Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/612

594 our daily food. For, if one, being over-anxious on this point, wished to avoid all danger by having all his food examined by a chemist, so as to apportion by weight the amount of this substance and of that which he should take, there is reason to fear that he would die of hunger long before the chemist had concluded the analysis. Fortunately, there is a better method of avoiding danger, and of this we wisely make use under other circumstances. When we would protect ourselves against the chance which gives up our houses to destruction by fire, or when we would secure our dependents against the accident which deprives us of life and them of a protector, we take out an insurance policy on house or life. But this insurance is not a transaction between two or three, but between hundreds of thousands and millions. A mutual insurance transacted between three persons were a game of chance, between millions it is a sure calculation. We defeat chance, when we share it with others. To apply all this to the matter in hand: we must not restrict ourselves to a few articles of food, but must have a great variety of foods to select from; we must not partake of the same fare day after day, but must vary it as much as possible. Only with a varied and alternating dietary can we be sure that what is lacking in one food-stuff will be supplied in another, and that what we fail to get to-day we shall have to-morrow. What is commonly regarded as simply the result of a spoilt palate, viz., the repugnance excited by the steady recurrence of the same dish, is an uprising of the organism itself against a food which does not meet its requirements; or, rather, the consequence of a deficiency already established.

Here we have an important rule for determining a wholesome diet. The foods we use must contain the indispensable elements of nutrition in due proportion; our food must be mixed, varied, and alternating. And what is here said with regard to individuals, holds good also for nations. The food-stuffs of an energetic population are up to the standard only when they are multifariously blended, and when there is a due proportion of substances belonging to the three groups mentioned above. Now, this relation between the nutrition and the physical and mental development of a people must be apparent in the history of their civilization. Where the food is insufficient, fluctuating between want and excess, uniform and undiversified, the capacity of the people for work must be inferior; their bodily strength and their mental culture must be of a low grade.

But, when we turn our eyes to the pages of history for a confirmation of this, we meet with our first real difficulty. History tells us much about deeds of heroism, bloody wars, conquests, and revolutions; of politics, manners, and customs, and even of the thoughts that have occupied the minds of nations; but of their cuisine, their bill-of-fare, history tells us nothing. And yet a history of the foods of nations would be an addition of great value to the history of human