FOOD AND HABIT 



173 



paid working class and all the middle and upper class 

 continue to eat meat, the agricultural labourer and the 

 poorer workmen in towns live chiefly on flour, sugar, bacon, 

 and cheese. Probably they have become habituated to 

 this diet, and, provided that the quantity is sufficient, it 

 cannot be maintained that the diet, in which meat is 

 nearly or altogether absent, is unhealthy. Many vigorous 

 and muscularly well-developed populations in other lands 

 thrive on exclusively vegetable food. 



A curious and not altogether comforting reflection is 

 that if the inexpensive and simple food of the agricultural 

 labourer is sufficient, the section of the community which 

 spends from five to ten shillings per head a day on a mixed 

 diet of meat, fish, eggs, and vegetables is guilty of waste 

 and excess. Here, however, the remarkable, and, in fact, 

 exceptional domination of " habit " (in the case of man), 

 in regard to both the actual articles of food and the mode 

 of its preparation, has to be recognised. Such and such 

 inexpensive and unskilfully prepared food may contain 

 more than the necessary amount of proteids (that is, matters 

 like flesh, the casein of cheese and of vegetables, and the 

 albumen of eggs), of hydro-carbons {i.e. fats), of carbo- 

 hydrates (t. e., starch and sugar), yet if you were suddenly 

 to compel a man accustomed to well-cooked meat to live 

 on such food he would be unable to assimilate it, his 

 digestive organs would refuse to work, and he would 

 become, if not seriously ill, yet so ill-nourished and sickly 

 that he would be unfit for his work and readily fall a 

 victim to disease. It is, in fact, impossible to lay down 

 any scheme of diet based on the mere provision of the 

 necessary quantities of food materials whilst ignoring the 

 formed habits of the individual and the relation of the 

 psychical conditions which we call " taste," " appetite," 

 "fancy," "disgust," to the actual processes of digestion and 

 the consequent efficiency of the proposed diet. 



