Cultivate sufficient independence of character to enable you to form your household, and regulate your expenses according to your own means, and not according to the income of your neighbours. What does it matter if some may sneer at your thread-bare carpets and frugal fare? The approval of your own conscience is of far more importance than the friendship of the vulgar-minded. Above all things keep your accounts most strictly. Without this you are like a mariner without a compass, or chart, you don't know where you are or what is your position, and you will find yourself, before long, on the rocks of debt and difficulty. Extravagant housekeeping has been the cause of the most serious evils; and, if persisted in, will be sure, in time, to wreck the peace and happiness of yourself and family.
Extravagance is, no doubt, often the result of mere thoughtlessness, but that does not mend matters. There is as much evil wrought by want of thought as by want of heart. If it is true that there is but one step between the sublime and the ridiculous, it is equally true that there is but one step between folly and wickedness. Therefore, all young housekeepers ought to give earnest attention to the management of their affairs, for certainly in these matters the ‘wise woman buildeth her house, while the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.’
[FOOD AND DIET.]
The human body is constantly wearing out. With every movement, every breath drawn, there is some waste of its substance. To repair this waste, and, in the case of children, to provide material for their growth, a certain amount of food should be taken daily. The food taken should consist of such qualities as will make flesh and muscle; such as will also keep up the heat of the body, and give force, or the power of movement. These foods must contain a certain quantity of liquid, and the salts necessary to keep the blood pure.
| Flesh-forming or Nitrogenous. | Heat-giving or Carbonaceous. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Examples— | Meat | Examples— | Butter |
| Poultry | Suet | ||
| Fish | Dripping | ||
| Game | And fat of all kinds | ||
| Eggs | Sugar in whatever form | ||
| Cheese | Starch, which is contained in all vegetables | ||
| Flour | |||
| Oatmeal | |||
| Barley | |||
| Rice | |||
| Peas | |||
| Beans | |||
| Lentils | |||
The foods under the head of flesh-formers, although classed as flesh-formers, are really compound foods. They contain some heat-giving as well as flesh-forming properties.
The heat-giving foods, on the contrary, are all simple foods. Life could not be sustained on any one of them alone, whatever quantity might be taken. These facts are sufficient to show the necessity of a mixed diet. Professor Church says in his lectures on this subject: ‘Our food must be palatable, that we may eat it with relish, and get the greatest nourishment from it. The flavour and texture of food, its taste, in fact, stimulates the production of those secretions—such as the saliva and the gastric juice—by the action of which the food is digested or dissolved, and becomes finally a part of the body, or is assimilated. As food, then, must be relished it is desirable that it should be varied in character—it should neither be restricted to vegetable products on the one hand, nor to animal substances (including milk and eggs) on the other. By due admixture of these, and by varying, occasionally, the kind of vegetable or meat taken, or the modes of cooking adopted, the necessary constituents of a diet are furnished more cheaply, and at the same time do more efficiently their proper work. Now, if we were to confine ourselves to wheaten bread, we should be obliged to eat in order to obtain our daily supply of albuminoids, or ‘flesh-formers,’ nearly 4 lb.—an amount that would give us nearly twice as much of the starchy matters which should accompany the albuminoids—or, in other words, it would supply not more than the necessary daily allowance of nitrogen, but almost twice the necessary daily allowance of carbon. Now animal food is generally richer in albuminoid, or nitrogenous constituents, than vegetable food; so, by mixing lean meat with our bread, we may get a food in which the constituents correspond better to our requirements; for 2 lb. of bread may be substituted by 12 oz. of meat, and yet all the necessary carbon as well as nitrogen be thereby supplied. As such a substitution is often too expensive, owing to the high price of meat—cheese, which is twice as rich in nitrogenous matters (that is flesh-formers) as butchers' meat, may be, and constantly is, employed as a complete diet, and for persons in health, doing hard bodily work, it affords suitable nourishment. Even some vegetable products, rich in nitrogen, as haricot beans, may be used in the same way as meat or cheese, and for the same purpose.’[1]
It is a pity that the value of haricot beans, peas, lentils, and oatmeal is not more generally known. One writer says that there is as much nourishment in 1 lb. of either of these as in 3 lb. of lean meat; and in a lecture on the same subject, another writer states that in three farthings' worth of oatmeal there is as much nourishment as in a mutton chop. These are certainly facts which should be known, especially by people of limited means. Macaroni and semolina are also valuable foods; they are prepared from the most nutritious part of the wheat grain. Rice and maize are deficient in flesh-forming properties, but useful as heat-giving foods; so are, also, tapioca, cornflour, and sago.
Potatoes and fresh vegetables contain but little nourishment. They must not, however, be despised on that account, as they are most valuable additions to our daily diet on account of the potash and other salts which they contain. These vegetables help to keep the blood pure. The anti-scorbutic properties of the potato are so great, that since its introduction into England leprosy is said to have entirely disappeared; neither is scurvy the scourge it was formerly.