Such is the impetuosity of uncultivated or perverted human tendencies that the desire for acquisition, sometimes called greed, impels one to swallow one mouthful of food to take in another, without ever dreaming that the very last contribution of taste to the last remnant of a delicious morsel is like the last flicker of a candle, more brilliant than any of the preceding ones. In eating, the last taste, when saliva, the medium of taste, is most perfectly in possession of the solution, is better than all the other stages of the process. It is the choicest and sweetest expression of the incident, as related to each mouthful. Then why not court it and obey, thereby, Nature's first law of health?
Before proceeding further with a description of its functions it may be well to state briefly the certain result of following the guidance and heeding the warnings of taste.
Taste determines the mastication of food so that the requisite quantity of saliva and other juices of the mouth are added in transit, so that the stomach and the intestines will have the least possible to do in the matter of conversion of the food to blood, and so that the brain and nerve centres will be taxed the least possible to assist the stomach and intestines in their work.
If Taste is heeded in its invitation and its warnings, that which passes into the stomach will be so suitable and ready for nourishment of the body that the smallest possible quantity will serve the purpose and almost no waste will be left to tax and disease the lower intestines, while the absence of fatally inharmonious deposits in the tissue and bone will cease to exist in proportion to the skill with which one interprets the warnings of Taste, and in response to the care taken in following them.
DISEASE PREVENTED
It is said that none of the microbes of disease can live an instant, and hence cannot propagate, in a perfectly healthy human tissue. It is possible to secure the perfectly healthy human tissue, to both the generally healthy and to those who are afflicted, unless too far gone to reform, by keen attention to the direction of Taste, and the reward of the attention is manifold. The actual pleasure derived from eating under the direction of the method suggested herein cannot be equalled by any other means.
While cheerfulness, hopefulness, good nature, charity and all the mental good qualities are splendid forced-draughts of oxygenised impulse that assist the stomach in consuming and otherwise in taking care of any erratic or excessive food supply, and are able to help take care of a moderate glut of material; Taste, if allowed to serve its full purpose, furnishes its own draught of cheerfulness by means of the very pleasure it distributes, and at the same time it prevents, instead of inducing, gluttony.