The Science of Being Well By Wallace Delois Wattles --- 11 CHAPTER 11. HOW TO EAT

CHAPTER 11. HOW TO EAT

It is a settled fact that man naturally chews his food. The few faddists who
maintain that we should bolt our nourishment, after the manner of the dog
and others of the lower animals, can no longer get a hearing; we know that
we should chew our food.
And if it is natural that we should chew our food, the more thoroughly we
chew it the more completely natural the process must be. If you will chew
every mouthful to a liquid, you need not be in the least concerned as to
what you shall eat, for you can get sufficient nourishment out of any
ordinary food.
Whether or not this chewing shall be an irksome and laborious task or a
most enjoyable process, depends upon the mental attitude in which you
come to the table.
If your mind and attitude are on other things, or if you are anxious or
worried about business or domestic affairs, you will find it almost impossible
to eat without bolting more or less of your food. You must learn to live so
scientifically that you will have no business or domestic cares to worry
about; this you can do, and you can also learn to give your undivided
attention to the act of eating while at the table.
When you eat, do so with an eye single to the purpose of getting all the
enjoyment you can from that meal; dismiss everything else from your mind,
and do not let anything take your attention from the food and its taste until
your meal is finished. Be cheerfully confident, for if you follow these
instructions you may KNOW that the food you eat is exactly the right food,
and that it will "agree" with you to perfection.
Sit down to the table with confident cheerfulness, and take a moderate
portion of the food; take whatever thing looks the most desirable to you. Do
not select some food because you think it will be good for you; select that
which will taste good to you. If you are to get well and stay well, you must
drop the idea of doing things because they are good for your health, and do
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things because you want to do them. Select the food you want most;
gratefully give thanks to God that you have learned how to eat it in such a
way that digestion shall be perfect; and take a moderate mouthful of it.
Do not fix your attention on the act of chewing; fix it on the TASTE of the
food; and taste and enjoy it until it is reduced to a liquid state and passes
down your throat by involuntary swallowing. No matter how long it takes,
do not think of the time. Think of the taste.
Do not allow your eyes to wander over the table, speculating as to what you
shall eat next; do not worry for fear there is not enough, and that you will
not get your share of everything. Do not anticipate the taste of the next
thing; keep you mind centered on the taste of what you have in your mouth.
And that is all of it.
Scientific and healthful eating is a delightful process after you have learned
how to do it, and after you have overcome the bad habit of gobbling down
you food unchewed. It is best not to have too much conversation going on
while eating; be cheerful, but not talkative; do the talking afterward.
In most cases, some use of the will is required to form the habit of correct
eating. The bolting habit is an unnatural one, and is without doubt mostly
the result of fear. Fear that we will be robbed of our food; fear that we will
not get our share of the good things; fear that we will lose precious time -
these are the causes of haste.
Then there is anticipation of the dainties that are to come for dessert, and
the consequent desire to get at them as quickly as possible; and there is
mental abstraction, or thinking of other matters while eating. All these must
be overcome.
When you find that your mind is wandering, call a halt; think for a moment
of the food, and of how good it tastes; of the perfect digestion and
assimilation that are going to follow the meal, and begin again. Begin again
and again, though you must do so twenty times in the course of a single
meal; and again and again, though you must do so every meal for weeks and
months.
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It is perfectly certain that you CAN form the "Fletcher habit" if you
persevere; and when you have formed it, you will experience a healthful
pleasure you have never known.
This is a vital point, and I must not leave it until I have thoroughly impressed
it upon your mind. Given the right materials, perfectly prepared, the
Principle of Health will positively build you a perfectly healthy body; and you
cannot prepare the materials perfectly in any other way that the one I am
describing.
If you are to have perfect health, you MUST eat in just this way; you can, and
the doing of it is only a matter of a little perseverance. What use for you to
talk of mental control unless you will govern yourself in so simple a matter
as ceasing to bolt you food? What use to talk of concentration unless you
can keep your mind on the act of eating for so short a space as fifteen or
twenty minutes, especially with all the pleasures of taste to help you?
Go on, and conquer. In a few weeks, or months, as the case may be, you will
find the habit of scientific eating becoming fixed; and soon you will be in so
splendid a condition, mentally and physically, that nothing would induce you
to return to the bad old way.
We have seen that if man will think only thoughts of perfect health, his
internal functions will be performed in a healthy manner; and we have seen
that in order to think thoughts of health, man must perform the voluntary
functions in a healthy manner. The most important of the voluntary
functions is that of eating; and we see, so far, no especial difficulty in eating
in a perfectly healthy way.
I will here summarize the instructions as to when to eat, what to eat, and
how to eat, with the reasons herefore:
NEVER eat until you have an EARNED hunger, no matter how long you go
without food. This is based on the fact that whenever food is needed in the
system, if there is power to digest it, the sub-conscious mind announces the
need by the sensation of hunger. Learn to distinguish between genuine
hunger and the gnawing and craving sensations caused by unnatural
appetite.
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Hunger is never a disagreeable feeling, accompanied by weakness,
faintness, or gnawing feelings at the stomach; it is a pleasant, anticipatory
desire for food, and is felt mostly in the mouth and throat. It does not come
at certain hours or at stated intervals; it only comes when the sub-conscious
mind is ready to receive, digest, and assimilate food.
Eat whatever foods you want, making your selection from the staples in
general use in the zone in which you live. The Supreme Intelligence has
guided man to the selection of these foods, and they are the right ones for
all.
I am referring, of course, to the foods which are taken to satisfy hunger, not
to those which have been contrived merely to gratify appetite or perverted
taste. The instinct which has guided the masses of men to make use of the
great staples of food to satisfy their hunger is a divine one. God has made no
mistake; if you eat these foods you will not go wrong.
Eat your food with cheerful confidence, and get all the pleasure that is to be
had from the taste of every mouthful.
Chew each morsel to a liquid, keeping your attention fixed on the enjoyment
of the process. This is the only way to eat in a perfectly complete and
successful manner; and when anything is done in a completely successful
manner, the general result cannot be a failure. In the attainment of health,
the law is the same as in the attainment of riches; if you make each act a
success in itself, the sum of all your acts must be a success.
When you eat in the mental attitude I have described, and in the manner I
have described, nothing can be added to the process; it is done in a perfect
manner and it is successfully done. And if eating is successfully done,
digestion, assimilation, and the building of a healthy body are successfully
begun. We next take up the question of the quantity of food required.