One of the objections usually provoked by the suggestion that all tasteless residue remaining in the mouth after the taste or nutriment has been dissolved out of it should be removed is generally expressed in this wise, "How is it possible to remove refuse from the mouth while eating without appearing disgusting to others at table? You have to swallow things to get rid of them."

This is merely a bugbear prejudice. It has no good reason.

Do you not remove cherry pits, grape skins, the shell of lobster, bone, etc., when you encounter them? Then why not remove the fibrous matter found in tough lean meat, the woody fibre of vegetables or anything rejected by instinctive desire to discard it after taste has been exhausted, and which is a protection provided by beneficent Nature? In well selected and well cooked food there is little found that the juices of the mouth in connection with the teeth cannot take care of and prepare so as to be acceptable to Nature's Food Filter.

If fibre is found in the food it can be put upon the fork in the same manner that a cherry pit is usually handled and transferred to the plate without observation.

Another fancied objection to thorough mastication is that it interferes with the sociability of a meal.

This is also a senseless bugbear. It is true that one cannot converse freely with large morsels of food in the mouth. It is also true that it is nothing less than a gluttonous custom to greedily take a big mouthful of food, and, if accosted with a question, to bolt it in order to answer.

It will be found easy to carry on conversation without disagreeable interruption and yet follow Nature's demands in properly masticating food by taking small morsels into the mouth. It will be found also to add to the real pleasure of eating, and eventually will become a habit by choice.

Another objection raised by those who are afflicted with the habit of gluttony is the lack of time permitted by their business occupation.

The time needed to appease the natural appetite of a hearty and active man, to compensate for the daily waste and keep the weight at normal, is from thirty to forty-five minutes for twenty-four hours.[8] This requires attention and industrious mastication. Divided into three meals it is less than a quarter of an hour for each meal.

Epicurean habits, however, incline one away from three meals a day and make two meals sufficient for ordinary activity.

One objector, on the spur of momentary discussion, claimed that in travelling by railway the time allowed for eating would not permit Epicurean methods.

The author arrived at Mobile, Ala., recently with a workingman's appetite and had only twenty minutes in which to get off the train, on again, and satisfy the appetite. There is an excellent lunch counter now at Mobile, and on the counter there was a tempting array of things to eat and drink. Appetite chose at once a fat, rich ham sandwich,[9] a glass of creamy milk and a hexagonal segment of a mince pie. The twenty minutes was ample time for disposing of the sandwich and the milk, and meantime the mince pie had been wrapped in silk paper and placed in a paper bag to furnish Epicurean enjoyment for twenty miles on the road, enhanced by the beauty of a panoramic landscape.

If I had crammed the pie and the sandwich and the milk into my stomach in seven or eight minutes, which, by actual observation, is the gluttonous rate of despatching a station meal, I would have lost two-thirds of nutriment, more than one-half of taste and would have perhaps taken on twenty-four hours of discomfort, possibly inviting a cold. I would have created an "open door" for any migrating microbes that were floating about in my atmosphere looking for strained tissue or fermenting food in which to build their disease nests.

Observation proves that you do not get much more nutriment out of your food than saliva prepares in some way for digestion, gulp though you may, but you can take in a load of disease possibilities in trying to force the food past or otherwise evade proper salivation.

SPIT IT OUT

Whatever does not insalivate easily is surely dangerous.

There is nothing more pronounced of expression by its influence on inclination than the impulsive desire to spit out of the mouth anything that seems unprofitable to the senses.

INSTINCTIVE DISCRIMINATION

Muscles have been provided for this purpose (separating, collecting, and spitting-out anything which the instincts protest against) that are more facile than those of an elephant's proboscis, and these muscles move things to and fro in the mouth or expel them if they are undesirable.

If you acquire the habit of consulting the Swallowing Impulse and practise only involuntary swallowing in eating you will find that these muscles are very discriminating and will instinctively assist in the rejection of unprofitable matter.

Their sense of touch will soon discriminate against unprofitable food even when the sense of taste is fooled by some alluring sauce or condiment.

Nature is truly a marvel of good sense if you give her a chance to express her likes and dislikes without restraint.

Natural Appetite is the best possible judge of what the system needs, and the senses which Nature's Food Chemist employs in her work are unerring in their selection whenever they are permitted to act as intended by Nature.

GIVE NATURE A TRIAL

Try Nature's way for a week or a month and you will never have a desire to be even mildly gluttonous again.

One week of faithful trial without lapses should fix a habit of consulting involuntary swallowing as an automatic guide in eating so that attention will not have to be strained to heed it.

