Much has been written on the necessity of making food tasty, so as to
stimulate the appetite and digestion. It is urged that unless this is done
food will not be eaten in sufficient quantity. Innumerable receipts (some
very elaborate) have been published for this purpose. All this is supposed
to increase the enjoyment of food. The Anglo-Saxon race--the race whose
dietary is the most elaborate--is especially subject to digestive
derangements, and without good digestion and the consequent healthy
appetite, no food will give full gustatory pleasure. The most wholesome
food, and that which can be eaten most frequently without weariness, is
mildly flavoured and simply prepared. Plain bread is an example; whereas
sweet bread, currant bread, etc., though agreeable in small quantity, or
as an occasional delicacy, soon palls on the appetite. Rice is the poorest
and mildest flavoured of the cereals, it is therefore often, perhaps
generally, made more tasty by the addition of fish, curry, etc. The bulk
of the Chinese live on rice, with the exception of only 3 or 4 ounces of
fish per day, and they are a fine, big and strong race. The Japanese
labourer lives on similar food. In India rice is the food most in use,
though many other cereals are eaten there. Other races live chiefly on
fruits. It appears that the digestive organs will perform their functions
perfectly with the mildest flavoured food. There is nothing surprising in
this. The strongest, most intelligent, and largest animals are those which
feed on grass, herbs and fruits. Even the African lion is no match for the
gorilla. The lion and tiger are capable of great strength, but they cannot
put it forth for long periods as can the herbivora. Our most useful
animal, the horse, can exert much more muscular energy, weight for weight,
than any of the carnivora. The cost of feeding one of the herbivora is
much less than that of one of the carnivora of the same weight. This is so
whether we take the cost of purchasing the food; or the expenditure of
time, labour and energy on the part of man or of natural forces in the
production of the food. Herbs, roots, corn and fruit are produced much
more abundantly and freely than the corresponding quantity of sheep, deer,
etc., on which the carnivora feed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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