HEALTH NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21784, 25 October 1932, Page 2

HEALTH NOTES

Written for the Otago Daily Times By R. J. Terry.

Green vegetables may be combined with grains or starchy foods, but don't combine the potato and the tomato—they are of the same family, although they look so different. You may graft a tomato on a' potato plant, and have potatoes underneath and tomatoes on top, although naturally both of them would be somewhat small.

If your digestion is weak never eat fruit with meals. Eat it early in the morning or between meals and, despite what you have been told in the past (but not in this column), you may eat fruit in the evening. It is absurd to think that you may have a heavy, rich dinner and then, because you have eaten an apple, think that you have corrected the mistake. If you have a weak digestion and you wish to eat stewed fruit don't do so .after meat, but make a complete meal of it. You may have with it some good cereal.

Do not take milk with fruits. You have a digestive juice which coagulates milk very shortly after it reaches the stomach, and you don't want its work attempted by fruit acids. There is no objection to unpreserved cream in moderation with fruit if you are also eating some grain food. If you are suffering with nerves or flatulence, which invariably go together, sweeten with honey, not sugar. If you are eating fish, eat a good cereal bread or scone with it.

Curd cheese, which is only a few days old, is better for weak digestions than ordinary cheese. The substitutes for meat are fresh eggs, good milk, cheese, and fish.

The hard physical worker may substitute dried beans, such as haricot or lima, or dried peas, for meat. Don't use them as side dishes to meat if your digestion is weak. If you suffer from indigestion and you persist in doctpring yourself, try eating only one: or two things at a meal. Discontinue the usual conglomeration. You may have for breakfast a good meal with milk. If you are not content with,a second helping of the porridge, then have some scones made of the same material with butter. Dried fruits such as raisins, sultanas, chopped dates, or figs make a nice break, if added to the scones.

The good effect is spoiled if you finish the meal with a small piece of toast and jam or marmalade, etc If you get tired of porridge, choose some other food and make a complete meal of it. You can take an abundance of milk with the porridge as the curd is well broken up, but you are not to take sugar if thero are digestive troubles. . ;, Those suffering from constipation should avoid the finely ground breakfast foods as they do not give the bowel work or stimulus, and the muscles become slack and constipation is accentuated. Further, such foods are often a source of flatulence. Finely ground foods are beneficial in exceptional cases, such as a form of inflammation or colitis. For the latter trouble raw eggs beaten in some water or milk diluted with barley water should give the principal nourishment to the body, Don't eat any raw fruit after your breakfast. You may eat fruit a couple of hours later or an hour previously. If you adopt a plain, simple breakfast such as this, in a very few weeks you will notice a decided improvement. Don't write to me and say your are dieting because you have half an apple in the morning, and then 10 minutes afterwards have one or two cups of tea and some hot-buttered toast, to be followed by bacon and fried eggs for breakfast. It makes a nice sort of stew if you think it over. Don't imagine that, because you have eatenhajf an'orange or a whole orange during the day you have done everything necessary for your health. . Oranges are beneficial when used properly, but a lot of nonsense has been written about them. They are valuable, but not as valuable as interested parties have endeavoured to make them out, and there are some people who should not eat them. This applies even more so to lemons.

Do not overeat with the mistaken idea that the more you eat the stronger you will become. This idea is very silly: It is eating sufficient of the correct foods for your individual requirements that gives you strength and reserve strength, because waste matter is very small, and it is waste matter that gives you that tired feeling. Watch a man coaling a furnace, and if he has been at his job any length of time have a chat with him and you will find that he does not just open the door of the Are box and fill it full of coal, but that he throws a shovel full of coal to various parts of the fire-box so that the coal may be quickly combusted. If you chat with him you will find that he recognises it is the amount of coal which is property combusted that gives the steam power. He will tell you that he could not get the eame amount of energy if he loaded up the fire-box with more coal than it could deal with.

The same principle applies to your stomach. It is not the amount of food you put into it, but the amount that can be completely digested, although it is not digested in the stomach but in the bowels.

M. J.—Sitting in a room of which the doors and windows are closed tightly and a gas fire is burning, is most certainly injurious to your health. This applies to some people more than others. If your system contained a large amount of waste matter, which gives off carbonic gas or mono-dioxide you require a large amount of oxygen to counteract it. Now, the gas stove is really using oxygen and giving off practically the same body wastes. Surely you can arrange matters so that there is somo ventilation.