“ RUNNING RIOT WITH EXERCISE”

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 65, 18 March 1931, Page 7

“ RUNNING RIOT WITH EXERCISE”

GOLFERS SHOULD TEND GARDEN, SAYS DOCTOR.

*‘We are running riot as far as socalled exercises are concerned,” declared Dr 11. T. J. Thacker, in a talk on “ Producing Fresh Garden Products versus Golf,” from radio station 3ZC to-day. “If men, instead of playing so much golf, thought about their own homes and their children, it would be better for all concerned.

“ The best exercise of all is walking, then comes swimming, and then horseriding. Millions of pounds are being spent in England in such sports as golf and tennis. Children in the schools should be taught that man and woman were first placed in a garden, the Garden of Eden, in close touch with natural food.

This winter we may be able to lorm in Christchurch a Garden League, to turn people back to nature and to do away with the tremendous amount of golf and bowls which are required to bum off the vicious material put into man during the week.

There would then not be so much sunburning at the seaside.” Not “ Kitchen ” Gardens.

Dr Thacker said that vegetable gardens were usually called kitchen gardens. but that was a misnomer, as vegetable gardens were in existence when cooking was unknown. Cooking was wrong, and we should eat more raw r vegetables. All vegetables, particularly those of the green type, should be taken out of the garden when the. sun was not on them, such as in the early morning and evening. The sooner the picked vegetables were eaten the better would it be for one's health. The Maoris, before the advent of the English into New Zealand, grew' Maori cabbage, or what was known as New Zealand spinach, than which there was nothing better for human beings, and particularly young people. The Maoris ate also the internal core of the cabbage tree, and their root vegetable was fern root, for the eating of which chewing was necessary. With the start of cooking came the decline of man. Had there been no cooking, the work of the housewife nowadays would have been to enjoy the sunshine of the garden.