Chapter II.
The Miracle of Food
Here is bread, which strengthens man’s heart, and therefore is called the staff of life.
—Matthew Henry.
O hour of all hours, the most blessed upon earth,
The blessed hour of our dinners!
—Owen Meredith.
Cheese and bread make the cheeks red.
—German Proverb.
Behold a crust of bread and a jug of water let down into Bunyan’s cell, which a little later appear in the greatest allegory that was ever written by man!
Watch that crust of bread as it is cut, crushed, ground, driven by muscles, dissolved by acids and alkalies; absorbed and hurled into the mysterious red river of the man’s life blood! Scores of little factories along this wonderful river, waiting for this crust, transmute it as it passes, as if by magic, here into a bone cell, there into gastric juice, here into bile, there into a nerve cell, yonder into a brain cell. We cannot trace the process by which it arrives at the muscle and acts, arrives at the brain and thinks. We cannot see the manipulating hand which throws back and forth the shuttle which weaves Bunyan’s destinies, nor can we trace the subtle alchemy which transforms this prison crust into “Pilgrim’s Progress.” But we do know that, unless we supply food when the stomach begs and clamors, brain and muscle cannot continue to act; and we also know that, unless the food is properly chosen, unless we eat it properly, unless we maintain good digestion by exercise of mind and body, it will not produce the allegories of a Bunyan, the energy and achievements of a Roosevelt, the inventions of a Marconi, an Edison, or the successes of a great constructive man of business.
The age of miracles past! Why, there is a miracle performed at every meal which is more mysterious than the raising of the dead to life! You take a piece of bread, a piece of meat, a few vegetables into your mouth, and in a few hours they become man; they begin to think, they begin to act; that food takes on all the characteristics of your personality. Your ancestors relive and act in it. What was a few hours ago food is now making laws in Congress, is passing decisions upon the bench, is farming, is running machinery, is doing all sorts of things. Is the quality, the quantity, the manner of partaking of the nourishing material which is to perform the miracles of the world of any great consequence? Is it worth much concern?
Part of your efficiency, your health, your mental vigor, your future welfare, lives in that meal of which you are about to partake. Can you afford to take in material which is going to give you deteriorated blood? Can you afford to take in that which will give you a second-class brain and can only manufacture mental processes in keeping with its own inferior quality?
Your food can give off, when assimilated in the body, only the force which Nature has stored up in its cells.
You may say it does not matter much what you eat,—so long as it satisfies your hunger. Do you realize that the cells in that stale vegetable and soft, spongy fruit, which has already begun to decay, and the poor meat you are eating, are much deteriorated; that they have lost their recuperative, renewing, refreshing force? Do you realize that while you may satisfy hunger, you are manufacturing second-class blood, a second-class brain, a second-class nerve tissue, a second-class man? And you want to be a first-class man, do you not? As a man eateth, so is he. As he eats, so will he live, so will his strength be.
You have wondered, no doubt, many times, why you lack power to concentrate your mind, to hold your mental grip upon the thing you are doing. You perhaps have not realized that the quality of your intellectual grasp, of your focusing power, lies in your food. The quality of your vitality, of your brain power, the quality of your courage, of your initiative, of your productive power, will be in exact ratio to the quality of the material from which these are manufactured. The quality of the manufactured product cannot excel the quality of the raw material.
The fire and force, the vim for achievement, are put into our food by the power of the sun and the chemistry of the soil. The strength for which we long, the force which does things, the stamina, the grit, the brawn, and what we call “gray matter,” Nature produces in her laboratory, where she performs her wonderful miracles.
The roots of our spiritual life run through the material body into the food stuffs, into the soil, and outward to the source of all physical power, the sun. We are bound up together; we are of the earth, earthy. We come from Nature; we return to Nature. All vital energy is generated in the sun; Nature’s alchemy takes the vital energy and recreates it in food products which we receive from her and assimilate, and from which comes the abundance of our achievements, our spiritual life.
The brain gets a great deal of credit for what justly belongs to good health, to a strong physique. “Intense, rapid, sustained,” is the motto of effective mentality. It is not a question of will-power so much as of vitality and strength. Robust health produces a positive intellectuality, and this is the force that does things in the world; whereas, in proportion to failing health, to lowered vitality, the mind becomes negative.
The man who accomplishes things is noted for his ability to decide matters vigorously and finally; while the vacillator is pained at the very thought that he must make a final decision, and is always reconsidering, weighing and balancing, recalling his letters, tearing open the seals to see whether he has really meant what he has written, whether it were wise to send the letter, after all, or whether he has left out something important. But the man of decision is the man who succeeds, and decision is the child of strong vitality, of a well nourished brain.
Is it not astonishing that, despite these facts, in our efforts to economize, we often lose tenfold by cutting off our nutrition, in going without lunches, or bolting inferior food at a cheap quick-lunch counter? By trying to save a few cents a day in this way we cut off ten dollars’ worth of vitality. We may reduce our business-getting ability by dulling the ambition, so that we may lose a hundred dollars’ worth of business.
When we skimp on food we do so at the cost of power and vitality. If the body is not completely nourished, the blood will be impoverished, or made impure; and vitiated blood means poor quality of thinking, than which nothing can be more extravagant.
The great thing is to keep oneself up to the highest point of efficiency at any cost or pains. Anything which reduces the fire and force in the brain, which lessens the ambition or the energy, weakens will-power, courage, self-confidence, inclination to work, initiative, and power of decision. In fact, the whole mental apparatus, the efficiency of the whole of life’s machinery, is affected. Such economies are criminal.
One might as well try to economize on the board of a horse about to enter a contest of speed, and expect him to win, as to economize on his own food and expect to remain in tiptop condition. Speed and staying power are what he is after for the horse, and these must come mostly from the food, the drink, and the general care.
Every ambitious man is in a perpetual race for supremacy of some kind. Can he afford to economize on that which produces brain force, that which produces health? Can he afford to economize on energy-producing material?
Many well-meaning people fail in life because they are not good to themselves. They do not have enough to eat, or they do not have food of the requisite quality to keep their brains and bodies up to the highest point of efficiency.
We are not here simply to exist, but to achieve the greatest thing possible to us, and we cannot afford to deny ourselves the best of everything that can contribute to our efficiency. Multitudes are doing mediocre work just because they do not have the highest quality of brain food. They do not take proper care of themselves.
I know fairly well-to-do people who are too stingy to buy fruit, except when it is very cheap, although it is necessary