By all means brush your teeth after each meal, making sure to remove all food particles, especially from the tops of your back teeth. Food particles between the teeth ferment in about four hours, and the fermentation dissolves the enamel of the teeth, resulting in tooth cavities and thus toothaches. Dentures are costly and no more satisfactory than wooden legs; better keep your own teeth. Tooth pastes soften the gums and subject the teeth to pyorrhea; powder is preferable. Salt water wash toughens the gums and kills bacteria, prolonging the life of the teeth. As tooth brushes become contaminated with pyorrhea germs, they should therefore be kept in salt water or in the sunshine.
Make friends. Be cheerful and calm at all times. Remember that “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” Prov. 17:22. Fears, rages, great burdens and anxieties, increase the volume of gastric secretion, causing acid stomach and gastric ulcers.
“The relation that exists between the mind and the body is very intimate. When one is affected, the other sympathizes. The condition of the mind affects the health to a far greater degree than many realize. Many of the diseases from which men suffer are the result of mental depression. Grief, anxiety, discontent, remorse, guilt, distrust, all tend to break down the life forces and to invite decay and death….Courage, hope faith, sympathy, love, promote health and prolong life. A contented mind, a cheerful spirit, is health to the body and strength to the soul.” — Ministry of Healing, p. 241.
“Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matt. 6:31-34.
Know that your health is your treasure; that without it all else is lost; and that you live, move and have your being to get all your work done daily, efficiently, and on time. Work promotes health and brings happiness. If a tree quits bearing, the owner cuts it down, and if a human being does not produce when he should, then what is he good for? The Master did not care to keep a barren tree: “And when He saw a fig tree in the way, He came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.” Matt. 21:19.
“He spake also this parable, A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.” Luke 13:6-9.
“Six days [out of a week] shalt thou labour, and do all thy work.” Ex. 20:9. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Gen. 3:19.
Certainly everything in God’s creation makes its own living; the birds do even from the very day they leave the nest, yet they never take anxious thought. Only man has ever sought to enslave, to make a living from another man’s sweating — the most intelligent being has become the greatest brute! Let every able-bodied Christian produce enough to make his own living and to help the disabled, too.
It is doubtful, moreover, whether anyone who fails to get his work done well and on time will ever fit himself for the Kingdom and be on schedule when the fiery chariot takes off, and the saints shout, “Glory! Alleluia!”
NO NEED OF STAYING HUNGRY AND HELPLESS
There are many persons who, when the cook for even good reasons fails to prepare a meal for them to sit down and eat to the full, become upset and will stay hungry for the rest of the day rather than look after their own food. For this there is no excuse if one is at home or near a grocery store.
Occasional meals, and good ones at that, can be instantly set on the table, ready to be enjoyed by any person who needs a meal. Every home practically every day of the year has in the cupboard staple articles of food such as bread, prepared cereals, dried fruits, and often even fresh fruits honey, eggs, milk, and especially canned goods that need only be opened and put on the table.
Yes, any member of the family, even the children in an emergency, can immediately make his or her selection of the foodstuffs that are already in the house, and can without inconveniencing himself or others, sit down to a meal that is both palatable and nutritious. A slice of bread or a dish of ready-to-use cereal, a little honey or jelly, and a glass of milk, an orange or an apple, a few raisins or dried prunes or the like, will make an excellent meal, and much more healthful than is found in the average American home, even in the homes that employ cooks. With the added advantage that it takes only about five minutes to get such a meal together, there should be no hardship.
When you find that for some reason your meal is not prepared as you expected, just help yourself like a person who knows his business, rather than act like an invalid, or like a bird while yet in its nest, or even like a newborn kitten before its eyes come open.
Then to top this over, immediately after you are through, wash your own dishes. You will not have many, and it will take but a moment. Thus you will lighten the heavy burden of some other member of the family, and make yourself and others happier, as well as keep the dining room and kitchen orderly with nothing lying around to be pushed here and there to make the home unsightly or the family irritated. Housekeepers, too, will find this system very advantageous-the dishes will wash easier, the kitchen and dining room, in fact the whole house, will look orderly at all times, and there will be no need of thinking about the dishes anymore, or of having your peace disturbed, or perhaps of having to stop in the middle of another job later in the day in order to get the dishes done for the noon or evening meal. Anyone will find this to be systematic, convenient, and time-saving.
When you are away from home, moreover, if there is no suitable restaurant nearby which you can conveniently patronize, you will in a fairly good grocery store find, almost as conveniently as in the home cupboard, a greater variety of things which you will enjoy for your meal. Such a meal you will find nutritious, palatable, more for you money, and more suitable for your body’s need.
At first it may seem inconvenient, but after you do this several times, you will never want to go back to your old way of trying to find something to eat in one restaurant, then in another. Your auto will make a good dining room if there is no other place to sit. Dishes you do not need to carry from home or worry about who is to wash them: You can buy fiber dishes in the store, and when you are through with them you can easily afford to toss them with the waste. Thus you can have the best of everything, as fancy as need be, as clean as you care to have it, and as cheap as at home.
Now to mention a few articles of food which can be found in almost every good grocery store the year round, and which are nutritious and convenient for away-from-home meals:
Bread or buns, cottage cheese, fresh or canned milk, buttermilk, dried or fresh fruits, besides a large assortment of canned goods which need not be warmed. Then, too, you will find all kinds of juices, and in season there are berries, melons, grapes, tomatoes, peppers, onions, parsley, lettuce, and many other good things which need not be cooked. With these you may sit down like a king having a picnic!