THE VITAMIN AGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 88, 5 July 1927, Page 3

THE VITAMIN AGE

FOODS THAT ARE HEALTHGIVING Vitamins and calories were words of mystery only a short time ago. Now we chat lightly of them, seriously consider them, and if we do not already try such'consideration for our various ailments then our doctors suggest that we do. “Tell me how you are and I’ll tell you what you eat,” they say, and the vitamin they press upon Us, especially now that spring is here and the healthgiving vegetables can be had for the asking (says a writer in “The Daily Chronicle”). The Cabbage as Monarch The cabbage is the monarch of all vitamin producers. Americans laugh at our consistent cabbage eating, but after all we are only following Greek and Roman habit. These ancients knew the value of the cabbage, as did the Kgyptians. They did not mention vitamins, but the Romans regarded it as a preservative from the plague and urged its use medicinally. The Greeks served it with pomp and ceremony, made it the most highly prized dish on a menu, and some even raised altars to it. Think of that when you see it in its fresh spring green and respect it enough to steam rather than boil it, so that not a scrap of its virtue may escape. A Good Spring Vegetable Lettuce is another food whose value has come down through the ages, though few of us realise that. The Greeks ate it freely in the spring, serving it at the end of a meal without condiments. The Romans liked it better at the beginning of a meal as an appetiser with the broad flat dish on which it lay garnished with egg. An Age-Old Remedy It was a remedy for insomnia and nervous troubles, and so highly did one epicurean philosopher esteem his lettuces that he used to walk around his patch by night, picking out the lettuces for next day’s meal and pouring wine over them, which gave them a mysterous pleasing flavour that called forth exclamations of surprise and delight. Yet they could hardly have been as delicious soaked in wine as when well marinated with a good French dressing which has two and a half times as much oil as vinegar. Somewhat Neglected in England We do not give as much attention as we should to the leaf or French artichoke, perhaps because it is never really cheap with us. In France I have seen it bought at a penny apiece In America where whole tracts of land arc given over to its cultivation in the Far West, it is even cheaper. It was brought to Venice in the 16th century from Asia Minor, it is said, and its firm green leaves, so rich in iron, were nt once properly respected and much eaten. Indeed, its greatest popularity is still in Latin countries, where it is eaten as a salad, or its hearts are cooked as a#vegetable. The bean and the tomato both suffered from slander in ancient times, and the tomato's bad reputation clung to it through the ages, though merely due to superstition, such as Pythagoras was suffering from when he said the bean had malignant qualities. Both are now in high favour —the tomato especially for its storehouse of vitamins —while the bean, once it lived down prejudice, became the staple food of the poor. The string bean, another health giver, was a later development.