Our food tends to become more and more a matter of taste and appetite, the latter trained and perverted by the cook and the chef. We eat what we like, or what has been prepared so that we will like it, or what we have cultivated a taste for, rather than what we need. We force ourselves to acquire a taste for things that are not good for us, but, which, are often positively harmful to us.

There may be intuitive dislikes or aversions to foods which should not be disregarded. But most of our likes and dislikes are so conditioned by habits that our dislike for fruit may and frequently is due simply to our habit of using tobacco. But an innate repugnance to a special dish, or even a special class of foods, may be safely indulged, so long as other foods are adequate. Abnormal antipathies may indicate constitutional abnormalities or else emotional complexes.

Whatever may be true of our dislikes, our likes are not always to be respected. As Dr. Oswald says, "a child's whimsical desire to treat innutritious or injurious substances as comestibles should certainly not be encouraged * * *. For, it is a curious fact that all unnatural practices--the eating of indigestible matter as well as poisons--are apt to excite a morbid appetency akin to the stimulant habit. The human stomach can be accustomed to the most preposterous things--Physical Education, p. 61.

Acquiring New Tastes

The acquisition of new tastes is not at all difficult, not nearly so difficult as is the acquisition of the taste for tobacco, alcohol, coffee, chocolate, etc. If we go at eating reform with the same determination we employed in learning to smoke, there will be no failure. A taste for any wholesome substance may be acquired in much less time and with much less effort than can the taste for unwholesome substances.

It is easier to acquire a relish for wholesome substances than for unwholesome ones, Plutarch advised "choose out the best conditions you can and custom will make it pleasant for you." Again, "accustom your appetite to obey reason with willingness."