Fitness

Unpleasantness at meals often makes us dislike the food served at .those times; many of these unpleasantnesses come early in life and are forgotten, but the food dislikes remain. I shudder to think of the future eating habits of a nation of individuals who, as babies, grope eagerly for warm nipples and instead have cold, hard spoons forced into their tiny mouths; of babies who long for the security of their mothers’ arms but endure the vacuums imposed by bottle holders. These babies are served unappetizing meals of canned foods which their own mothers could not stand to eat. Later, flavors may improve, but beside the children sit giantesses, urging, and scolding, prodding, and nagging. The children are too young to understand that the well-meaning mothers are concerned only about their health. They become too tense to eat at meals and satisfy their hunger by eating between meals, when only junk is available, their low blood sugar urging them to eat the sweets they have already been trained to love so much. These are only a few of the psychological reasons why good nutrition may never be applied.

Let us now suppose that sound dietetics is put into practice. The best food available is obtained and prepared by the best methods known. If this food happens to be disliked, if fatigue is too great, if unpleasantness occurs during the meal, if worries are carried to the table, if the food is said to be health-building and you better eat it or else, or if fears of indigestion are harbored, the flow of digestive juices is decreased or inhibited. Few enzymes are produced. This excellent food, deliciously prepared, stays partly or wholly undigested; most of the nutrients supplied never reach the blood. For example, fecal analysis of a group of successful businessmen revealed quantities of undigested meat fibers.

Such factors as worry, fatigue, and perhaps the stress of competition combined to prevent their five-dollar steaks from digesting. Relaxation and graciousness should reach their height before any meal. The mother who arranges her table as best she can, whether with pottery on clean enamel or with lovely linen, silver, crystal, flowers, and candles, is building health as surely as the one who selects and prepares food carefully. Any person who wishes to apply nutrition must keep these many psychological and physiological factors in mind before becoming too optimistic about the results expected.

There are two major rules to follow in planning a nutrition program for any person, young or old, well or ill. First, every known requirement must be adequately supplied. Second, except for correct cooking, foods should be eaten in their natural state as nearly as possible; thus nutrients still unknown can probably be furnished. Certain foods are the best sources of each body requirement. A summary of such foods, supplying nutrients in most concentrated forms, can give a basis for a day’s dietary:

1. A quart of milk which can be in the form of whole milk, preferably certified and not homogenized, buttermilk, yogurt, tiger’s milk, or skim milk drunk at the same meal when fat is obtained; or any combination of these milks, making a total of one quart. If health is seriously desired, eight ounces of yogurt should be eaten daily.
2. Whole-grain breads and cereals used as weight and aetivity permJt; wheat germ used in cooking or added to cereals. Yeast and/or liver daily if requirements for the B vitamins are high.
3. Some dependable source or sources of vitamin A: green and yellow fruits and vegetables, liver, cream, butter, or margarine; capsules of vitamin A if requirements are high and/or cannot be met by food.
4. Eight ounces of fresh orange or grapefruit juice or the equivalent in whole fruit or 12 ounces of canned or frozen; if frozen, select brands without added sugar.
5. A dependable source of vitamin D, as fish-liver oil or capsule of viosterol.
6. Iodized salt used to the exclusion of any other.
7. One or two tablespoons of vegetable oil as salad dressing, made preferably of soybean or corn oil untreated by heat, or two to four tablespoons of nuts (50 per cent oil) or 1it to l/2 avocado (33 per cent oil).
8. Enough green leafy vegetables to carry a tablespoon of salad oil at lunch and/or dinner. Cooked vegetables, preferably green or yellow, as desired. Starchy vegetables only when calorie requirements are high.
9. Fruits in addition to juice if desired. Colored fruits are preferable to colorless ones, raw to home-cooked, home-cooked to frozen, frozen to canned, and unsweetened to sweetened.
10. Two servings or more of meat, fowl, fish, eggs, cheese, or a high-protein meat substitute. Glandular meats, such as liver, brains, heart, and kidneys, served twice each week or more often. Some type of seafood once a week or daily if desired.

Now let us turn the tables and see that we have a dependable source of every body requirement:

1. Vitamin A: colored fruits and vegetables, cream, butter or margarine, eggs and liver; vitamin-A capsule if used.
2. The B vitamins: yeast, liver or wheat germ, wholegrain breads and cereals, separate B vitamins obtained from milk (B2), green leaves (B2 and foelic acid), meats (niacin), blackstrap molasses (inositol), brains (cholin).
3. Vitamin C: orange or grapefruit juice; smaller amounts from any fresh. raw fruit or vegetable; supplemented by ascorbic acid tablets if needed.
4. Vitamin D: fish-liver oil or vitamin-D capsule; vitamin- D milk if used.
5. Vitamin E: wheat germ, soybean oil, other vegetable oils; natural mixed tocopherols in capsule form if requirements are high.
6. Vitamin K: produced by intestinal bacteria; need be no concern to a healthy person if diet is adequate in milk and unsaturated fatty acids and low in refined carbohydrates; intestinal bacteria are increased by eating yogurt.
7. Vitamin P (rutin): citrus fruits, especially lemon rind; helps to prevent destruction of vitamin C in the body; helpful but not essential when massive doses of vitamin Care used.
8. Unsaturated fatty acids: vegetable oils, such as corn, soybean, peanut and cottonseed, and lard; avocados, nuts and unhydrogenated nut butters.
9. Calcium: milk, whole or skim, buttermilk, yogurt and/or tiger’s milk; bone powder and/or calcium tablets if used.
10. Phosphorus: milk, eggs, cheese, meats; all unrefined and unprocessed foods.
11. Iron: liver, yeast, wheat germ, meats, whole-grain breads and cereals.
12. Iodine: iodized salt.
13. Trace minerals: seafoods; liver, blacks trap molasses, and egg yolk usually dependable sources; unrefined foods grown under biological soil conditions; tablets of trace minerals or preparations of sea kelp if used.’
14. Proteins: tiger’s milk, yeast, fresh, canned and powdered milks, yogurt, buttermilk, cheese, meats, game, fowl, fish, eggs, soybeans and soybean flour.
15. Bulk: fruits, vegetables, whole-grain breads and cereals.
16. Liquids: milk, fruit juices, soups, all beverages; any amount of water you may wish to drink.

Such a simplified method of checking is only superficial.

Each requirement must be adjusted to the needs of the individual, the amounts of nutrients depending upon such factors as weight, activity, and degree of health.