27. Rules for eating.—If we eat as we should, our stomach will digest its food. We must follow three rules.
First, we must chew the food in the mouth until all the lumps are fine. Then the food will be ready for the stomach.
Second, we must eat slowly. If we eat fast we cannot chew the food well. The stomach cannot take care of food if it comes too fast. We must swallow all of one mouthful before we put another into the mouth.
Third, we must eat only at meal times. The stomach needs a rest. Even a little candy, or apples, or nuts will keep the stomach at work, and tire it out. A child needs to eat more often than his father. So, besides his meals, he should have something to eat in the middle of the morning and some more in the afternoon. But he should not be eating at all hours. He ought not to eat little bits just before dinner, for that spoils his meal.
WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED
1. The stomach and intestine stir and rub the food, and mix it with juices.
2. The juices change albumin to a liquid, and starch to sugar. They also change fat to the form of tiny drops.
3. The digested food soaks through the sides of the intestine into the blood tubes.
4. The blood carries the food to the liver.
5. The liver changes food to blood.