Chewing Prevents Over-Eating

By complete mastication, hunger is satisfied with one-half or even less than half The food usually eaten, and thus it prevents "over-eating," which is the soil in which nearly all diseases have their root. It promotes the secretion and admixture of saliva with the foods, and thus makes a chemical change in many foods which is absolutely essential to perfect digestion and assimilation. By breaking up solid food to minuteness, it relieves the stomach of the avoidable and enervating task of mechanically disintegrating the food, and thus contributes largely toward the chemical disintegration necessary to digestion.

Every voluntary chew intended to reach the point where the swallowing is an involuntary act of the muscles of deglutition, saves unnecessary involuntary or peristaltic muscular action of the stomach and intestines. Our sense of taste cannot be relied upon to determine the quantity of food we should eat, unless we masticate it completely, and unless our sense of taste is normal, in which case it will not only select the right foods, but will reject the unwholesome ones.

Chew More

The simple chewing of food of itself is sufficient to cause an abundant outflow of gastric juice. The more chewing, the more (Secretion. The less chewing, the less secretion; so that chew more and eat less is the needful thing. There is necessity also for long and thorough chewing of the food. The longer the food is held in the mouth, the greater the impression made on the nerves of taste. Through these nerves the appetite centre is stimulated, and from this centre are sent out to the stomach powerful nervous impulses by which the glands are excited to activity whereby powerful appetite juice is produced. When food is swallowed quickly, its various flavours are very little appreciated, and the excitation produced must be very small; hence the amount of juice will be very small in the mouth, whereas if the food is retained in the mouth and masticated until every particle of sapid substance is extracted from it. the greatest amount of good, possible, will be derived from it, and the largest amount of juice produced. When food is eaten in this way, an abundance of gastric juice will be produced for its digestion, whereas when food is eaten in the ordinary hasty manner, the taste is swallowed with it, the palate is stimulated only to a moderate extent, very little appetite juice is produced, and digestion fails in consequence.

The stomach muscles which operate the glands that secrete the gastric juice are involuntary muscles over which we have no direct control, and consequently we cannot produce gastric juice at will by introducing food into the stomach, as we can saliva in the mouth by chewing food. The secretion of gastric juice is dependent upon involuntary muscular power of the stomach and real hunger. It will be seen that by using the powerful voluntary muscles of the jaws we can save the involuntary muscles of the stomach.

Eat Less. Full Stomach

While contrary to the commonly accepted idea, conversation is liable to seriously interfere with the proper mastication of food, and distract the attention from the pleasure of eating, which should be all absorbing for the time. The Hindoo Sages of antiquity considered eating a kind of sacrament, to be engaged in abstemiously and silently. The Pythagorean sect ate in profound silence. Shakers never speak at the table, unless in receiving or passing food. In any case, whether in hilarious mood or Quaker-like silence, the all essential thing is thorough and complete mastication of the food. When eating, one's entire attention should be concentrated on his food, the all absorbing pleasure of eating, of gratifying the sense of taste, should command the entire attention during a meal. This is the first and foremost thing. When an individual is a rapid eater, conversation in some instances acts as a "brake" on him, if so, all the better. An individual should have his mind on his food before him and not on business affairs in his office. Until business is finished or business cares can be thrown aside entirely, one should not eat. Many a man eats his noon-day meal when his brain is at a "white hot" heat. A brain full of ideas and a stomach full of food do not go well together; one or the other should be empty.