impunity.”[39]
If the purposes for which eating is necessary be kept in mind, the keen appetite and vigorous digestion observable in growing youths, and in those who undergo much active exercise in the open air,—and the weaker appetite and feebler digestion observed during the middle period of life, especially in persons of sedentary habits,—will appear to be in strict harmony with the wants of the system in the respective circumstances. But from no attention being paid by either the old or the young to the principle by which the supply of nourishment ought to be regulated, and the haste with which every one labours to appease the cravings of hunger, it may be affirmed as a general fact, that mankind eat greatly more than is required for their sustenance: and the indigestion thereby induced is a salutary provision of Nature to prevent the repletion which would otherwise ensue.
Sir Francis Head, in his humorous book entitled Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau, by an Old Man, expresses his astonishment at the “enormous quantity of provisions” which the invalids and sojourners at these watering places “so placidly consume;” and, after noticing “the heavy masses which constitute the foundation of the dinner, and the successive layers of salmon—fowls—puddings—meat again—stewed fruit—and, lastly, majestic legs of mutton—which form the lighter superstructure,” he adds: “Nothing which this world affords could induce me to feed in this gross manner. The pig which lives in his sty would have some excuse, but it is really quite shocking to see any other animal overpowering himself at mid-day with such a mixture and superabundance of food” (p. [71]). In another page he returns to the subject, and quaintly enough remarks, “that almost every malady to which the human frame is subject is, either by high-ways or by-ways, connected with the stomach; and I must own, I never see a fashionable physician mysteriously counting the pulse of a plethoric patient, or, with a silver spoon on his tongue, importantly looking down his red inflamed gullet (so properly termed by Johnson ‘the meat-pipe’), but I feel a desire to exclaim, ‘Why not tell the poor gentleman at once—Sir, you’ve eaten too much, you’ve drunk too much, and you’ve not taken exercise enough!’ That these are the main causes of almost every one’s illness, there can be no greater proof than that those savage nations which live actively and temperately have only one great disorder—death. The human frame was not created imperfect—it is we ourselves who have made it so; there exists no donkey in creation so overladen as our stomachs, and it is because they groan under the weight so cruelly imposed upon them, that we see people driving them before them in herds to drink at one little brunnen” (p. [91–2]).
Our supposed “Old Man” is by no means singular in his opinions. The celebrated Roman physician Baglivi, who, from practising extensively among Catholics, had ample opportunities of observation, mentions that in Italy an unusually large proportion of the sick recover during Lent, in consequence of the lower diet which is then observed as part of the religious duties. This is a striking fact, and gives unequivocal proof, not only in favour of temperance, but in evidence of the assertion that excess in quantity is a prevailing error in society.
Professor Caldwell, of Transylvania University, Kentucky, in one of his vigorously conceived and very instructive essays, inveighs eloquently against the intemperance of his countrymen in eating as well as in drinking, and tells them that one American consumes as much food as two Highlanders or two Swiss, although the latter are among the stoutest of the race. “Intemperate eating,” says he, “is perhaps the most universal fault we commit. We are all guilty of it, not occasionally, but habitually, and almost uniformly, from the cradle to the grave. It is the bane alike of our infancy and youth, our maturity and age. It is infinitely more common than intemperance in drinking; and the aggregate of the mischief it does is greater. For every reeling drunkard that disgraces our country, it contains one hundred gluttons—persons, I mean, who eat to excess and suffer by the practice.” How, indeed, he afterwards exclaims, can the case be otherwise, while children and youth are regularly taught, hired, bribed, or tempted, “to overeat themselves from their birth! Do you ask me for evidence in proof of this charge? Go to our dining-rooms, nurseries, fruit-shops, confectionaries, and pleasure-gardens,—go even to sick-rooms,—and you will find it in abundance. You will witness there innumerable scenes of gormandizing, not only productive of disease in those concerned in them, but in many instances offensive to beholders. The frightful mess often consists of all sorts of eatable materials, that can be collected and crowded together; and its only measure is the endurance of appetite and the capacity of the stomach. Like the ox in rich pasture-ground, or the swine at his swill trough, men stow away their viands until they have neither desire nor room for any more. I do not say that such eating matches always and every where occur among us. But I do say that they occur too frequently, and that they form fit subjects for caricature pictures, by European tourists, of our domestic manners. I add, however, that similar scenes present themselves in every country I have visited, where provisions are abundant and cheap.”[40]
This is a strongly drawn picture, but, with a modification in degree, it is perhaps not less applicable to our own and other European countries than to the United States. The “Old Man’s” description of German feeding is in its main features essentially the same; and, so far as my observation and experience go, it is only in a less degree that we fall short of our brethren in America. As a general rule, we also exceed, though not to the same extent. This is owing partly to our more advanced civilization, and partly to the greater difficulty of procuring the means of excess; and if I have resorted to Germany and the United States for the most striking illustrations of the principle, it is not from want of examples at home, but because we are so much more alive to the errors of our neighbours than to our own, that the principle involved in their commission will be more readily recognised when pointed out in them, than when its perception is made to imply condemnation of ourselves.