FOOD FADS

Evening Star, Issue 19760, 10 January 1928, Page 4

FOOD FADS

SOME ARE FOLLIES HOW MUCH TO EAT fßy M. 8., Ch.M., in the Sydney ‘Sun.] No branch of medicine lias received so much attention, of late as dietetics. Different food cranks have been able to trace in food the cause of every complaint, from cancer to corns. It has been proved to tiie satisfaction of the prover (only) that ho who takes a heavy breakfast has the best chance of doing his morning work: it has been similarly proved that he who indulges in a glass of milk and a carroway seed on rising is ■ ideally suited to wort without further nourishment till eventide. It has* been proved that most men eat instinctively the amount of food necessary for the maximum efficiency of their bodies; it has also been proved that everybody eais twice as much as they need. Food likes and dislikes are mostly religious or spiritual in origin, even to the present day. Everyone knows that many sects in the Old Testament had their orders about what foods they must avoid. The Jews, as everybody knows, are debarred from pork. To this day religion and food fads go hand in hand. Many sects, chiefly American in origin, look on all forms of flesh foods with stern disapproval. An interesting analogy can bo drawn from Eastern and black races, who almost invariably can be found to have certain foods on their local dietic index expurgates. To the Hindoo tho cow is a sacred animal, and must not be eaten; to tho Mohammadan every food is taboo which an infidel has cooked. The origin of most of these fads are lost in tho mists of time, but the interesting fact remains that the first food fads were religious in origin. FUNDAMENTALS OF DIBTIGS. To judge the value of any food you must get down to fundamentals and analyse it. An article of diet is composed of carbohydrates, proteins, or fats. In most foods all three are found, but one preponderates. Carbohydrates form the bulk of foods, such as porridge, bread, sugar, cakes, etc. They are eliminated largely from tho diet of a diabetic. Yet every’ doctor can tell the true tale of diabetic patients who have proudly told of their virtue in avoiding sugar, which virtue even wont so fat as to refrain from having the slightest trace of it on their morning porridge, roods are valuable to the system in direct proportion to tho number of calories they contain. To say that such and such a food " makes blood ” is arrant nonsense. Blood corpuscles are made in the bone marrow, and one or two other parts of the body. Food has nothing to do with it, except irsefar as any form of nourishment is essential for tho continuity of function of the body. The correctly-nourished body is one which is given a proper proportion of the three fundamentals of diet in sufficient quantities to prevent the body from using up Us own tissues. There is only one other faciar eessential, a sufficiency of vilamincs in the diet. THE ELUSIVE VITAMINES. Vitamines in themselves are a recent discovery. But it is many years since sailors discovered that an absence of fresh meats and vegetables from their diet was inevitably followed by a disease called scurvy. It is some time also since medical men found out that the Eastern disease of beri-beri was caused by the lack of a “something” found in tho coating of the rice grain. It was found, further, that the disease only affected people who lived on the polished rice grains, and that, when they amended their diet to include the unpolished grain, beri-beri disappeared. Scientists have: so far unearthed four classes of vitaminos, biffi.jt is by no levis certain that their discoveries are at end. When one gets down to basic principles in this way, the foolishness of the faddist becomes a self-evident truth. The vegetarian has nothing on the meat eater, and the moat cater has very little on the vegetarian, except it be that he enjoys an infinitely greater variety of dishes ;:n h.’s menu. Also, you need a certain number of calories a day to keep in health; if you desire to take most of them abroad at your midday or evening meal, and refrain from spreading the usual avciage amount over the usual three meals a day, that is entirely your own matter. You do not score at all by having no lunch and a big dinner when you pet home, any more than you score by having no breakfast and a big lunch. From a commonsense point of view, it is probably better to even the amount over three or four meals. THE IDEAL DIET. The ideal diet is like the ideal husband; there isn’t one. Bat moderately and slow ly any food you fancy that doesn’t give }ou indigestion. Everyone has a different face from everybody else; and the chances are that everyone’s stomach diljers, too. Some foods cause an unoomfortaiuc feeling m some people, and tho obvious cure is to avoid them. One man can eat strawberries or shellfish; another man Buffers agony every time he attempts to do tho same. A cold wind gives some women chapped hands, and others a beautiful rosy complexion. We all have our little points of difference. Find out what your stomach objects to. and then, go out and enjoy anything else you fancy.