Page:Guide to health.djvu/70

 Since even the best of us are more or less guilty of over-eating, our wise forefathers have prescribed frequent fasts as a religious duty. Indeed, merely from the point of view of health, it will be highly beneficial to fast at least once a fortnight. Many pious Hindus take only one meal a day during the rainy season. This is a practice based upon the soundest hygienic principles. For, when the air is damp and the sky cloudy, the digestive organs are weaker than usual, and hence there should be a reduction in the quantity of food.

And now we will consider how many meals we may take in the day. Numberless people in India are content with only two meals. Those who do hard labour take three meals, but a system of four meals has arisen after the invention of English medicines! Of late, several societies have been formed in England and in America in order to exhort the people to take only two meals a day. They say that we should not take a breakfast early in the morning, since our sleep itself serves the purpose of the breakfast. As soon as we get up in the morning we should prepare to work rather than to eat. We should take our meal only after working for three hours. Those who hold these views take only two meals a day, and do not even take tea in the interval. An experienced doctor by name Deway has written an excellent book on