[16] The Cook’s Oracle.—Preface, p. xxxv.
DIETETICAL REMARKS ON THE CHOICE AND QUANTITY OF FOOD.
Almost every person who can afford it, eats more than is requisite for promoting the growth, and renewing the strength and waste of his body. It would be ridiculous to speak concerning the precise quantity of food necessary to support the body of different individuals. Such rules do not exist in nature. The particular state or condition of the individual, the variety of constitution, and other circumstances, must be taken into account. If, after dinner, we feel ourselves as cheerful as before, we may be assured that we have made a dietetical meal.
Much has been said of temperance. The fact is, that there is an absolute determined standard of temperance, the point of which must be fixed by every man’s natural and unprovoked appetite, while he continues in a state of health. As long as a person who pursues a right habit of life, eats and drinks no more than his stomach calls for and will bear, without occasioning uneasiness of any kind to himself, he may be said to live temperate. The stomach revolts against the reverse of it; indeed, the stomach is the grand organ of the human system, it is the conscience of the body, and like that, will become uneasy if all is not right within; it speaks pretty plainly to those who lead an intemperate life.
“We may compare,” says Doctor Kitchener, “the human frame to a watch, of which the heart is the main spring, the stomach the regulator, and what we put into it, the key, by which the machine is set a-going; according to the quantity, quality, and proper digestion of what we eat and drink will be the action of the system: and when a due proportion is preserved between the quantum of exercise and that of excitement, all goes well. If the machine be disordered, the same expedients are employed for its re-adjustment, as are used by the watch-maker; it must be carefully cleaned and then judiciously oiled. To affirm that such a thing is wholesome, or unwholesome, without considering the subject in all the circumstances to which it bears relation, and the unaccountable idiosyncrasies of particular constitutions is, with submission, talking nonsense. Every man must consult his stomach; whatever agrees with that perfectly well, is wholesome for him, whilst it continues to do so whenever natural appetite calls for food.”
Celsus spoke very right when he said that a healthy man ought not to tie himself up by strict rules, nor to abstain from any sort of food; that he ought sometimes to fast, and sometimes to feast. When applied to eating, nothing is more true than the proverb—
“Bonarum rerum consuetudo pessima est.—Syrus.
“The too constant use, even of good things, is hurtful.”
It is certainly better to restrain ourselves, so as to use, but not to abuse, our enjoyments; and to this we may add the opinion of doctor Fothergil, which the experience of every individual confirms, namely, that “the food we fancy most, sits easiest on the stomach.”
What has been so far stated on the choice and quantity of food to be taken at a time, of course, relates only to persons in a state of health; the diet of the delicate, the sickly, and the infirm, must be regulated by the physician, and even the aged require particular kinds of food.