Overeating and Control of Appetite
375
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 consideration. 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,
can not immediately relish a plain, wholesome, and nutritious diet.
Their taste is so perverted that 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 can not at first enjoy plain food, they should
fast until they can. That fast will prove to them of greater benefit than
medicine, for the abused stomach will find that rest which it has long
needed, and real hunger can be satisfied with a plain diet. It will take
time for the taste to recover from the abuses which it has received, and
to gain its natural tone. But perseverance in a self-denying course of
eating and drinking will soon make plain, wholesome food palatable,
and it will soon be eaten with greater satisfaction than the epicure
enjoys over his rich dainties.
The stomach is not fevered with meat, and over-taxed, but is in a
healthy condition, and can readily perform its task. There should be
no delay in reform. Efforts should be made to preserve carefully the
remaining strength of the vital forces, by lifting off every over-tasking
burden. The stomach may never fully recover health, but a proper
course of diet will save further debility, and many will recover more
or less, unless they have gone very far in gluttonous self-murder.
Those who permit themselves to become slaves to a gluttonous
appetite, often go still further, and debase themselves by indulging