Quantity an important factor
The particular condition of the patient often reveals certain special requirements which must be dealt with according to the symptoms given off by the body. Many of these combinations, when taken under certain conditions, may appear disagreeable, but this can be overcome by leveling the proportions and limiting the quantity. Quantity is of very great importance for the reason that the most perfect selections of food can be made and blended into perfect chemical harmony, and still disagree with the normal stomach if a quantity is taken in excess of physical demands.
The use of these tables will serve to bring to the student's attention the advantage to be gained from a health-giving and curative point of view, as well as from simplicity in diet.
In considering the chemical harmony of foods, the student should keep in mind the time required for digestion, which involves not only the question of combining foods at the same meal, but also the taking, within a few hours after eating, of other articles that may produce chemical inharmony. For example: Milk, cereals, and sweet fruits are in chemical harmony, but a lemonade introduced into the stomach an hour or two later would produce inharmony, and be almost as harmful as if it had been taken with the meal.
Instinct a safe guide, if cultivated
There are many injurious combinations which the student will learn to omit from a sense of taste and instinct, and while our instincts have in many cases ceased to guide us aright, they will rapidly return and assume command if given a fair opportunity.
The perfect meal can be made from three or four articles, and the entire menu can be changed three times a day, but to take eight, ten, or a dozen things at the same meal, puts the quantity, as well as every article composing the meal, into jeopardy.
After one has eaten a sufficient quantity of food, and the taste has signalled "ENOUGH," something sweet or pungent is introduced. This puts into activity another set of taste buds which will accept a given quantity of another food. However, the stomach has already given off one signal of "enough," hence every pennyweight taken in excess of that amount is that much more than should be eaten.
In order to simplify the making of harmonious combinations, I have grouped the foods whose use I recommend in nine different divisions. A further subdivision of vegetables and fruits might have been made, but this would have increased the number of groups, making them more complicated and less practical.