MENUS.
For a balanced dietary we need some building food, protein; some force
food, starch, sugar and fat; some of the mineral salts in organic form,
best obtained from raw fruits and vegetables; and a medium in which the
foods can be dissolved, water.
We need a replenishment of these food stuffs at intervals, but it is not
necessary to take all of them at the same meal, or even during the same
day. Those who believe that all alimentary principles must enter into
every meal must necessarily injure themselves through too complex
eating. In talking of these alimentary principles, reference is made to
them only when they are present in appreciable quantities.
To have the subject better in hand, let us again classify the most
important foods:
Flesh foods, which are rich in protein.
Nuts, which contain considerable protein and fat.
Milk and cheese, which contain much protein.
Eggs, taken principally for their protein.
Cereals, the most important contents being starches.
Tubers, containing much starch.
Legumes, rich in protein and starch.
Fresh fruits, well flavored and high in salt contents.
Sweet fruits, containing much fruit sugar.
Succulent vegetables, chiefly valuable because of salts and juices.
Fats and oils, no matter what their source, are concentrated foods which
furnish heat and energy when burned in the body.
When people are free and active in the fresh air they can eat in a way
that would soon ruin the digestive powers of those who lead more
artificial lives. It is a well known fact that we can go hunting,
fishing, tramping or picnicking and eat mixtures and quantities of foods
that would ordinarily give us discomfort. The freedom and activity, the
change and the better state of mind give greater digestive power.
Those who wish to live their best must pay some attention to the
combination of food. It is true that very moderate people, those who
take no more food than the body demands, can combine about as they
please. These moderate people do not care to mix their foods much. They
are satisfied with very plain fare. Much as we dislike to acknowledge
the fact, nearly all of us take too much food, even those who most
strongly preach moderation. By combining properly much of the harmful
effect of overeating can be overcome.
FRUITARIANS.
I class as fruitarians those who eat only cereals, fruits and nuts. This
may not be a correct definition, but after reading much literature on
dietetics it is the best I can do. Their combinations should present no
difficulties.
They should take cereals once or twice a day; nuts once or twice a day;
fruit once a day in winter and once or twice a day in summer. The winter
fruit should be sweet part of the time. In summer it can be the juicy
fruit and berries at all times.
The fruitarians should be careful to avoid the habitual combination of
acid fruits with their cereals.
One meal a day can be made of one or two varieties of fruit and nothing
else. Nuts may be added to the fruit at times.
Another meal may be made of some cereal product with nut butter or some
kind of vegetable oil.
A third meal may be some form of sweet fruit, with which may be eaten
either bread or nuts, or better still, combine one sweet fruit with an
acid one.
Most people would consider such a diet very limited, but it is easy to
thrive on it, and it is not a tiresome one. There are so many varieties
of fruits, nuts and cereals that it is easy to get variety. These foods
do not become monotonous when taken in proper amounts. On such a diet it
does not make much difference which meal is breakfast, lunch or dinner.
The rule should be to take the heartiest meal after the heavy work is
done, for hearty meals do not digest well if either mind or body is hard
at work.
It is not difficult to get all the food necessary in two meals, but
inasmuch as the three meal a day plan is prevalent the menus here given
include that number of meals.
Breakfast: Apples, baked or raw.
Lunch: Brown rice and raisins.
Dinner: Whole wheat zwieback with nut butter.
Breakfast: Oranges or grapefruit.
Lunch: Pecans and figs.
Dinner: Bread made of rye or whole wheat flour, with nut butter or olive
oil.
Breakfast: Any kind of berries.
Lunch: Dates.
Dinner: Whole wheat bread, with or without oil, Brazil nuts.
These combinations are indeed simple, but these foods are very
nourishing and most of them concentrated, so it is best not to mix too
much. They are natural foods, which digest easily when taken in
moderation, but if eaten to excess they soon produce trouble.
It is no hardship to live on simple combinations. We have so much food
that we have fallen into the bad habit of partaking of too great variety
at a meal. The fact is that those who combine simply enjoy their foods
more than those who coax their appetite with too great variety. There is
no physical hardship connected with simple eating, and as soon as the
mind is made up to it, neither is there any mental hardship.
VEGETARIANS.
It is difficult to give an acceptable definition for vegetarianism. For
a working basis we shall take it for granted that those are vegetarians
who reject flesh foods. Those who wish can also reject dairy products
and eggs. It is largely a matter of satisfying the mind.
The chief trouble with the vegetarians is that they believe that the
fact that they abstain from flesh will bring them health. So they
combine all kinds of foods and take several kinds of starches and fruits
at the same meal. The consequence is that they soon get an acid
condition of the digestive organs and a great deal of fermentation.
Among vegetarians, prolapsus of the stomach and bowels is quite common,
and this is due to gas pressure displacing the organs.
Their foods are all right, but their combinations, as a rule, are bad.
