Of the great variety of vegetables that are furnished at market, or from our gardens, almost all are palatable and healthful to a stomach that is strong. Peas, Beans, Onions, and cooked Cabbage and Turnips, usually are not good for persons whose powers of digestion have been weakened.
The next most valuable articles of food are the Fruits. Almost all kinds of fruit, when fully ripe, are healthful to those who are not suffering from weakness of digestion. Grapes, Apples, Peaches, Strawberries, Raspberries, and Currants, are least likely to prove injurious. The skins and seeds of all fruits consist of woody matter, that is perfectly undigestible, and should never be taken in large quantities. It is the skins and seeds of the grape that make raisins so often injurious to young children. If the skins and stones can be removed, nothing can be found that is more safe and healthful, in moderate quantities, than raisins and grapes.
The next articles of healthful unstimulating food are the Saccharine substances, Sugar, Molasses, and Honey. On this point, Dr. Pereira remarks, “The injurious effects which have been ascribed to sugar are more imaginary than real. The fondness of children for saccharine substances may be regarded as a natural instinct; since nature, by placing it in the mother’s milk, evidently intended it to form a part of their nourishment. Instead, therefore, of repressing this appetite for sugar, it ought rather to be gratified in moderation. The popular notion, of its having a tendency to injure the teeth, is totally unfounded. During the sugar season of the West Indies, every negro on the plantations, every animal, and even the dogs, grow fat. And no people on earth have finer teeth than the negroes of Jamaica. It is probable that this erroneous notion has been propagated by frugal housewives, in order to deter children from indulging in an expensive luxury. Sugar is readily digested by a healthy stomach. In dyspeptics, it is apt to give rise to flatulence and acidity of stomach.”
These remarks, without other considerations, may lead to erroneous conclusions. There is no doubt that both children and adults are often injured by the use of sugar, but it is not because it is unhealthful in its nature, but because it is used in excess or in an improper manner. In the “Domestic Economy,” pg. 105, it is shown that highly concentrated food is not favorable to digestion, because it cannot be properly acted on by the muscular contractions of the stomach, and is not so minutely divided as to enable the gastric juice to act properly. Now Sugar, Candy, and the like, are highly concentrated nourishment, and should not be used except when mixed with other food. The reason, then, why children are injured by sugar is, that they eat it too frequently, in too large quantities, and unmixed with other food. A stick or two of pure candy, eaten with crackers or bread, never would injure any healthy child. It is too often the case, that candies are mixed with unhealthful coloring matter, or with nuts and other oily substances, that make them injurious.
The next article of healthful, unstimulating food, is jellies and preserved fruits. As it has been shown that uncooked fruits and sugar are both healthful, it may not seem surprising that jellies and fruits cooked in sugar, when eaten moderately, with bread or crackers, are regarded as among the most nourishing and healthful of all aliments. When they prove injurious, it is owing either to the fact that they are taken alone, or with rich cream, or else are taken in too great quantities. Eaten moderately, as a part of a meal, they are safe and nourishing to all, except persons of poor digestion. Healthful stomachs need not be governed by rules demanded by the invalid, which has too often been attempted.
The preceding presents a vast variety of articles suitable for food, containing in abundance all the principles demanded for the perfect development of all the animal functions, and which physiologists and medical men unitedly allow to be healthful. These can be combined by the cook in an endless variety of agreeable dishes, involving no risk to a healthful stomach, when taken in proper quantities and in a proper time and manner.
NOURISHING AND STIMULATING FOOD.
The second general division of food, embraces articles which serve perfectly to nourish and develop every animal organ, but, at the same time, increase the speed and strength of all functional action beyond the point which is attained by the system, when fully and perfectly nourished by vegetables, fruits, and bread-stuffs. There is no dispute among physiologists and physicians as to the fact, that animal food produces chyle which is more stimulating to the various organs, than that which is formed from an exclusive vegetable diet. The only question debated is, whether this increase of stimulus is favorable, or unfavorable to health and long life.
Those who maintain that it is unfavorable, say, that all other things being equal, that machine must wear out the soonest which works the fastest; that, it is proved, both by analysis and by facts, that a vegetable diet contains every principle needed for the perfect development of the whole bodily system, as much so as animal food; and that the only difference is the stimulation in the animal food, which makes the system work faster, and of course, wear out sooner.
To this it is replied, that the exact point of stimulation, which is most safe and healthful, cannot be determined, and that it is as correct to assume, that to be the proper medium, which is secured by a mixed diet, as to assume that the proper point is that, which is secured by an exclusive vegetable diet. Moreover, the fact that the teeth and digestive organs of man, which seem to be fitted both for vegetable and animal food, and the fact that the supplies of food on the earth make it needful to adopt sometimes animal, and sometimes vegetable diet, and sometimes a mixture of both, furnish an à priori argument in favor of a mixed diet.