Page:The Road to Wellville (1926).djvu/21



OST of us eat for pleasure and to satisfy the appetite with the greatest joy to the palate. We should also eat with an understanding of the functions of our food. From food, and food alone, we daily must get materials which make us grow, which build our tissues, which regulate our body functions, and which provide energy for our activities. If our diet lacks the food materials for any of these important requirements the journey toward Wellville is certain to be interrupted.

The body has been likened to a machine which must continue to function. Even when we are asleep or perfectly quiet, the heart, in beating, uses in a single day energy sufficient to lift an average man some twenty-five hundred feet in the air. Respiration and digestion continue. Tissue building goes on. When we are up and about, exercise brings muscles into play, and energy is expended in proportion to our activity.

Thus it may be seen what a constant necessity we have for the various materials different foods supply us, and how important it is that we do not neglect to provide ourselves with any single class of these materials in our daily meals.