From an economic standpoint there is no greater question before the world today than this question of food.

It is not, however, the purpose of this article to discuss the problem of raising and distributing food so that all people will have a sufficiency, but to discuss the matter from the standpoint of the individual with regard to physical health and longevity.

On the question of "What shall we eat?" different nationalities would supply different answers, largely governed by climatic and geographical locality. It is manifestly true that the food necessary to sustain physical life in the extreme north could not be the same as that consumed in the tropical regions, even though it were desirable to have it so. It is scientifically demonstrable that the human machine, subject to an extreme temperature of either heat or cold, is materially affected in the region of the fuel storage tank.

Briefly, the colder the climatic conditions, the more fat or oil is needed to supply heat. It is stated that in the extreme north, common machine oil is consumed with a relish, fat or oil is not only a luxury there, but an absolute necessity. While to eat a tallow candle in the extreme north is to enjoy a treat, to eat one in the extreme south, would certainly be nauseating, and almost an impossible gastronomic feat.

I do not know whether the experiment has been tried, but in all probabilities the vegetarian, or fruitarian would find it difficult to survive the rigor of an extremely cold temperature, though the oily nature of nuts might suffice for a time. The argument of our fruit and nut-eating friends in this particular would probably be that for people who live in a climate beyond the limits of the normal human habitat, an abnormal diet might be excusable.

Taking a broad survey of the world, it will be found that different people under different circumstances consume as food a great variety of things, ranging from bugs, snakes, and bird's nests, through the animal kingdom, not excluding human flesh, to vegetables, fruits and nuts. Getting at the original source of things some people actually eat dirt.

That the necessity of eating has, in many instances, forced both individuals and entire races to adopt certain things for food, that are not really desirable as food, will be accepted by students of economics without argument. That appetite may be cultivated for undesirable things misnamed food, is also a truism.

That the question "What shall we eat?" up to the present time, has been largely superceded by the question "What can we get to eat?" seems equally true to the author. If true, it goes to show that habits of eating have been acquired by other than natural longings of the normal appetite, and this thought carried to a logical conclusion will easily account for the many abnormal habits and appetites that are the heritage of the average mortal today.

Having acquired wrong habits, through necessity, these habits, like all habits, have become more or less fixed, after the necessity has gone the habits have remained. To those who understand how very many things we think and do, just because of custom and inherited environment, it will not be difficult to understand that very little actual attention has been given to properly answering this very important question "What shall we eat?" Most people eat what their parents have taught them to eat, or what their environment permits them to eat. Some people even try to make a social distinction between themselves and what they are pleased to term "the common herd" by what they eat. History has recorded banquets where humming bird wings have been served, and all manner of peculiar foods have been manufactured from Nature's store house by skilled cooks and caterers.

Both poverty and riches have served to give a wrong answer to this question "What shall we eat?" - the one compelling people to eat what is not proper for food, and the other impelling people to eat what is equally improper.

The true answer, may I make bold to suggest, must come from an actual knowledge of the kind of food best adapted to build up and sustain the life energy and physical requirements of the human body - considered, not as a medium for the gratification of appetite, but as a machine, to be kept in good running order.

That this answer will be gained through actual ex periment, not theorizing, is a sensible view of the matter - and that these experiments must be largely personal, and can be conducted by any individual sufficiently interested, is unquestionably so.

While the combined results of numerous individual experiments is desirable, to form a general conclusion, yet this proposition may be stated with scientific certainty - every human body is governed by certain fixed laws that are always operative in a like manner under like circumstances. To explain - two persons may be very differently affected by taking the same substance into the human organism. Supposing this substance to be morphine, one may be killed instantly, while another may seem even to be temporarily benefited. The difference is not in organic structure, but merely in an acquired habit or a developed appetite. By gradually taking poison, one may prepare one's system for larger and yet larger quantities, until one can eat with seeming immunity, enough poison to kill a dozen people. But everyone can become accustomed to eating even poison and live - for a while, at least.

The above is not a proof that poison is a good thing to eat - it is merely a proof that old Nature fights a mighty battle to sustain the life of the physical body against the ignorance and abnormal appetites of its inhabitant. For all that, the fight is bound to be a losing one in the end, no one can take poison and not sooner or later suffer the inevitable consequences of disobedience to natural laws.

You may, perhaps, be shocked to know that most people are eating more or less poison all the time. In other words, they are taking into their physical organism either as food, or else for the gratification of acquired appetite, certain substances that not only do not build up the tissue or supply life energy, but actually tear down and destroy, and prepare the body for premature death and decay.