It is needless to say that ginger, spices, nutmeg, cinnamon, and all that class of condiments, however much they may vary in quality, are stimulating to a greater or a less degree, and must be put in the list of “things forbidden” in the hygienic dietary. The habit, every year increasing, of using spices and condiments in almost every article of food, and in such large quantities, cannot be too severely condemned. The end must be hopeless indigestion, with prostration of the nerves which supply the digestive organs, and detriment or ruin to the entire system.
In the language of Sylvester Graham:
“The stern truth is, that no purely stimulating substance of any kind can be habitually used by man, without injury to the whole nature.”
Nor does Dr Graham stand alone in his views upon this subject. Pereira says:
“The relish for flavouring or seasoning ingredients manifested by every person, would lead us to suppose that these substances serve some useful purpose beyond that of merely gratifying the palate. At present, however, we have no evidence that they do. They stimulate, but do not seem to nourish. The volatile oil they contain is absorbed, and then thrown out of the system, still possessing its characteristic odour.”
Dr Beaumont is essentially of the same opinion. He remarks:
“Condiments, particularly those of a spicy kind, are non-essential to the process of digestion in a healthy state of the system. They afford no nutrition. Though they may assist the action of a debilitated stomach for a time, their continued use never fails to produce an indirect debility of that organ. They affect it as alcohol and other stimulants do—the present relief afforded is at the expense of future suffering.”
In doing away with spices and condiments we must also dispense with pickles; there is nothing in a pickle to redeem it from hopeless condemnation. The spices in it are bad, and the vinegar is a seething mass of rottenness, full of animalculæ, and the poor little innocent cucumber, or other vegetable, if it had a little “character” in the beginning, must now fall into the ranks of the “totally depraved.”
Mustard.—Dr William Tibbles, in his “Food and Hygiene,” p. 213, says: