Here are the fish stalls; and here are the fish, most of them alive and flopping about. Fish caught in the river should not be bought unless they are alive; fresh-water fish spoil so quickly that unless alive when bought, they are not likely to be fit for food. Deep-sea fish may be bought dead, and are safe to eat if the gills are bright red and the scales clean and shiny. If the gills look dull and bluish, we should never think of buying the fish; for it has been out of the water too long. Crabs and other shellfish should always be bought alive, unless they are already cooked and frozen, as we see them in the cold storage house. Then they must be kept on ice until they are made ready for the table. But under the very best circumstances shellfish should be sparingly used in this country, as they are the cause of much trouble of the digestion.
We will buy some rice to-day, but we must look at it carefully first. Good rice is clean and white. It is free from mold, and there should be no musty smell about it. If it has any such smell, we will not buy it, for it is unfit for food. It ought not to be fed, even to the chickens. Moldy and dirty rice is a common cause of the disease called beri-beri, which is so often fatal in tropical countries.
Many people are not prudent about selecting and cooking their rice. They are careless and often buy musty rice, nor do they cook it long enough. They eat it half cooked, and many people like it a little burned. Prepared this way the rice is hard to digest, and is irritating to the system and to the food canal.
A grown man who is well and strong needs a certain amount of food every day, to keep him in health. The body requires water, fat, sugar, and albumen, and some mineral salts. Albumen is a substance rich in food for the body, of which it makes up a large part. The white of egg is almost pure albumen, and therefore eggs are very good for food. Milk, which is the only food very young babies should have, contains all the things which the body needs, and in just the right quantities. It has water, sugar, fat, albumen, and some mineral matter. Meat has albumen and fat, but no sugar, and fish is similar to meat in this respect.
Most of the sugar we take into the body we really eat in the form of starch, but the saliva in the mouth turns the starch into sugar. The secretions of the liver do this also. Rice is a starchy food. It contains a great deal of starch, and before we eat it, it should be well cooked, so that it is soft enough to be acted upon by the saliva and turned into sugar; otherwise, the liver has all this work to do. Corn, potatoes, meal, bread, are all starchy foods, and we get with them nearly all of the mineral substances needed; but to most of our food we need to add a little salt.
Bananas and other fruits, when they are ripe, all have sugar, and in this country people are fortunate in having the sugar cane to eat. If one does not eat too much of this, it is pleasant and wholesome, and it is very good for the teeth; it makes them white and keeps them healthy.
Besides what he takes in with his solid food, a man should drink three pints of water a day. If he drinks tea or coffee he will get some water with these, and so will not need so much, but three pints of liquid are needed daily to keep the body well. People in this country drink also the sap of the cocoanut tree and the water contained in the cocoanut itself. These are both good and wholesome, when fresh. But if they are not fresh, they can do much harm. Why this is we shall see in another chapter.
People who live in the tropics need less fat than those in colder countries. Away in the frozen north the Esquimaux eat great quantities of fat meat and oil, and even tallow, from which candles are made. They need much fat to keep them warm. In the tropics, on the other hand, people should eat but little fat. Lean meat is good, especially beef, but pork raised here is very unwholesome. The pigs themselves eat all manner of unclean things. They are the natural scavengers of the country, and the food which they eat makes their flesh unfit for us.
The flesh of the carabao is not so good as beef. It gives really very little nourishment, and is tough and dry. The mutton which is grown in these islands is not so good as it might be if more pains were taken. Sheep ought to be shorn twice a year, not only for the value of the wool, but because it adds to the comfort of the sheep and makes the flesh better. Dry and salt meats are of little value here, and they spoil quickly.
The fish of the Philippine Islands are rich in albumen, which the body needs. They should always be fresh, as we have seen, and should always be eaten hot. Even cooked fish, after it has grown cold, is not good for food. It is likely to produce skin diseases and certain kinds of poisoning. Many of the shellfish cause this disease also, particularly the crabs of these islands. In fact, shellfish should all be used sparingly, as they are not easy to digest and are often the cause of diarrhœa and dysentery.