It is very difficult to convince people that they eat too much. Indeed,
the average person is a small eater, in his own estimation. We have been
educated into consuming such vast quantities of food that we hardly know
what moderation is. In the past, physiologists and observers have
watched the amount of food that people could coax down and this they
have called the normal amount of food. This is far from the truth. The
average American eats at least two times as much as he can digest,
assimilate and use to advantage. Many eat three and four times too much.
However, nature is very tolerant for a while. Most of us start out with
a fair amount of resistance and are thus enabled to live to the age of
forty or fifty in spite of abuses. If we could only dispense with our
excesses, we could double or treble our life span, live better, get more
enjoyment out of life and give the world more and better work than we
can under present conditions.
There is much talk of food shortage. The amount of food consumed and
wasted annually in the United States is enough to feed 200,000,000
people. Even with our present knowledge we can easily produce twice as
much per acre as we are averaging, and we are tilling only about
one-fourth of the land that could be made productive.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118