There is no doubt but that our food should be thoroughly masticated
before it goes into our stomachs. There is no doubt but that the
first process of digestion should be in our mouths. The relish which
we get for our food by masticating it properly is greater and also
helps toward digesting it truly. All this cannot be over-emphasized
if it is taken in the right way. But there is an extreme which
perhaps has not been thought of and for which happily I have an
example that will illustrate what I want to prove. I know a woman
who was, so to speak, daft on the subject of health. She attended to
all points of health with such minute detail that she seemed to have
lost all idea of why we should be healthy. One of her ways of
over-emphasizing the road to health was a very careful mastication
of her food. She chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed, and the
result was that she so strained her stomach with her chewing that
she brought on severe indigestion, simply as a result of an
overactive effort toward digestion. This was certainly a case of
"vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, and falls on the other."
And it was not unique.
The over-emphasis of "What shall I eat? How much shall I eat? How
often shall I eat? When shall I eat? How shall I eat?"--all extreme
attention to these questions is just as liable to bring chronic
indigestion as a reckless neglect of them altogether is liable to
upset a good, strong stomach and keep it upset.
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