THE NECESSITY OF A SCIENTIFIC FOOD SYSTEM.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 274, 28 April 1875, Page 4

THE NECESSITY OF A SCIENTIFIC FOOD SYSTEM.

{Pall Mall Budget ) Who can jump the river of ignorance at once and land on the opposite shore of perfect knowledge? No one; and if desirable to make such a heroic leap, it would not be profitable. Knowledge must be gained and developed gradually, that the receptivity of the brain may adapt itself to it ; we can therefore not promise to teach a scientific food system in a week, by one article, for we would rather first awaken the minds of our readers to its necessity. So let us take things as they are, in the first instance. Is it necessary that we should know anything about food at all in any other sense than that empirical wisdom which fries and boils, stews and roasts meats, fish, and fowl { which boils vegetables and stews fruits, and bakes both, combined with farinaceous foods ? Can we not continue to rest and be satisfied that cooking is still a black art, used in regions below, by executants who have to serve for years before the goddess of cookery is propitiated and will give them her diplomas ? What need we know more of food than that it tastes nice when well cooked and handsomely served ; that there are numbers of people who have to get it for us, and are paid accordingly ? That the farmer, the market-gardener, the butcher, baker, grocer, &c, &c, are all busy to procure it for the public every day of their lives, What need we care where .it comes from? whether it suits our constitution, our occupation, and our requirements ? Whether it is so assimilative to us, that our blood becomes quickened by its imperceptibleinfluence, and creates within us a power that defies difficulties, and a harmony that makes us sympathetic ? Whether we have so studied natural supply, and are so careful to keep its value intact, that we really can save half of the amount we now waste ? What need we care! Let us be thankful to leave things as they are, paying exorbitant prices for life’s sustenance and suffering under it ; allowing experts to buy for us, and select for us, and cook for us, till we sit down contentedly to a meal, the value of which is small and the cost exorbitant, and from which we rise rather worse than better, with the extra sensation, that for the time being it tasted very nice, but left us feeling a little uncomfortable.

And is that the nourishing process designed by nature and to be fashioned by human wisdom for its end ? Does the rose feel uncomfortable when the dew of heaven has moistened its lips and the ray of the sun has quickened its pulse ? Does the oak feel fulsome when its roots are gently drawing nourishment from the earth and the rain has watered its branches? Is the tuber,out of sorts when it stretches its growth downward to suck nourishment from the moisture of the soil ? Finally, do the grape, the peach, the apple, and the pear have troublesome sensations when the warmth of summer ripens their luscious pulps? Again, in the animal kingdom, the cow nor the sheep need take digestive pills after their feed of grass, nor the fish when it seeks food in the brine of the sea, nor the deer as it bounds through the forest and gnaws the leaves of the underwood, nor the bird as it picks the lost corn in the farmer’s yard. Where should their doctors, their medicines come from ? Nature provided none but in the corrective medium of their own digestive powers. Man, however, put aside natural ideas, and grasping the powers over all other organisms, applied them to his wants. The state he found the natural substances in was not sufficiently at similative, since he locked himself up in close houses, narrow streets and large towns, and covered himself with more clothing than he needed ; so he invented a further ripening process than Mother Nature’s, and softened natural substances still more by heat, while combining them in various way, till he created a method of his own, and the method turning round upon him, originated wants of its own. Both have been going on for centuries in trying to out-do each other. System there was none ; scientific principle there was none. All was confusion of idea and self-created enjoyment in practice ; and man’s palate became at last so vitiated that he is at this very hour working hard to gain the means for ruining his own health, and making him the crippled, selfish, excitable being he is, when a true knowledge of food processes would let him crush inferiority of development with the iron heel of sound views.

Suppose, then, that we became anxious, taught by nature’s processes, not to be content, but to look a little into the matter; that we were eager to let our reason predominate, and determined to annihilate the incongruity of starving while there is plenty, and of suffering w>hen we could enjoy ; how can we, verity our purpose, and reach such a consummation ? How can we at last look at ourselves and say, “ I will know what it means that one organism is made to nourish the other, and I will so unite this knowledge to the practical procedure of pieparing it for absorption, that I shall lose none of the natural richness of substance and its nourishing property. I will not be imposed upon through negligence, but see to my best interests for myself, and take my health into my own hands ; and I will diligently follow up the scientific teaching of my requirements and their equivalents, with the practical art how best to prepare such equivalents for my assimilation, that the whol-’ process shall become a delightful knowledge, teaching me the beauty of aature’s ways, and helping me

to drive from our land that horrid incubus of half nourished men, women, and children. Then only can I say that I begin to live, and am not a helpless ignoramus, at the mercy of everyone who can exercise his or her black art upon me.” Such a necessity of learning a scientific food system demands, however, also good appliances. If heat is necessary to make food assimilative, how is it to be applied ? Nature surrounds, in her ripening process,' all substances with protective rinds, skins, hides, leaves, peels, &c, while the sun’s rays exercise their power on them. Man robs the substances of these protective mediums, and then, exposing the inner matter, throws them unprotected into cauldrons of boiling water, to suck out all goodness in them, or exposes the raw flesh of animal organisms to the scorching, dry heat of glowing fires, consuming its really nourishing juices. The final step to a graduated food system must comprise the invention of such appliances and utensils as will carry out a more rational preparation, saving the real essence of the foods.

Built on this graduated system of finding out our necessities under all conditions, seeking their equivalents in natural substances, and combining as well as preparing them scientifically, or according to fixed principles, we shall teach the food question theoretically and practically.