No discussion on foods would be complete without a repetition of the
frequently given warning, against fried meats and vegetables. Frying
coats the outside of the food with a layer of fat not easily penetrated
by the digestive juice and not acted on in the stomach. Therefore, all
fried food, unless thoroughly chewed and then only when the frying is
done in very hot fat so that it remains on the outside of the whole
piece, will pass through the stomach without being acted upon. Frying is
a quicker process than roasting, an advantage which appeals to the
American notion of haste, but it is better to begin the preparation of
the meal earlier and cook the meat by roasting or stewing and the
vegetables by boiling or baking rather than to postpone the preparation
of the meal until ten minutes before the hour and then fry everything.
_Muscular and psychic reactions._
Another factor in the power of the body to utilize the food values is
the condition of the body at the time of the meal. If the individual is
exhausted or even tired, no complete digestion is possible, and
particularly is this true if the exercise has involved excessive
perspiration. So in hot weather, a heavy meal should not be eaten until
after a half hour's rest and after copious water drinking to compensate
for that loss of perspiration.
Studies on the digestion of foods and on other matters pertaining
thereto have shown that the smell of food, or the mere suggestion of
food, stimulates the organs for the production of the digestive juices.
It is directly and literally correct, therefore, to say that one's mouth
waters for this or that food because the thought or anticipation of the
food, if pleasant, will actually cause the saliva to form and flow in
the mouth. This is true of the other digestive juices as well, so that
an appetizing fritter, for instance, showing the rich, brown crust will
stir up the bile, and when the fried cake reaches the opening into the
intestine, the bile will be there ready to act. This has been
demonstrated by putting into the stomach of sleeping dogs various kinds
of foods and finding that no digestive juices whatever were produced,
although with the dog awake and seeing the food before eating, the
juices began to flow in the usual fashion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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