Kitabı oku: «Popular Books on Natural Science», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XVIII.
WATER AND BEER

During the forenoon a general desire for food is felt, while in the afternoon thirst is more common, in which case the best and most natural beverage should always be water.

Properly speaking, water is no article of food, if by that term we understand only animal and vegetable matter. Water is no organic, but a mere chemical agent. But if man were to consume no water he would perish. Therefore water is essentially necessary to man, although it does not satisfy his appetite; for it serves to liquify our food in the body, and our blood must contain a greater quantity of water than is furnished us by food, although this itself contains much water.

Without water there can be neither digestion nor nutrition, nor formation of blood, nor secretion. Furthermore, it is remarkable that the most active of the human organs, the brain and muscles, contain the most water; we are therefore obliged, although we are aware of its containing no nutritious elements, to call it a nutritive; all the more, since it is well known that we can be longer without food than without water.

This element plays a great part in the body; it is used in three ways. In the first place, the ingredients of water, hydrogen and oxygen, combine with the food, and effect its digestion. The starch which we eat in farinaceous and vegetable food cannot without water be converted into sugar. And the latter being transformed into fat, we should have no fat if we took no water, though it may seem strange that water should make us fat.

And there is the second task, viz., the preservation of all the fluids necessary to our body. This, also, is performed by water; and as they are excreted their loss is compensated for by water. We lose it constantly by breathing, perspiring, and urinating; therefore we must continually take it anew. Those who perspire and breathe much, as, for example, workmen or foot-travellers, must take it in greater quantities.

The third reason of its importance lies in this, that it gives us much of the salts and other ingredients that are dissolved in it, and which the human body needs for its support. Those are wrong, therefore, who prefer cistern or distilled water to spring-water; the former being, as it were artificially, free from all metallic and mineral parts which are so beneficial to our health; while spring-water contains them in abundance, and ought, therefore, to be taken in preference even to the purest rain-water.

But one of the most excellent qualities of water is, that one can scarcely ever drink too much of it. If but for a moment in the stomach, it is absorbed there and goes immediately into the blood. From this arises its rapid cooling quality; which, however, may become very dangerous when one is heated. There is but one case in which water is not readily absorbed by the stomach; when it contains salts that make it heavier than blood, for example, Glauber's salt and bitter-salt. It passes then into the intestinal canal, and produces here – partly as liquid, partly by its salts exciting the nerves of the intestines – that medicinal effect for which it is famous. Many water-cures, especially those applied in cases of abdominal diseases, are of similar effects.

Common water, however, which is immediately transmitted to the blood, effects by this accelerated secretion of perspiration, respiration and urine; this constitutes the beneficial effects of water-cures, where a glass of water often produces better results than a bottle of medicine.

If we can control our thirst until several hours after dinner have passed, a glass of beer will be a welcome beverage to us. Beer contains nutriment; it includes more or less albumen, sugar, gluten, hops, and alcohol. Owing to the variety in its fermentation and manufacture, we have many kinds of beer, such as, for example, porter, ale, and, above all others, the lager-beer.

Good beer – that is, beer well brewed and containing all the ingredients this beverage generally does contain – is, very justly, often given to nurses and mothers, because it assimilates easily and very rapidly. It is a kind of soup; one may take it when a person is too heated or fatigued to eat a regular meal. There is a kind of beer that contains more hops, and is therefore very bitter; it is very good for the stomach. The Bavarian beer, when genuine, contains more alcohol than the other, which gives it the advantages of liquor without its disadvantages. It therefore does not satisfy one's appetite, but, on the contrary, tends to increase it; thus it is more adapted to be taken at breakfast and supper. Another kind of beer, called white-beer, contains more sugar and oxygen; it may, for this reason, supply the place of sugar, and Seltzer-water, and is recommended to all those who need Seidlitz powders.

In another part of this work we shall perhaps speak more about the usefulness of beer. To-day we must pray our readers to be satisfied with what we have said about it; we shall now speak about supper.

CHAPTER XIX.
SUPPER

No time of the day is more pleasant than the evening hours after the day's work is over; there is a solemn calm and quiet in them which charms both soul and body.

This time of ease and rest must not be disturbed on our part by overburdening the stomach. We eat only for the purpose of compensating for the loss experienced through our work; we should not eat more than is necessary to supply the strength lost; in other words, to give us sufficient strength to continue our labor. And as the day's work is finished, there being not much work before us, we need not take much food.

When glancing at a sleeping person and noticing his long breathing and increased perspiration, one may be led to the belief that he loses much oxygen and water during his sleep; that therefore we must provide ourselves abundantly with food before retiring to bed. This is, however, a mistake. The breath of a sleeping person is long and deep, but very slow; and his perspiring does not cause any great loss of water, but comes rather from this, that one's body during the night is more protected by covers and closed windows, etc., from draft which dries our evaporation, and therefore prevents perspiration in day-time. During sleep we need even less of bodily strength than through the day; for this reason we feel no hunger in the night, and, in spite of the long fasting, no fatigue in the morning.

From this we conclude that supper should not be a meal for the night, but merely for the last hours of the day. It should be no meal prænumerando, but postnumerando!

It is therefore best to choose but light dishes, which, if we wish to rest well, must be easily digested, and eaten at least two or three hours before bed-time.

For healthy people a warm supper is unnecessary; our dinner is taken warm for the purpose only of keeping the gluten and fat of the food liquid; as this kind of food, however, is not proper for supper, we need not take it at all in the evening. If we do, it is but an additional burden to the housewife, who surely has enough trouble and labor in the kitchen during the day. He who is not satisfied with a piece of bread and butter and a glass of beer, may eat a piece of cheese besides; but it must be no other kind than sour cheese – the Germans call it Schmierkaese– common cheese being too heavy for night because of its containing fat. This sour cheese, whether soft or hardened, is easily digested; it even excites the stomach like spice, especially if you eat it with caraway seeds, and thus promotes the secretion of gastric juice. The other kind of cheese is, for no other reason than that, often eaten after dinner; for, though taken by itself scarcely digestible, if eaten in very small quantity, it increases by its action upon the stomach, the quantity of gastric juice there, and, therefore, promotes digestion in general.

Should we, however, for one reason or the other, insist upon having a more substantial supper, then let us take soft-boiled eggs. The nutritive quality of eggs is equivalent to that of meat. They unite all good sides of the meat; nay, we may say here, that the most nourishing part in meat is nothing but egg-white, or, as we call it, "albumen."

We recommend soft-boiled eggs, because hard ones are difficult to digest. They are best prepared by boiling, if the water is allowed to boil first and the eggs put in afterwards. The reason of this is, that the boiling water hardens the outer part of the egg very rapidly, forming a thick crust, which prevents the heat of the boiling water from penetrating farther.

It is a custom of our country to take tea in the evening. Tea is no article of food, but it possesses the qualities of coffee; it warms the blood, increases the activity of the heart, and produces a certain freshness of the mind, which is a good remedy against ennui and sleepiness in a company or party.

And since we are speaking of ennui and sleepiness, we think it advisable to close our present subject, "The Articles of Food for the People," and we part from our readers with the full conviction that they will enjoy their real "articles of food" much better than they have relished these scientific conversations about them.