Eat Only When Hhungry Part 2

Continuation from Part 1: One may have an appetite for tobacco, coffee, tea, opium, alcohol, etc., but they can never be hungry for these, since they serve no real physiological need. Appetite is often accompanied by a gnawing or “all gone” sensation in the stomach, or a general sense of weakness; there may even be mental depression. Such symptoms usually belong to the diseased stomach of a glutton and will pass away if their owner will refrain from eating for a few days. They are temporarily relieved by eating and this leads to the idea that it was food that was needed. But such sensations and feelings do not accompany true hunger. In true hunger one is not aware that they have a stomach for this, like thirst, is a mouth and throat sensation.

Real hunger arises spontaneously, that is without the agency of some external factor, and is accompanied by a “watering of the mouth” and usually by a conscious desire for some particular food. Some doctors says that, “The condition known as appetite, with its source and center in nervous desire, and its motive in self-indulgence, is a mere parasite on life, feeding on its host whose misdirected imagination invites it into his or her own household; while hunger, on the other hand, is the original, constitutional prompter for the cell-world calling for means to supply the true need and necessities of man’s physical nature.

Appetite does not express our needs, but our wants; not what we really need, but what we think we need. It is imagination running riot, fashioning out of our gluttonous greed an insatiable vampire which grows with our wants, and increases its power until finally it kills us unless we determine to kill it. As long as our attention is absorbed in the pleasures of the table, in the gratification of eating for its own sake, and in the introduction of new combinations to bring about stimulating effects, we are increasing the power of our appetite at the expense of our hunger.”

The hungry person is able to eat and relish a crust of dry bread; those who has only an appetite must have his food seasoned and spiced before they can enjoy it. Even a gourmand is able to enjoy a hearty meal if there is sufficient seasoning to whip up there  jaded appetite and arouse there palsied taste. It is always better to await the arrival of hunger before eating.

Eat Only When Hungry: Part 1

 If we do this we eat only to supply the demands of the body. We cannot repeat too often the admonition, do not eat if not hungry. If this plan were followed the present three meals-a-day plan would end. Also the practice of many of eating between meals and in the evening before retiring would cease. For most people real hunger would call for about one meal a day, with occasionally some small amounts of fruit during the day.

Hunger is the “voice of nature” saying to us that food is required. There is no other true guide as to when to eat. The time of day, the habitual meal time, etc., are not true guides. Although genuine hunger is a mouth and throat sensation and depends upon an actual physiological need for food, muscular contractions of the stomach accompany hunger and are thought by physiologists, to give rise to the hunger sensation.

Carlson, of the Chicago University, found that in a man who had been fasting two weeks, these gastric “hunger” contractions had not decreased, although there was no desire for food. The same has been observed in animals. Indeed these contractions are seen to increase and yet they do not produce the sensation of hunger. I consider real hunger to be a mouth and throat sensation.

Part 2 to "Eat Only When Hungry" will be available soon.