WHAT MELBA EATS.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17220, 1 October 1927, Page 15 (Supplement)

WHAT MELBA EATS.

lIMPLE DIET BRINGS GOOD HEALTH Addressing her students at the Alert Street Conservatorium, Melourne, Dame Nellie Melba made notble remarks on the subject of diet. One girl set the ball rolling with a ignificant quustion:— "Madame, will you tell us what not o eat?” "Ah,” said Dame Nellie; and then ame the most interesting period of he lesson. “Shall 1 tell you what eat? I begin my day with a desertspoonful of lemon juice (orange uice is just as good if you like sweet hings; I don’t), in boiling water. Half n hour later I have a raw tomato, or

a bit of celery, or some watercress, or a bit of lettuce, with one tiny little bit: of bread and butter, and two cups of weak tea. That is all the tea 1 drink in the day. Plain Living and High Thinking. “I have done thatfcvery morning of my life, and it has done me an enormous amount of good. Perhaps for lunch I may have some fish or chicken, with plenty of vegetables, and perhaps some stewed fruit. Do not mix your foods. If you have hot fish, have hot vegetables, and if you have salad do not have vegetables, and so on. You will get you'r blood stream running so beautifully clear you will never get a cold. Since I got better from my horrible illness I have not had a cold” —(here she hastened to the piano to “touch wood”) —“and 1 consider this due to my diet. I never eat meat. Three times a week I have no dinner at all, and three times I have a wonderful s vegetable soup, which has been simmering for three hours. The Less You Eat the Better. “Believe me, the less you eat the better you are, and if you take my advice you will cat less and less meat and more and more vegetables and more fruit.” Then she went on to recommend certain things: boiled onions, “which I love”; raw carrots, grated, and made into a sandwich; “anything that grows in the earth.” Then she asked: “Would you like to know what I eat when I am singing?” There was no doubt as to the response, so she went on. “The day I sing I have my raw tomato and my tea in the morning. At i o’clock I have a chicken in a casserole, with vegetables and perhaps a baked apple; and at 5 o’clock I have scrambled eggs without any salt, because you must never run the risk of getting thirsty when you are singing.” The Cook and the Salt. “That reminds me of a funny story,” she went on.. “I was staying in a country hotel, and asked for my scrambled eggs without salt, when the cook remarked, “I know now why 1 can’t sing; l love salt." Another invaluable hint, which Dame Nellie said was> given to her by an eminent throat specialist in New York. 1 “If any of you," she said “get that ' horrible, nervous, dry feeling, when your tongue seems to cleave to the roof of your mouth, press your tongue between your Icelli. This helps the 1 saliva to come, and it means such a lot."