Rural Hygiene

by Henry N. Ogden

It is well known that a failure to provide fruit or fresh vegetables results in the disease known as scurvy, for which, practically, the only cure is a changed diet. The writer has no doubt but that in many farmhouses a very similar condition, perhaps not so pronounced, exists on account of this very lack of variety in the daily menu. He remembers to this day a week's experience in the house of a well-to-do farmer in the early spring when the winter vegetables were exhausted and before summer vegetables appeared, when the dishes offered three times a day throughout the week were salt pork in milk sauce and boiled potatoes.

Providence intended the different digestive organs of the human body to work, and there is no possibility of condensed or concentrated foods taking the place of ordinary victuals, as has been suggested. The stomach must have some bulky material on which to work, and similarly the intestine must be comfortably filled in order to exert its forward movements. It is in the same way intended that each organ shall supply the necessary digestive juices to take care of the different kinds of foods taken into the system. It is just as important that the liver should be called upon to act on a certain amount of fat as that the gastric juice should break up the molecules of the proteid, and just as important as both of these is the fact that the saliva should flow freely to decompose the starch before it enters the stomach. It is not intended, however, that the healthy individual should deliberately overload any part of the digestive system.

If a child, in a hurry to get to school, swallows bread and milk without chewing and without allowing the starch to be acted upon in the mouth, then an overburden is placed on the pancreatic gland, making that organ less capable of its regular work. And if, again, the food is drenched in fat, if everything is fried, or if butter is used in large quantities, the liver becomes overworked and cannot keep up with the demands, and digestive troubles follow.

Effect of individual habits.

Assuming that the amount and quality of food have been properly adjusted, that each of the several constituents is in proper proportion, and that a suitable variety is maintained, there are still other phases to be considered before the nourishment of the individual may be considered satisfactory. Nature has furnished man with a guide both to the quantity and quality of food that should be taken into the system,—that is, his desire for food, or his appetite,—and, in general, this guide may be safely trusted both as to the quantity and quality, although, in the latter, the appetite is not so trustworthy as that of the lower animals.

Unfortunately, the appetite is easily distracted by the general conditions of health, and when once the healthy tone of the system has been relaxed, the appetite becomes misleading. For instance, a person not indulging in muscular exercise, but sitting still all day and eating candy or other sweets, has no desire for food, and the lack of appetite in this case indicates, not a failure of the need of food, but abnormal conditions of the system. Also the conditions of housing, lack of ventilation, excessive heat, excess in the use of stimulants or of food, all affect and interfere with the guidance of a normal appetite. Some persons go to the other extreme, and, having been in their earlier years accustomed to heavy exercise and generous feeding, forget that in a more quiet life, less breaking down of the tissue occurs and therefore less food is required. Their appetite is a poor guide since it leads them to immoderate eating, resulting in time in an overloading of the organs and the probable poisoning of the system.

Cooking.

Good cooking is as important as any other part of the process of digestion, and, in fact, cooking may be said to be the first step, since there the breaking down of the food tissue occurs, whereby subsequent action by the juices of the body is made easier. For instance, beef may be cooked so long and in such a way as to dry and harden the fibers, making it almost impossible for subsequent digestion; and on the other hand, it is possible to so stew or boil or steam tough meat as to make it quite easily absorbed by the stomach. Cereals, if properly boiled at the right temperature, and for the right length of time, will have the starch granules so broken up that the saliva will act easily on the broken granules. Raw vegetables containing starch are not acted upon in the mouth and are digested afterwards only with great difficulty, while cooked vegetables are a most desirable article of diet.

A great deal is said nowadays about overeating, and Horace Fletcher affirms that the average man would be much healthier and much stronger if he ate not more than two meals and generally only one meal a day. The relation between the amount of food eaten or the amount of food absorbed or utilized and the need for food cannot be determined for the average but only for the individual. There is no doubt but that men or women doing muscular work require greater amounts of food than those not so engaged. It is a common practice to increase the amount of oats which a horse consumes when the horse has hard work to do and to cut down the amount of grain when the horse stands in the stable. It is curious that this practice, so well known to give good results, is not applied to the human animal as well. But very few men will be found voluntarily to diminish the amount of their breakfast or dinner because on that day or on the following day they are going to stay in the house instead of engaging in vigorous outdoor labor.

No discussion on foods would be complete without a repetition of the frequently given warning, against fried meats and vegetables. Frying coats the outside of the food with a layer of fat not easily penetrated by the digestive juice and not acted on in the stomach. Therefore, all fried food, unless thoroughly chewed and then only when the frying is done in very hot fat so that it remains on the outside of the whole piece, will pass through the stomach without being acted upon. Frying is a quicker process than roasting, an advantage which appeals to the American notion of haste, but it is better to begin the preparation of the meal earlier and cook the meat by roasting or stewing and the vegetables by boiling or baking rather than to postpone the preparation of the meal until ten minutes before the hour and then fry everything.