Part 10

A baked apple or an orange One coarse cereal, with nuts and cream Two eggs, either whipped or boiled two minutes Very ripe bananas, with dates, nuts and cream (If bananas are not very ripe, they should be peeled and baked) See recipe, Vol. III, p. 677

LUNCHEON

Beans or lentils Carrots, turnips, squash, or corn Fish or eggs A baked potato Buttermilk

DINNER

Two fresh vegetables A green salad, with oil Omelet, with grated nuts A banana, with nuts and cream, and either dates or raisins Buttermilk

These menus, like those given for summer, are merely for the purpose of suggesting selections, combinations, and proportions of food that will meet the exigencies of temperature, environment, and work. The quantity of food required will depend largely upon the size (physique) of the individual, the severity of training, and the feats to be performed. It is especially important that these suggestions be well considered at least one day before engaging in any athletic event or work requiring extraordinary physical effort, as the human body appropriates or uses food from twenty-four to thirty-six hours after it is eaten.

If one is to be exposed to extreme cold, an excess of fats should be taken, beginning thirty-six hours before exposure. If much physical effort is to be exerted, the diet should be balanced as to all nutritive elements, with an excess of nitrogenous foods. In fact, these rules should be observed by every one who desires to make feeding scientific, and to make food his servant instead of his master, as our civilized habits have a tendency to do.

SEDENTARY OCCUPATIONS

Nature demands from every form of life a certain amount of activity or motion. Any transgression of this law means disintegration. Rest is merely the process adopted by Nature to reconvert matter into its original elements. To whatever extent one ceases activity, Nature, under normal conditions, inflicts this penalty.

Man's civilized habits and customs have produced a class of workers who, while at work, are deprived of their requisite amount of motion, and who, therefore, pay the penalty by shortened periods of life, and by numerous disorders which we have come to characterize as dis-ease. There is but one method known to science by which these penalties may be avoided, and by which the worker whose occupation must be sedentary may become as healthful as his brother who can order his life in conformity with Nature's laws. That method lies in the ordering of his diet.

All dis-ease may be called congestion, or the failure of the body to eliminate poisons and waste matter. The process of elimination is assisted by activity (work or play). The accumulation of waste and poisons in the body is measured or determined almost wholly by the diet.

The man who is swinging a pick or a sledge hammer in the open air may eat or drink almost anything, because his powers of eliminating waste are aided by his work. It follows, therefore, that those whose work is of a sedentary nature must procure their nutrition from substances containing the minimum of waste, and producing the maximum of energy, and the quantity must be measured accurately by the demands of the body, or autointoxication (self-poisoning) will result.

Intestinal congestion (constipation), which is almost universal among sedentary workers, is caused in nearly all cases by consuming a quantity of food in excess of the physical demands, and which cannot be thrown off owing to the lack of exercise. It is at this point that science must lay out the dietetic regimen so as to make it conform to the occupation, or to the lack of physical activity.

The following are suggestions for a spring or summer diet for the average sedentary worker:

BREAKFAST

Cantaloup, berries or peaches, with sugar and cream An egg One or two bananas, with nuts, cream, and raisins (Bananas should be baked, if not very ripe)

LUNCHEON

Peas, beans, or asparagus A heaping tablespoonful of nuts A salad of lettuce and tomatoes, with nuts A baked potato, tender corn, or a very little coarse bread

DINNER

Melon or cantaloup Two tablespoonfuls of nuts One or two fresh vegetables, including an ear of tender corn Fish, eggs, or buttermilk Plain ice-cream, if something sweet is desired

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR SEDENTARY WORKER

The student will recognize that in these menus the heavier foods are prescribed sparingly, while the lighter or the more readily soluble articles predominate. From these suggestions a fair idea of a fall and winter diet can be drawn.

Indigestion, sour stomach (hyper-chlorhydria), constipation, malassimilation, and general anemia are the disorders with which the sedentary worker is most commonly afflicted.

In dealing with each and all of these conditions, including obesity, which is often the result of sedentary habits, the first thing to be done is to limit the quantity of food to the normal requirements of the body, and in extreme cases a diet below the normal should be observed; no one was ever made ill by underfeeding. Then, with proper care as to the selection, combination, and proportions of food, and an increased amount of exercise and deep breathing, the person of sedentary habits should be made as healthy and strong as the outdoor worker in the fields of manual labor.

CLIMATIC EXTREMES

In considering a diet to meet the requirements of climatic extremes, either hot or cold, it is necessary to reckon from normality, both as to climate and as to the health of the individual.

All the foregoing lessons, taken as a whole, are designed to teach one method or theory, involving two principles:

1 Selections, combinations, and proportions of food that will counteract and remove the causes of unnatural conditions called dis-ease