The various vegetarian roasts, composed of nuts, cereals, legumes and
succulent vegetables are hard to digest. It would be much better for
them not to make such dishes.
A few suggestions for vegetarian combining follow:
Breakfast: Berries and a glass of milk.
Lunch: Baked potatoes and lettuce with oil.
Dinner: Nuts, cooked succulent vegetables, one or two varieties, sliced
tomatoes.
Breakfast: Cottage cheese and oranges.
Lunch: Nuts and raisins.
Dinner: Whole wheat bread, stewed onions, butter, salad of lettuce and
celery.
Breakfast: Cantaloupe.
Lunch: Buttermilk, bread and butter.
Dinner: Nuts, stewed succulent vegetables, lettuce and sliced tomatoes,
with or without oil.
Breakfast: Boiled brown rice with raisins and milk.
Lunch: Grapes.
Dinner: Cooked lentils or baked beans, lettuce and celery.
OMNIVOROUS PEOPLE.
In this country, most people are omnivorous. The food is plentiful and
people believe in generous living. They put upon their tables at each
meal enough variety for a whole day and the custom is to eat some of
each. Some breakfasts are heavy enough for dinners. Three heavy meals a
day are common. Some can eat this way for years and be in condition to
work most of the time, but they are never 100 per cent. efficient. They
are never as able as they could be. Besides, they have their times of
illness and grow old while they should be young. They generally die
while they should be in their prime, leaving their friends and families
to mourn them when they ought to be at their best. They are worn out by
their food supply, plus other conventional bad habits.
One of the best plans that has been proposed for omnivorous people is
that which has been worked out by Dr. J. H. Tilden. Its skeleton is,
fruit once a day, starchy food once a day, flesh or other protein with
succulent vegetables once a day. I shall make up menus for a few days
based on this plan:
Breakfast: Baked apples, a glass of milk.
Lunch: Boiled rice with butter.
Dinner: Roast mutton, spinach and carrots, salad of raw vegetables.
Breakfast: Cantaloupe.
Lunch: Biscuits or toast with butter, buttermilk.
Dinner: Pecans, two stewed succulent vegetables, salad of lettuce,
tomatoes and cucumbers, dressing.
Breakfast: Peaches, cottage cheese.
Lunch: Baked potatoes, butter, lettuce.
Dinner: Fresh fish baked, liberal helping of one, two or three of the
raw salad vegetables.
Breakfast: Shredded wheat or puffed wheat sprinkled with melted butter,
glass of milk.
Lunch: Watermelon.
Dinner: Roast beef, boiled cabbage, stewed onions, butter dressing,
sliced tomatoes with salt and oil.
The doctor allows considerable dessert. That generally goes with the
dinner.
It is nonsense to write, "So and so shalt thou eat and not otherwise."
The menus here given simply serve as suggestions. Where one succulent
vegetable is mentioned another may be substituted. One cereal may be
substituted for another. One juicy fruit for another. One sweet fruit
for another. One legume for another. One food rich in protein for
another.
In combining food the principal things to remember are:
Use only a few foods at a meal; use only one hearty, concentrated food
in a meal, as a rule, with the exception that various fats and oils in
moderation are allowable as dressings for fruits, vegetables and
starches; that much fat or oil retards the digestion of the rest of the
food; that the habitual combining of acid food with foods heavy in
starch is a trouble-maker; that concentrated starchy foods should be
taken not to exceed twice a day; that the heating, stimulating foods
rich in protein, which include nearly all meats, should be taken only
once a day in winter, and less in summer; that either raw fruit or raw
vegetables should be a part of the daily food intake, because the salts
they contain are essential to health; that fats should be used sparingly
in summer, but more freely in winter; that juicy fruits are to be used
liberally in summer and sparingly in winter, when the sweet fruits are
to take their place a part of the time.
The dried sweet fruits are quite different from the fresh juicy ones.
The former serve more the purpose of the starches than that of fruits.
They are rich in sugar, which produces heat and energy. The same is true
of the banana, which is about one-fifth sugar. It is not as sweet as
would be expected from this fact. Some sugars are sweeter than others.
This you can easily verify by tasting some milk sugar and then taking
the same amount of commercial sugar made of cane or beets.
The food need in summer is surprisingly small, so small that the average
person will scarcely believe it. Some writers on dietetics advise eating
as much in summer as in winter. How they can do so it is difficult to
understand, for reason tells us that in summertime practically no food
is needed for heating purposes, and that is how most of the food is
used. A little experience and experiment show that reason is right.
Nature herself confirms this fact, for at the tropics she has made it
easy for man to subsist on fruits, while in the polar regions she
furnishes him the most heating of all foods, fats.
Because fats are so concentrated it is very easy to take too much of
them. An ounce of butter contains as much nourishment as about
twenty-five ounces of watermelon. Those who simplify their cooking and
their combining and partake of food in moderation are repaid many times
over in improved health. It is necessary to supply good building
material in proper form if we would have health.