All condiments are to be classed with stimulants: their function is to accelerate the digestive processes by means of an artificial goad. Therefore, while they may be useful in cases of impaired digestion, they are not only useless but positively injurious to a perfectly healthy organism.

It is probable that there is a physiological demand for a certain amount of salt when the diet consists chiefly of vegetables, owing to the fact that the potassium salts existing in most vegetable foods have a tendency to withdraw sodium from the organism; but there is no need for, and there may be decided disadvantage in, the amounts of salt ordinarily consumed. In a diet conforming with the specimen meals given in the preceding pages, a few grams a day - say from five to fifteen, according to the character of the food - are enough to meet all real needs.28

Within the last year or two a great deal has been written and said about the stimulating properties of sugar, and there seems to be-no-doubt that the higher forms of sugar - and even the lower forms, if properly treated in the mouth - are absorbed with less effort and give off their contained energy more quickly than any other form of food. It is now common knowledge that an army can march farther and fight harder on candy than on beef, and in recognition of this fact chocolate tablets form an integral part of all regular rations. The United States Government, recognizing the fact that the more candy a man eats, the less whiskey he drinks, makes a practice of shipping tons of pure candy to its soldiers in the Philippines. The readers of Bernard Shaw will recall the use made of these facts in the comedy, "Arms and the Man."20 A starving soldier, taking refuge from pursuit by his enemies in the room of a young girl, beseeches her to give him some chocolate which he sees on her table, and meets her scornful comments on the effeminacy of his diet with the declaration that all old campaigners can be recognized by the fact that they carry chocolate creams in their holsters instead of pistols.

28 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," pp. 299-300.

Unfortunately, however, the form in which sugar is most commonly used, is the particular form in which it is least acceptable to the body. The common domestic product distilled from the cane, the beet, and the maple - to which chemistry gives the name of sucrose - is, in fact, not a food at all, but a food element. Before it can be used by the body, it must undergo the complete process of starch digestion. The first step in this process is, as we have seen, the conversion of the starch into maltose by the action of saliva in the mouth. Here is where the trouble comes in. Starchy foods can be held in the mouth and chewed until the change into maltose has been completed. Sugary foods on account of their solubility are extremely likely to escape from the mouth and slip down the throat before they have been acted upon by the saliva. Therefore, not having been properly prepared for the stomachy they are almost sure to set up more or less fermentation when they reach it.

29 Bernard Shaw: "Arms and the Man." Brentano's, New York,

There are two ways out of this dilemma: one is to take particular pains with the in-salivation of sweets, and the other is to get one's sugar in forms other than sucrose.

Malt sugar can now be purchased from manufacturers of health foods, and glucose - a readily assimilable form of sugar derived from corn and used largely in the adulteration of honey - is a common article of commerce. Levulose, which approaches closely the form of sugar found in the blood, is contained in honey and all sweet fruits.

Unquestionably the best form in which sugar can be taken is in these gifts of nature. Honey was the only sweet known to the ancients, and was one of their great food staples. In these modern times physicians and physiologists have rediscovered its virtues and many of them are attempting to rescue it from the subordinate position to which it has fallen by urging its use as a substitute for cane sugar.

Physicians and physiologists are agreed that there is no article of food more valuable than fruit. Professor Chittenden gives the preference to oranges, grapes, prunes, dates, plums and bananas. In a lesser degree he recommends peaches, apricots, pears, apples, figs, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. When carefully masticated or when thoroughly cooked, apples may be placed in the first rank, but when swallowed raw in large pieces, they are likely to prove indigestible.30

The use of sucrose in excessive quantities or without due attention to insalivation - particularly in the case of sedentary people - brings in its train a long series of ills, such as catarrh of the mucous membranes of the whole body, flatulence, insomnia, sour stomach, obesity and biliousness; and it may even lead to serious disorders such as jaundice and diabetes. Used with ordinary precaution, however, it is undoubtedly one of the most valuable of foods.

The old-fashioned theory that certain foods contain special magical properties that are "good for" specific purposes in the bodily economy has no foundation in fact. Carrots are not "good for" the complexion, celery is not "good for" the nerves, fish is not a brain food. As we have seen, all foods are made up of a relatively small number of simple elements in varying proportions.

30 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," p. 291.

A given food may contain more of certain elements than others, but hardly in sufficient quantities to endow it with medicinal powers. The salts in carrots and celery as well as in many other vegetables are unquestionably useful in regulating and controlling the processes by which food is built up into healthy tissues, but they are incapable of restoring diseased tissue. Fish is supposed to be good for the brain because both fish and brain tissue contain phosphorus. When it is remembered, however, that before any substance becomes available to the body, it must be changed into the particular form of that substance which the body can use, it will readily be seen that the phosphorus which the brain requires may possibly be obtained more readily from foods which contain less phosphorus than fish.