76

There are occasions when it will be wise to avoid
eating.

We can economise our vitality by avoiding
hungerless eating/ because hungerless eating is the
greatest tax ,pn our , vitality. But this raises the
question , what is hunger?

HUNGER

Hunger "is the most misunderstood and the
most misrepresented phenomenon of physiology,"
It is a matter of common sense that hunger should
be a healthy sign ; -a sign indicating the readiness
of Life to undertake the hard task of digestion cannot
be anything but a healthy one. But from descrip-
tions of it given in standard books on physiology and
. medicine, one gathers the impression that hunger
is a condition 6i disease* It has been described as
a gnawing .sensation or a feeling of compression iq,
the* stomach. It is generally associated witK
a sense of weakness or fatigue. All these are
symptoms of disease, but certainly not of hunger*

The first point that one should bear in mind
about hunger is that it is not something felt in
a particular organ of the body/ namely , the
stomach ; it is not a localised sensation ; it is felt all
over the body.

The popular notion that hunger is characterised
by fatigue and fainting is sheer nonsense. Those
who have been reaHy hungry know that it is a h veffy
pleasant sensation due, as it;is/ to a full glow of Life;

, not ravenous appetite. A really
hungry man shoukbbe cool, and never in any great
hurry to eat any thing * ......
People* dssead hunger;, they are taught to avoid
ae ih#y wouild do the plague* Such idioms as