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being kept constantly at work, disposing of food not the most healthful.
Having no time for rest, the digestive organs become enfeebled, hence
the sense of “goneness,” and desire for frequent eating. The remedy
such require is to eat less frequently and less liberally, and be satisfied
with plain, simple food, eating twice, or at most, three times a day.
The stomach must have its regular periods for labor and rest, hence
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eating irregularly between meals is a most pernicious violation of the
laws of health. With regular habits, and proper food, the stomach will
gradually recover.
Because it is the fashion, in harmony with morbid appetite, rich
cake, pies, and puddings, and every hurtful thing, are crowded into
the stomach. The table must be loaded down with a variety, or the
depraved appetite cannot be satisfied. In the morning, these slaves to
appetite often have impure breath, and a furred tongue. They do not
enjoy health, and wonder why they suffer with pains, headaches, and
various ills. Many eat three times a day, and again just before going to
bed. In a short time the digestive organs are worn out, for they have
had no time to rest. These become miserable dyspeptics, and wonder
what has made them so. The cause has brought the sure result. A
second meal should never be eaten until the stomach has had time to
rest from the labor of digesting the preceding meal. If a third meal be
eaten at all, it should be light, and several hours before going to bed.
Many are so devoted to intemperance that they will not change
their course of indulging in gluttony under any considerations. They
would sooner sacrifice health, and die prematurely, than to restrain
their intemperate appetite. And there are many who are ignorant of
the relation their eating and drinking has to health. Could such be
enlightened, they might have moral courage to deny the appetite, and
eat more sparingly, and of that food alone which was healthful, and by
their own course of action save themselves a great amount of suffering.
Persons who have indulged their appetite to eat freely of meat,
highly-seasoned gravies, and various kinds of rich cakes and preserves,
cannot immediately relish a plain, wholesome, and nutritious diet.
Their taste is so perverted they have no appetite for a wholesome diet
of fruits, plain bread and vegetables. They need not expect to relish
at first food so different from that which they have been indulging
themselves to eat. If they cannot at first enjoy plain food, they should
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fast until they can. That fast will prove to them of greater benefit than