XI
CONDIMENTS, SPICES, ETC.
We now come to consider the various “food accessories,” as they are called—meaning the various condiments, etc., which go to make unappetising food palatable! If the food were natural to the organism, it should need no such appetisers: but I let that pass. Let us consider the relative values of these articles of diet, and see how far each of them may be considered as necessary and beneficial to the human organism. I shall begin with the one in most common use, and one that the majority think they cannot live without—salt!
Salt.—The arguments in favour of salt-eating, as found in the books, may be summarised thus:
1. It is natural to man, the habit being universal.
2. It is necessary to life. Human beings deprived of it die.
3. Wild and domestic animals crave and seek it.
4. It is an invariable constituent of the solids and fluids of the body; hence it must be supplied.
5. Cattle, when given it, increase greatly in weight, so that if not itself food, it may take the place of food by making it “go further.”
6. It retards the waste of the system, and in this way may prolong life.