Do Food Fads Aid Good Health

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 5, Issue 4, 1 October 1926, Page 74

Do Food Fads Aid Good Health

By zA Woman ‘Doctor

IN this well-instructed age everybody knows, or ought to know, that there are certain essential classes of foods required for the nourishment and maintenance in health of the human body. Probably every school child who has passed the third or fourth standard could tell us that we require proteids, which might be represented by meats, poultry, fish, and cheese; carbohydrates, or starches, which

trc represented by bread, cakes,rice end sago, potatoes, carrots, turnips, and also by sugar; and that the ether well-recognised class of foods is the fats, such as cream, butter, meat fat, dripping, and bacon fat. Latterly the school child would probably also tell us that this list is not quite complete, and that for the purpose of digestion we need mineral salts, while for the maintenance of our vital energy, we also require certain substances called vitamines, small in bulk but of great value, and that of them one class will be found in green vegetables—-

e.g., salads —while others are chiefly found in butter • and other animal fats. zA Qommon ‘Delusion I Tnfortunately, all our citizens are not so wise and so simple-mind-ed as our young friends. Many men and women like to delude themselves into the idea that they have a considerable amount of medical and physiological knowledge, so that, with-

out the burdensome curriculum extending over six years which goes to the fashioning of a doctor, they feel that they know—it may he by instinctwhat arc the causes of their own and other people’s ailments, and what modifications of diet are desirable in th treatment of the various ills to which they and their neighbours arc subject. Hence the development of many fads and fashions which govern the lives of thousands. The insufficiency and inconvenience of a vegetarian or fruitarian

diet depends in a great measure on the relatively enormous quantity of carbohydrate food that is necessitated in such cases. Man’s organs of digestion arc not able to deal advantageously with an excess of breadstuffs, fruits and other vegetables. To do this adequately man would need to be eating continually, as do the cow, the sheep, the hippopotamus, and other vegetable feeders. Fid an dipt Herbivorous A N examination of the teeth and the rest of the digestive apparatus of these animals shows that they differ as much from the human type as do those of the carnivora. It is perfectly obvious that the structure, the manner of feeding,

and the habits of life of man cannot be subserved by food which is suitable to the much heavier, slower animals of the herbivorous class. While an ordinary diet containing a normal proportion of proteids, carbohydrates, fats, salts, and vitamines is appropriate to healthy men and women, there are certain classes of human beings which need special consideration, such as the infant, the aged, and the unsound. The infant’s ideal food is milk—woman’s milk if it be possible to secure it, and best of all his own mother’s milk. The infant has lived with his mother nine months before birth, and he has lived with her in the greatest possible intimacy. He is

bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh. Her blood runs in' his veins; he has become so accustomed to her that he is immune to her bacteria and has effected a most practical life insurance so long as he is able to maintain this intimate relation with, and total dependence on, his mother. If deprived of her milk, if exposed to the bacterial influences of any other human being, his chances of life arc lessened by one-half, and his sickness rate is greatly increased. Milk contains 95 per cent, of water and 5 per cent, of solids. This 5 per cent, shows the normal proportion of proteid from which is made cheese, of fat as displayed in butter, and carbohydrate as represented by milk-sugar. Salts and vitamines are also present.

Milk as sucked by the infant from the breast is warm, pure, clean, and free from the germs of disease. This cannot be claimed for food partaken of under any other conditions. And so the infant has his provision of “pure milk,” “clean milk,” and “baby’s safest milk” so long, and only so long, as he is breast-fed. ho king The Fire 'HE aged require less food than A do adults, and less proportion of proteid than is necessary for men and women in active work. The endeavour to cat at 70 as one did at 45 is futile. The juices of the aged

are not able to digest so much food nor so large a proportion of flesh food. The excess hampers digestion and acts on the old person as does an undue amount of fuel on a dying fire. They need smaller amounts of food, which must he easy of digestion, and plenty of water, hot or cold, but not with their meals. Invalids need specially selected diet chosen with careful consideration of their individual requirements, and ' they show their practical wisdom in choosing a suitable doctor in whom they can trust and then in carefully carrying out his advice. It is interesting to remark that practically all endeavours of man to secure bodily welfare by dietary means entail a large measure of renunciation. The individual who restricts his food to beef and hot water denies himself not only the satisfaction of variety of food in all its forms but also of the many enticements to appetite and to enjoyment to be found in the ways in which meat may be cooked and presented on the table. In the same manner those who exclude flesh food from their menu lose not only the soup, fish, poultry, and meat, but also the gratifying variations of flavour and appearance that skilful cooks know how to find in their endless combinations of different foodstuffs. Now this “renunciation” is always intended to secure some relief from pain or discomfort, on the one hand or some increase of strength and endurance on the other. Viewed in the light of physiology, it is a mistaken endeavour to bring the body into harmony with its necessary sustenance and to effect a peaceable solution of a quarrel between the natural food and a digestive apparatus, which is supposed to be unnatural either in structure or function, permanently, or for a time only. Apparently, these various “renunciations” are a blind reaching out towards some expiation of former excesses in the use of food or towards the placation of digestive organs suffering from the ill doings of other organs. Qickncss of the stomach and miscry of other digestive organs, such as the liver and the bowels, may have been induced by mental errors, such as sorrow, anxiety, and overwork, or by diseases primarily affecting the heart, the lungs, or other bodily organs. In any case, the diet-faddist hopes to regain physical peace by rigorous renunciation of all pleasures in food, by a sacrifice of natural and .God-given instincts intended to subserve good health and joie clc vivre. The Bible, the Koran, the Sacred Scriptures of India, and the customs of all nations and tribes commend fasting, and the literature of all lands unites ■ in recording the advantages gained by it. The experience of the present day is at one with these views and corroborates these historical facts. Fasting, almsgiving, and prayer arc held in high esteem by the servants of God, whether Hindu, Moslem, or Christian.