The Stomach
After the chewing is finished the food passes to the stomach and is mixed with the gastric juice which begins the digestion of protein. After about four hours the food should have passed out through the pylorus, which means “gate keeper,” into the duodenum where it receives the juice from the pancreas and the bile from the liver, and thence it passes into the small intestine where digestion is completed by the combined work of the saliva, gastric, and pancreatic juices and the bile. Now it is ready for absorption into the blood and to be used in rebuilding the body.
The Intestine
The interior of the small intestine, which is about twenty feet long, is provided with many millions of villi which absorb the food into the blood. Mineral oil cannot be absorbed as it is only a lubricant, and so it smears over these villi and hinders them from passing the food into the blood. After about four hours in the small intestine, digestion should be completed and the nutrient passed into the blood and the residue into the colon for elimination.
Note: Four hours in the stomach and four in the small intestine. The residue should not take over sixteen hours to complete the journey so that no food would remain in the tract over twenty four hours.
If foods move according to this schedule the ordinary cases of sour stomach, intestinal decay, gas, and constipation will disappear, for this is normal.
“A breakfast should reach the colon with all of the good already absorbed by the body about noon and it should pass through and out of the body not later than after breakfast time the next day, and if we are perfectly normal the lunch and supper residue may go along with it. Anything slower than this is constipation, and is a retention in the intestine of residue for too long a time.”
“Under normal conditions there is an impulse to move the bowels after each meal. A well-trained set of organs in a well-managed body will react in this desirable fashion under perfectly normal conditions.”
But people do not live that way. If people secured an elimination for each meal, the majority of our ills would disappear; but most people believe that if there is one elimination each day they are doing well, and the majority do not succeed at that without taking some laxative or cathartic (Americans spend fifty million dollars a year for seven hundred kinds of laxatives.) The X-ray has shown that most of the people who live on the one-a-day plan are holding the residue in the tract for fifty hours. Often there is delay in the stomach, producing fermentation. When fermented food reaches the small intestine and is held there overtime it decays; and when it remains in the colon for still more hours, its condition cannot be accurately described.
The natural foods recommended in this class will not ordinarily putrefy in the tract in twenty-four hours, so that if they remain in the stomach four hours, in the small intestine another four, they still have sixteen hours to pass through the twelve feet of the colon and yet be within the safety limit of twenty-five hours. But after twenty-five hours putrefaction begins, so that the people who live on the one-a-day plan and unknowingly carry the remains for fifty hours are allowing twenty-five hours for putrefaction for every meal, every day, year after year. Decayed food is passing into the blood and thence to every organ, gland, nerve, and cell day and night during every hour of life. That program makes health impossible and the coming of disease sure. On the other hand, if all residues leave the body inside of twenty-five hours, there can be no sour stomach, gas, and putrefaction, and life will be one continuous joy. Why not live on that high plane?
Many people do not know that an elimination for each meal is the health rule. They would know it if they but stopped to think. An untrained child often has to go to the toilet before the meal is finished. There is proof that the rule is right. Here is another. When your nose
gets the aroma of delicious food, your mouth “waters.” Why? Because the nose said to the mouth, “Something good is coming, get ready for it,” and the mouth prepared the saliva. Likewise when the food is in the mouth an advance message goes to the stomach saying that food is coming, and it in turn prepares the gastric juice before the food arrives.
In similar manner, when the food is in the mouth and also while it is in the stomach other advance messages go on to the intestine announcing that something is coming and that room should be prepared for it, and the only way room can be ready for it is for the intestine to pass its contents to the colon and the colon eliminate its contents. That is easy to understand once you think about it. Any rhythm slower than this is some degree of constipation. Establish this rule and follow what you are reading until you attain this ideal.
Let’s Recap
1. What substance mixes with the food to digest protein?
2. What is known as the “gate keeper”?
3. What organ produces bile?
4. What is on the interior of the small intestine wall?
5. When is food ready to be absorbed into the blood and to be used in the rebuilding of the body?
6. What organ helps to eliminate the reside from our food?
7. What happens when fermented food reaches the small intestine and is held there overtime?
8. About when does putrefaction begin?
9. About how long is the colon? And the small intestine?
10. What is the “health rule” for elimination?
Object Lesson:
In the lesson we learned that, “When your nose gets the aroma of delicious food, your mouth “waters.” Why? Because the nose said to the mouth, “Something good is coming, get ready for it,” and the mouth prepared the saliva. Likewise when the food is in the mouth an advance message goes to the stomach saying that food is coming, and it in turn prepares the gastric juice before the food arrives. In similar manner, when the food is in the mouth and also while it is in the stomach other advance messages go on to the intestine announcing that something is coming and that room should be prepared for it, and the only way room can be ready for it is for the intestine to pass its contents to the colon and the colon eliminate its contents.”
In like manner, Someone good is coming! Who? Our blessed Lord. Jesus is coming soon, and He has given us the three angels messages in advance, so that we can be prepared to meet Him. We also see this principle illustrated in Exodus, when God sends His messenger in advance to help prepare His people, for the place that He had prepared for them. “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared” Exodus 23: 20. Then in that same chapter (verse 25), He gives another blessed promise, “…I will take sickness away from the midst of thee”. Nonetheless, this promise is based on a condition (verse 22), “But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice”. 
Is it your desire to obey God’s voice and prepare for His soon coming?
By God’s grace, let us seek to obey His voice as it relates to both the physical and
spiritual preparation. Let us individually seek the Lord to find out if there is anything in our lives that we need to eliminate in order to make room for Jesus.
Grab a friend and share the wealth, from what you’ve learned in the School of Health! In next weeks study, we shall discuss about the colon and the consequences of constipation. If you or someone you know is suffering from constipation, you won’t want to miss this series! God bless!
Click on the following link for a previous class in the series: Part 1