hot water will
often relieve this discomfort. This feeling is seldom experienced by
vegetarians of long standing. The natives of India, it is said, do not
experience it at all, which fact leads us to surmise the cause to be in
some way connected with flesh-eating. Farinaceous foods, however,
prepared as soup, porridge, gruel, pultaceous puddings, etc., when
eaten, as is customary, without proper insalivation, are liable to be
improperly digested and to ferment, giving rise to the sensation
described as a 'sinking feeling' and erroneously thought to be hunger.

It is an excellent rule that prescribes fasting when without hunger.
When there is no appetite do not eat. It is an example of conventional
stupidity that we eat because it is 'meal time,' even though there be
not the slightest feeling of genuine hunger. Leaving out of
consideration the necessitous poor and those who for their living engage
themselves in hard physical toil, it is safe to say that hardly one
person in a thousand has ever felt real hunger. Yet no one was ever the
worse for waiting upon appetite. No one was ever starved by not eating
because of having no appetite. Loss of appetite is a sign that the
digestive organs require a rest. It is better to go without food for a
time than to force oneself to eat against inclination. The forcing of
oneself to eat to 'keep up one's strength,' is perhaps the quickest way
to bring down one's strength by overworking the system and burdening it
with material it does not need. Eat by appetite, not by time. Eat
frequently when the appetite demands frequent satisfaction, and seldom
when seldom hungry. These rules hold good at all times and for everyone.
Loss of appetite during sickness should not be looked upon as anything
serious in itself, but as a sign that the system does not require food.
A sick man like a well man will feel hunger as soon as food is needed,
and the practice of tempting the appetite with rich and costly foods is
not only a waste of money but is injurious physiologically. Possibly
there may be pathological conditions under which hunger cannot make
itself felt, but it would seem contrary to Nature as far as the writer,
a layman, understands the matter. At least, leaving abnormal conditions
of health out of consideration, we can say this much affirmatively: if a
man is hungry enough to relish dry bread, then, and then only, does he
really require nourishment.

Hunger is always experienced when nutr