THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



avoids certain foods because he has found that they 

 disagree with him. "What is one man's food is 

 another man's poison" is a half-truth that applies here 

 and there with surprising force to individual idiosyn- 

 crasies. I know a woman, for example, who cannot 

 taste a strawberry without being literally poisoned. 

 Even the small quantity used as a flavor say for ice 

 cream has a characteristic and deleterious effect. 



But such exceptional cases as this only emphasize 

 the rule that, generally speaking, what is wholesome for 

 one healthy individual is wholesome for another. Were 

 it otherwise, our entire social world would be sadly 

 awry. 



Therefore, in specific answer to the query, What 

 shall I eat ? it suffices to say, as a general proposition : 

 "Eat whatever the generality of people about you 

 regard as wholesome food; avoiding, however, any- 

 thing against which your own experience has warned 

 you unequivocally." Moreover, you will do well not 

 to be too easily persuaded that any particular article 

 of diet does not agree with you. A large number of 

 people particularly faddists who have injured their 

 digestive organs by following dietary rules deny 

 themselves food of this, that, or the other kind through 

 a mistaken notion that it does not "agree" with them. 

 Perhaps they have taken it at some time when any- 

 thing would have disagreed; or in excessive quantity. 

 It is worth while to make very sure before you deny 

 yourself what may really be a useful and pleasant article 

 of food on the ground of personal idiosyncrasy. Such 

 idiosyncrasies, I repeat, do exist, but they are much less 