One week of constant attention to obeying Nature's demands in eating will so impress its usefulness on the student of Epicureanism that an accidental act of forced swallowing will be a shock to the sensibility.

One week of obedience of Nature's simple requirements will demonstrate that she imposes no penalties for following her natural requirements, but only for disobedience of her protective laws.

One week of earnest, open-minded study of Nature's first principle of life—nutrition—will convert a pitiable glutton into an intelligent and ardent Epicurean.

DIFFERENCES

Individuals differ greatly in the quantity of the supply of the juices of the mouth which are active in salivation. They differ so much that it is safe to say that no two have equal provision.

One person may dispose of a morsel of bread in thirty mastications so that the last vestige of it has disappeared by involuntary process into the stomach. Another person, of similar general health appearance, selecting as nearly as possible an equal morsel of bread, may require fifty acts of mastication before the morsel has disappeared. The next week, by some change of conditions this order may be reversed. While there may be some structural or chemical difference in the two morsels of bread, this is not sufficient to account for the different mastications required. The dissimilarity lies in the difference of the copiousness and strength of the secretions at the time of trial.

This liability to changed conditions would constitute a serious danger if it were not for the protective Food Filter, or, Reflex of Deglutition, which Van Someren has so well described in the "A.B.-Z;" and whenever mouth-treatment of anything to be ingested is neglected, and forced swallowing—hasty bolting of food or gulping of liquid food—is indulged in, this protection is eluded and the danger is converted into actual internal self-abuse.

WARNING

Above all things don't strain to be careful. Strain inhibits—paralyses—all of the glandular functions and deranges the nervous nicety of adjustment. Just eat slowly, deliberately, small morsels, and sip and taste small quantities of liquids and observe what happens. You will soon learn to Know yourself and "Know Thyself" has been the advice of all the sages from the beginning of time.

GLADSTONE'S RULE

Numbers of mastications as related to given quantities and kinds of foods are no guide to be relied upon.

Gladstone's dictum, "Chew each morsel of food at least thirty-two times," was of little value except as a general suggestion. Some morsels of food will not resist thirty-two mastications, while others will defy seven hundred.

The author has found that one-fifth of an ounce of the midway section of the garden young onion, sometimes called "challot," has required seven hundred and twenty-two mastications before disappearing through involuntary swallowing. After the tussle, however, the young onion left no odour upon the breath and joined the happy family in the stomach as if it had been of corn-starch softness and consistency.

It will be difficult, without actual demonstration, to convince the advocates of "Total Abstinence" that any whisky can be taken in a seemingly harmless form, but it is true that thorough insalivation of beer, wine or spirits, until disappearance by involuntary swallowing, robs them of their power to intoxicate, partly because appetite will tolerate but little.

TEMPERANCE PROMOTED

As a matter of fact, whisky taken in this analytical way is a sure means of breaking up desire for it, and it is an excellent protection in drinking as well as eating. Many of our test-subjects have been steady and some have been heavy drinkers but persistent attention to Buccal-Thoroughness has cured all of them of any desire for alcohol and in time it surely leads to complete intolerance of it.

It is also true that, taken in the way suggested, the body refuses to tolerate more than sips and thimblefuls of these liquids and then only on rare occasions, so that the Epicurean habit is the best possible insurance of temperance.

NORMAL CONDITIONS RESTORED

While the difference in the supply of the juices of the mouth is an important factor in digestion, insufficiency need not cause alarm. Nature is so gladly and quickly recuperative that the moment abuses of her functions are stopped she begins to repair damages and re-establish normal conditions.

One of the subjects who submitted himself to experiment was found to be woefully deficient in saliva and, was a pitiable dyspeptic, but, as the result of patient mastication, the secretions gradually increased until they were ample, and dyspeptic symptoms disappeared even long before the secretions became normal. The strain of excessive and (acid) fermenting food being removed, the acute discomfort was at once allayed even before the repair was complete.

"KNOW THYSELF"

"Know Thyself" has been the admonition of sages from earliest times. "Become acquainted with your Normal Instincts, with Appetite and with your food chemist, Taste, and follow their directions with implicit confidence," is the admonition taught by our experiments, for they can lead you to robust health and greatly increased vigour of body and mind. Study and heed them patiently for a week and you will follow their invitations and warnings through life.

Thorough repair of an impaired body may not be effected immediately, although wonderful results—almost miraculous—have been attained in three months; but a week's faithful and attentive study of the possibilities of Epicureanism, with right alimentation as its basic requirement, in adding to the comfort and enjoyment of life will result in right eating being made philosophically and religiously habitual, and will give a backbone of Epicurean character that will not easily succumb to gluttonous impetuosity.