Fitness

Many people agree with me that something should be done quickly about our national malnutrition. I ask them who should do it. Some say the universities, some the Department of Agriculture, the Public Health Departments, the schools. I cannot believe that any of these organizations will solve the problem.

The persons who in my opinion will save our nation are those marvelous individuals who rush in where wise men fear to tread. These wonderful people often do not know enough to believe it when the wise men tell them that something cannot be done. Sometimes they cannot even understand why it cannot be done.

One such person was an author who bought several worn-out farms in Ohio; the wise men said the land could not pay taxes. This author had no degrees in agriculture and did not consider himself a farmer; he had lived in France and watched the peasants there, and he had ideas and was willing to study and work. He changed that eroded, worn-out land into a paradise where springs, long dried up, bubbled again, with lakes where you could swim on hot days and where delicious fish almost jumped into the breakfast frying pans. He let wild roses and berries grow along fence rows. Small animals hid there to have their babies; hunting was always good. Quail and other birds nested in the bushes, feeding their young on worms and insects which the educated wise men said must be killed with poison sprays. The paradise he created is now a mecca; thousands of farmers become pilgrims to learn wholesome farming methods which the money they have spent on taxes has not given them. This author has done tremendous good for nutrition, which starts with the soil. I hope some day I can know Mr. Bromfield well enough to call him Louie.’

Another remarkable person refused to believe the wise men who said it could not be done; he manufactured electrical equipment in New York City. Somehow he became interested in farming and moved onto worn-out land in Pennsylvania; he believed in soil bacteria, compost heaps, and lowly earthworms. When his health and the health of his family improved as his soil improved, it occurred to him that other people might want to know about his methods. First he published a magazine on gardening by biological methods and then one on farming.” This man had the courage to stick to his convictions, although the agricultural colleges said that what he said was poppycock. Several of these colleges set out to prove him wrong. Can you guess what they are finding out? That he has been right all along. I have never met this man, but I admire his courage; he has done much for nutrition.

Perhaps I love these “fools” who rush in because I have always been one of them. If you have become interested in nutrition, you will be one of us too; you cannot help yourself. Genuine interest in nutrition gives everyone a sort of divine itch, virulently contagious. It is like health, which is a million times more contagious than disease. The first thing you know, you have everyone around you scratching. This is the way it works.

At first there usually comes a trial-and-error period which varies depending on how genuinely you want to help others and/or how much you have been helped by nutrition. The more enthusiastic you are, the more hot water you get yourself into. You may use the Prussian-commander technique:

“You have to eat these hotcakes. They’re blown up vitamin pills, full of wheat germ, soy flour, powdered milk, the works.” The hotcakes may be more delicious than any your family ever tasted, but they go uneaten while you writhe in defeat. Perhaps you try the eager-beaver attack next: “Mary, you’ve got to take brewers’ yeast. Deficiencies stick out all over you. Let me see your tongue. Oh, darling, you are a mess!” Mary is a little cool after that; her deficiencies become more severe. Next you use the blunt approach: “You don’t eat liver every morning for breakfast? Huhl You’re as inefficient as a horse and buggy.” After a period of being an antagonizer par excellence, it dawns on you that no one enjoys criticism or advice; that every person has received an overdose of both as a kid and will take no more. You give up your talk-too-much technique and proceed with a sort of personal underground movement, silently conducted, which is the point where the less eager person starts in the first place.

You quietly improve your own nutrition; not your husband’s or wife’s or children’s, just your own. Gradually y@u make changes. You buy better food every time you go to market. You get nuts for the kiddies instead of candy, make lollipops of pure fruit juices instead of buying ones of colored water and sugar. Perhaps you investigate a source of milk safe to use unpasteurized, or find hens associating with roosters and allowed the freedom of a barnyard. You locate supplies which must be purchased outside your community. You are more careful in selecting foods in restaurants and in planning and preparing delicious meals at home. Possibly you or even your husband starts baking homemade bread of stone-ground fresh wheat. When this art is mastered, you give slices or loaves to neighbors and relatives; they may start making bread or beg you to make enough to sell them. You discover the fun of having the youngsters say, “Gee, Mom, these are the best waffles you have ever made.” Even after your husband finds out that they are full of wheat germ, which he tells you he “hates,” and after he says that you will be putting ground glass into his food next, you give him butterscotch brownies at the following meal; he eats them to the last crumb, never dreaming they are made entirely of wheat germ.

When you have conquered the home front, you volunteer for the refreshment committee and serve some really good cookies at the P.T.A. or the Women’s Club tea; you improve the food at Scout meetings and birthday parties; or you put some Christianity into a few church suppers. If you are a man, you work on the Breakfast Club or Rotary or Kiwanis luncheon menus. In case you are an executive, you realize the stupidity of paying for inefficiency produced under your own nose by mid-meals of coffee, soft drinks, and doughnuts, and you see that nuts, delicious milk drinks, “hopped-up” ice cream, and fresh fruits are made available. Perhaps you give a talk to some organization about highprotein breakfasts, fluoridation of water, the use of iodized salt or nutritious lunches carried from home. The local paper hears about your talk and wants copy, so you find yourself writing a food and nutrition column. Some people may call you a crackpot or food faddist; you expect that and shrug it off.