Tea, Coffee and Other Stimulants.—Most persons know, I should imagine, that none of these drinks are suitable for the human stomach. In the first place, no drink at all should be taken at meals, but only between meals; the reason for this being that the digestive juices are unduly diluted and the food is washed through the stomach, and into the bowels, before it is properly digested, when water or any liquid is drunk at mealtimes. All drinks should, therefore, be between meals, and not for at least an hour after a meal, if we wish to ensure the best digestion of the foods eaten.
If this is true of water, the best of all drinks, it is certainly far more true of tea, coffee, and all other stimulants taken at meals. Not only are the effects detrimental (in that they are liquids), but they are of themselves more or less direct poisons also. Tea contains a poison known as theine, which corresponds to a similar poison contained in coffee, and known as caffeine. Both are strong poisons. Half a gram causes a quick pulse, nervous excitement, slight delusions, and lastly a desire for sleep. Small doses cause sleeplessness, irritability of the bladder and bowels, trembling of the extremities, and other signs of cerebral and nervous distress. Both these poisons work havoc with the system, ruining the nervous and mental life, and creating a dependence on stimulants, which may lead to alcoholic and other excesses. These poisons ruin the taste buds, retard proper digestion, cause constipation, and in many ways tend to ruin the constitution. They cannot be too strongly deprecated. Even cocoa contains injurious alkaloids, analogous to those contained in tea and coffee, and for that reason is to be avoided. Like all hot drinks, it tends to ruin the taste buds and induce a desire for more food than is needed, physiologically, and more than the system really requires. For that reason, also, all such drinks are to be avoided.
The injurious effects of alcohol, and all other similar stimulants are now so widely known that it is unnecessary to do more than refer to the fact here. Alcohol is never necessitated, and is detrimental at all times—more so at some times than at others. The widespread delusion that alcohol is a food; and, on the other hand, the idea that it actually furnishes “force” to the body, is responsible for much of the abuse which exists. Alcohol imparts no force and no energy to the system, but on the contrary wastes and expends both. Were this once thoroughly realised there would be no excuse whatever for the administration of alcohol, or its use in any form. But the injurious effects of alcohol have been discussed so frequently that I shall not do more than refer to it. (See the discussion of “Stimulants,” in my “Vitality, Fasting and Nutrition,” pp. 34-44.)
Water.—This is the beverage supplied by nature to furnish all the liquid the body requires; and water in a pure distilled state is contained in all vegetables, etc., and particularly in fruits. Fruitarians have often found that they can live in good health for weeks and months at a time without a drop of water—while keeping closely to their fruitarian diet. Nevertheless, water is very essential for the majority, and especially so upon an ordinary “mixed” diet. It will be found as a general rule that the more stimulating the food, the more water is required; and the same is true of all greasy foods. It is well known that all foods containing a large amount of salt call for water—this being due to the demand of the system for extra fluids, to wash out the offending and irritating substance. This fact alone should show us how harmful common salt is. The system clearly tries to wash it out of the tissues as soon as possible. Water containing any mineral substance in solution should be avoided. It is never beneficial, but always detrimental to the system. The mineral salts contained are just as injurious as if they were procured from the drug-shop, and taken in the usual way. Pure water is the best at all times—there is but one simple rule to follow in this connection: the purer, the better! Water should never be drunk at meals, but always between meals. It should be cool, but not ice cold. Hot water may occasionally be of benefit. A plentiful supply of water should be indulged in at all times. The secretions will thereby be increased in volume, the kidneys and liver stimulated into action, the blood rendered less thick, and the general system invigorated. I cannot speak too strongly in favour of large quantities of water each day—say from one to two quarts—if health is to be maintained. (This is of course on the ordinary “mixed” diet.) In all diseased conditions, the necessity for water is greatly increased, and the body is frequently rendered sick because of the very lack of it.
It is an interesting fact that water is the only article which is taken into the system that is not digested—in one sense of the term. All foods are digested, of course; and even air goes through a process which might well be called digestion. But water is not digested. It passes through the stomach, and into the bowels unchanged; it enters the system as water, and it leaves it as water, and any changes which are noted are simply due to the added salts and excreta which the water has washed through the body along with it. Of itself, it has undergone no change. This is a remarkable fact, and would serve to indicate the tremendous cleansing and flushing properties of water. Next to air, it is doubtless the most necessary article which the body can appropriate. A man can live sixty or more days on water (and air) without solid food; but he can live only ten or twelve days on solid food (and air) without water. It will thus be seen that water is far more essential to life than is solid food! It is of interest to note, also, that, in all hard manual labour, water is invariably craved long before solid food is called for by the tissues—i.e. thirst invariably returns before hunger.
Air and Breathing.—It is not generally known that all air taken into the lungs is digested—in one sense of the word—and that next to the last stage of all digestive processes is carried on in the lungs. For that reason a plentiful supply of fresh, pure air is so necessary. Every book we pick up upon the question of health and hygiene is most emphatic upon the value of fresh air; but few tell us why it is so necessary. The majority of persons know that a certain amount of oxygen is needed by the system, and that the blood is purified as it passes through the lungs, but they do not know that these processes are only the first crude outlines of what takes place, and that the processes carried on are both detailed and complicated. Further, as I have said, one of the stages of digestion is carried on in the lungs. The blood stream carries the food material to the lungs, and there it meets the oxygen of the atmospheric air, and becomes oxidised, and rendered appropriable by the system. It is important to bear in mind this important fact, that, no matter how much food we may eat, if it is not oxidised in this manner in the lungs, it cannot be appropriated by the system, and for that reason remains little better than refuse matter—floating at large in the system. That is, suppose we eat two pounds of food during the day, and breathe only enough (correspondingly) to oxidise one pound, only one pound will be utilised by the system, which will derive no benefit whatever from the other pound—no matter how good and nutritious the food may be! In fact, it will harm it, by floating about, as mal-assimilated food material. That is why deep breathing, and breathing fresh air is so essential. Without this supply of air, food would never nourish us, or be of any use whatever to the system.
XV
THE QUESTION OF QUANTITY
I have discussed this question of the quantity of food necessary for the human body so exhaustively in my former book, “Vitality, Fasting and Nutrition,” that I need say but little in this place, beyond re-emphasising what I there said. I may, however, add one or two further reflections that have arisen in my mind since the publication of that book, and which may be of interest to those who think about their food at all. This book is devoted to the quality of the various foods, as my last was devoted to the quantity; and the disproportionate size of the two volumes rightly indicates what I conceive to be the relative value or place of the two—viz. errors in quality and errors in quantity. I believe that, although errors in quality are tremendously important, errors in quantity are vastly more so, and that, as Dr Graham so well said, many years ago: “It is as a general rule strictly true that a correct quantity of a less wholesome aliment is better for man than an excessively small or an excessively large quantity of a more wholesome aliment.” So far as health and longevity are concerned, therefore, it is incomparably better for man to subsist on a correct quantity of vegetable and animal food, properly prepared, than habitually to indulge in an excessive quantity of pure vegetable food of the best kind, and prepared in the best manner; and the difference is still greater if the vegetable food be badly prepared. And it is solely from the want of a proper regard for this important truth, that many have been unsuccessful in their attempts to live exclusively upon a vegetarian diet.