d vicious taste, and give or withhold
accordingly; and, above all, never eat when you have _no appetite_.
Want of appetite is equivalent to the most authoritative command to
_eat nothing_, and we disregard it at our peril. Food, no matter how
wholesome, taken into our stomachs under such circumstances, instead
of being digested and appropriated, becomes rank poison. _Eating
without appetite is one of the most fatal of common errors._

We have no room, even if we had the ability and the desire, to discuss
the comparative merits of the two opposing systems of diet--the
vegetarian and the mixed. We shall consider the question of
flesh-eating an open one.

Your food should be adapted to the climate, season, and your
occupation. In the winter and in northern climates a larger proportion
of the fatty or carboniferous elements are required than in summer and
in southern latitudes. The Esquimaux, in his snow-built hut, swallows
immense quantities of train-oil, without getting the dyspepsia; still,
we do not recommend train-oil as an article of diet; neither can we
indorse the eating of pork in any form; but these things are far less
hurtful in winter than in summer, and to those who labor in the open
air than to the sedentary.

Live well. A generous diet promotes vitality and capability for
action. "Good cheer is friendly to health." But do not confound a
generous diet with what is usually called "rich" food. Let all your
dishes be nutritious, but plain, simple, and wholesome. Avoid highly
seasoned viands and very greasy food at all times, but particularly in
warm weather, also too much nutriment in the highly condensed forms of
sugar, syrup, honey, and the like.

If you eat flesh, partake sparingly of it especially in summer. We
Americans are the greatest flesh-eaters in the world, and it is not
unreasonable to believe that there may be some connection between this
fact and the equally notorious one that we are the most unhealthy
people in the world. An untold amount of disease results from the too
free use of flesh during the hot months. Heat promotes putrefaction;
and as this change in meat is very rapid in warm weather, we can not
be too careful not to eat that which is in the slightest degree
tainted. Even when it goes into the stomach in a normal condition,
there is danger; for if too much is eaten, or the digestive organs are
not sufficiently strong and active, the process of putrefaction may
commence in the stomach