Organs of Digestion
135
absorbed.... Many make a mistake in drinking cold water with their
meals. Taken with meals, water diminishes the flow of the salivary
glands; and the colder the water, the greater the injury to the stomach.
Ice-water or iced lemonade, drunk with meals, will arrest digestion
until the system has imparted sufficient warmth to the stomach to
[164]
enable it to take up its work again.—
Ibid
.
673. Hot drinks are debilitating; and besides, those who indulge
in their use become slaves to the habit.... But if anything is needed
to quench thirst, pure water drunk some little time before or after the
meal is all that nature requires. Never take tea, coffee, beer, wine, or
any spirituous liquor. Water is the best liquid possible to cleanse the
tissues.—
Ibid
.
Liquid Foods
674. Soups, puddings, and other articles of the kind are often eaten
too hot, and as a consequence the stomach is debilitated. Let them
become partly cooled before they are eaten.—
Ibid
.
675. To eat largely of porridge would not insure health to the
digestive organs; for it is too much like liquid.—
The Youth’s Instructor,
May 31, 1894
.
676. For those who can use them, good vegetables, prepared
in a healthful manner, are better than soft mushes or porridge.—
Unpublished Testimonies, January 11, 1897
.
Too Frequent Eating
677. A second meal should never be eaten until the stomach has
had time to rest from the labor of digesting the preceding meal.—
How
to Live, 55
.
678. After the stomach has done its work for one meal, do not
crowd more work upon it before it has had a chance to rest, and to
provide a sufficient supply of gastric juice for the next meal. Five
hours at least should be given between each meal, and always bear in
mind that if you would give it a trial, you would find that two meals
would be better than three.—
Unpublished Testimonies, August 30,
1896
.
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679. If a third meal be eaten at all, it should be light, and several
hours before going to bed. But with many the poor tired stomach may