O'SHEA — ASPECTS OF MENTAL ECONOMY. 107 



CHAPTER IV. 



RELATIVE VALUE OF FOODS IN THE PRODUCTION OF NERVOUS 



ENERGY (C0nt). 



§1. Condiments as Force Producers. — A word should be said 

 regarding those articles often designated as food adjuncts or 

 food accessories, or more familiarly, condiments. These in- 

 clude the spices, peppers, pickles, vinegars, and all the things 

 designed to whet the appetite, as we say. No one maintains 

 that they possess any nutritive value, but many believe they are 

 essential to the excitation of the digestive juices, and hence 

 are of much worth in one's dietary. Authorities seem to agree 

 that when food is unpalatable some of these artificial excitants 

 may be of service; but this does not imply that the materials 

 most nutritious and wholesome do not possess in themselves 

 flavors which may be developed by proper cooking and which 

 will be sufficiently stimulating to secure a generous flow of di- 

 gestive juices. It deserves more than passing notice that young 

 children cannot be induced to take food adulterated, so to speak, 

 with these foreign substances ; and it seems to be only when 

 the digestive processes become deranged from abnormal and in- 

 jurious practices that unnatural stimulants must be employed. 

 Grant Allen 1 has pointed out that whiskey, pepper, and the 

 like are usually found together in one's diet ; organs thus over- 

 stimulated crave a continual increase in stimuli until it hap- 

 pens that one can enjoy no food in its natural flavors, and must 

 add pepper, vinegar and whiskey to everything he eats in or- 

 der that he may endure it at all. 



On the tables in our own locality vinegar is the acid condi- 

 ment most universally employed, alike in its pure state, and 

 obscured in pickles, preserves, and similar "relishes." It is, of 



1 Popular Science Monthly, Vol. '26, p. 468. 



