How to Eat | Page 7

so because it is helpful to his
wife. He sympathizes with her infirmity, and with fine self-denial eats
as she does. And note this: he usually derives benefit from so doing.
Time after time when I have put a nervous woman under this regimen,
and then her husband elected to go along with her, I have had the man
come to me and say: "Well, doctor, I declare I'm feeling a whole lot
better myself! I don't get sleepy any more during the daytime, and that
pain I used to have in the region of my liver is gone!" And so on and
on.
The fact is just this: anybody who follows the rules that I learned to
apply in my own case cannot fail to be benefited. And although those
not inclined to "nerves" can eat a greater variety of food, it's greatly to
be desired when there is a nervous person in a household of grownups
that all other members of the family enter together into this thing. It
could not fail to help every one of them. To be truthful, in the
beginning you will all find it mighty hard to persist in chewing all your
food to a cream. Mouthful after mouthful of food will get away from
you when you are not thinking. This just goes to show how we are in
the habit of bolting our food. At first people who Fletcherize or chew
their food perfectly, usually lose weight. I most certainly did. I lost
about twenty pounds because of it, but I was so well and felt so good I
could almost have jumped over the North Star.
I know that, unfortunately, a lot of people with "nerves" have started to
chew their food carefully and to eat sparingly, but the minute they
found themselves losing weight they were frightened and quit. They
went on carrying that ten or twenty or thirty pounds of flesh and all the
time suffering the tortures of the damned just in order that they might
keep it. But of what benefit are a certain number of extra pounds of
flesh and how can a man explain such a senseless action?
The astonishing thing is that many physicians are willing to condemn a

cure just as soon as they find the patient has lost a pound of beef. But
as I said before, the primary mission of man in this world is not to raise
beef. I do not find fault with the raising of beef in the feeding yards, but
if beef must be raised let us confine the industry to the cattle pens and
stock yards. Let us not worship it to the degree that we would rather
live in hell than part with a few extra pounds that overload our own
bodies.
Now just here I want it distinctly understood, as I have said before, that
this text is primarily for functional nervous cases. Tubercular people
belong to an entirely different class. They should live out of doors day
and night and should, if possible, be treated at outdoor institutions
established for such cases. But the individual with "nerves" will find
what he needs and will find it abundantly if he has enough
determination to take hold of it and keep at it.
On the part of many it will take all the determination they have to chew
their food to a cream and always eat sparingly. In regard to the amount
of food taken, judgment must of course be used. We all know that it is
possible to eat too little. But you should always quit eating while you
still feel you would like a little more. I know of no better guide than
this to offer you. But I have observed that the person who eats slowly
and chews his food to a cream never eats as much food as he would if
he bolted it. It is just like letting a thirsty horse drink water. I remember,
as a boy on the farm, when I led a very thirsty horse from the field to
the water tank how rapidly he would swallow. If my father were with
me, after the horse had drunk a while he would say, "Make him hold
his head up." Frequently when I did so the horse would draw a long
breath and drink no more. Had he gone right on drinking, as a thirsty
horse will if you permit him to do so, he might have drunk twice as
much as was good for him. And that's the way people eat. As a result
the horse that drinks and drinks and drinks when he is very thirsty
sometimes dies in a few hours. I have seen a horse die from drinking
too much water and I have