DIET AND HEALTH

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 208, 29 May 1926, Page 22

DIET AND HEALTH

PROFESSOR AND VALUE OF FASTING

Lecturing in Loudon for the People’s League of Health on “lhe Nature and Purpose of Food,” Professor Leonard Hill said that there was not only no advantage in overeating, that was, in taking more tood oi good quality than the fuel value needed, but disadvantage. People were wrong in thinking that thev could become strong merely by good' feeding. Strength was got by exercise and exposure to sunshine and open air, which promoted appetite and good digestion of food and growth of muscle.

Flabbiness, weakness, loss ot appetite and disorder of health came from sedentary indoor, life in over-warm atmospheres. We should all play games, voung and old; and playing fields, allotments and gardens must be provided to secure healthy, happy people. In gardens fresh vegetable foods, rich in vitamines, could be raised, while the exercise ot gardening promoted health. Summer time was a great boon in making games and gardening more possible for town workers.

Dr Hill went on to say that occasional fasting not only did no harm, but good to those who over-ate. Store cattle could be underfed during the winter and money thus saved, and brought into prime condition in the spring by good feeding Mice could be kept Ju excellent condition fasting one, two or even three days a week. It was not necessary, then, to eat every day, and certainly not four or five meals a day More people were probably killed off too early by intemperance in eating than by alcoholic intemperance. A man should keep his body fit, and it should be regarded as disgraceful to become fat, gross and of ill-condition. Most of us would be better for being rationed and exercised as a racehorse is rationed and exercised. The following was a suitable diet:— Breakfast: One egg, bread, jam, nutter and fruit; or porridge and milk and fruit. For dinner: one helping of meat, potatoes and greens, a piece of bread, and a helping of pudding. For the evening meal: A helping of vegetables flavoured with a very little meat and gravy, or eaten with some fish, or with an egg, fruit or salad with some bread and butter, or cheese, or a milk pudding. A cup or two ot or coffee might be added to the morning and evening meals. Beer or wine should only be taken in moderation with meals, and spirits altogether avoided. To eat, say, fish and sausages, or bacon and eggs for breakfast, a meat lunch, afternoon tea with sweet cakes, nnd then a three or fourcourse dinner in the evening, was to overfeed, and invite disturbance of health.

While recognising that the last month of the exhibition would be more or less of a “washing-up” period (savs a Dunedin paper), it is nevertheless astonishing to find that no less a quantity than 5,500,000 gallons of water were used at Logan Park in that time While discussing the cost of water at the exhibition at a meeting of the directors recently, _ a director iocularlv ’ remarked that, in view of the liberal manner in which the heavens had looked after the reservoirs last summer, the Citv Council might have regarded the exhibition consumption as a matter of merely absorbing the overflow. The Mayor, J who was present, smiled.