Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1889 — Oatmeal as Food. [ARTICLE]

Oatmeal as Food.

Oatmeal has recently received some adverse" criticisms. This is not surprising, as no food article is just the thing in every case or at all times. Our daily experiences convince us of snch truth, by likes and dislikes for very common and the most wholesome foods. It is natural and best to have soma variation of diet. Ona thing may be just adapted to the state of the individual —bodily and mentally—at one time and not at some other; while called “eternal fitness of things” needs to be carefully studied before deciding an important question top hastily. Without entering into lengthy uninteresting details, chemistry, physiology, and experience, all prove oatmeal one of the most valuable cereal foods for producing good muscles and clear heads. Why, then, is it frequently found to disagree? It is easily answered. By being used almost exclusively as mush, it is swallowed so easily that it is not properly mixed with the saliva—the first step for digestion. When there is little or no saliva, as in some diseases, there is also a very weak or no digestion. A good authority, “No saliva, no indigestion.” If any soft food, mush or toast, etc., is swallowed too rapidly, or any food is washed down with tea, coffee, milk, wine, or water, some degree of indigestion is thereby produced, sooner or later, as -often shown by a sense of ftrllnessr~dis=comfort, belching, and other disturbances. -If there to a lack Of saliva, or that of proper quality, it is often best to eat some hard kind of bread, as the thin, hard, Scotch oatmeal bread, bread crusts, rusks, etc., when the teeth admit of it, and very slowly, to thus naturally increase the amount and quality of saliva. Such a course is often a better and safer corrective than all the drugs and nostrums In the country. Good health can usually an d should be secured by correct living. The best physicians are those who recognize this fact, and try to teach it to such patients as are wise enough to employ them. Oatmeal can be used in a variety of ways. As mush, it to often drowned in too much milk, sugar, butter, etc., for good digestion; it is swallowed so easily that it helps lead to overeating and its bad results. Let us go slow before we reject oatmeal as food.—Ex.