Daily Training by E.F. Benson — Read

Dogmatism on any subject is dangerous: in matters of food it is fatal. One man's meat is literally another man's poison, and because one of the writers knows that personally he can digest without the slightest discomfort a heavy supper, sleep the sleep of the just, and rise cheerful and hungry for breakfast, he would be making a great mistake in recommending such a course for a dyspeptic person, with a view to the strengthening of his digestive processes. In fact, if a naturally dyspeptic person persevered in such a system, this unfortunate scribe would probably be summoned to attend -- with shame and dishonour -- a coroner's inquest. On the other hand, should the dyspeptic so far win him over as to make him give what he would call a "fair trial" to a simple diet, "the only diet" he would say "on which it is possible to keep fairly well," he would, if it was persevered with, be probably asked in a public place what he knew about this suicide.

But the moral of these gloomy reflections is clear enough: namely, that in questions of eating and drinking and smoking, what is to be ascertained is the diet which will keep A or B in good health for the proper performance of a citizen's duties. Whatever diet (or absence of diet) continues to give good results after a protracted trial is almost certainly good for the individual in question. Whether it would be good for another individual it is impossible to say, but if any one person, even though he lived exclusively on green cigars and Egyptian mummies, continued to be in his most excellent health on such a diet, it would be foolish to urge him, except on the score of expense in the way of import duties, to change it.