The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

;
February, 1921 The Health Bulletin 9
of Copenhagen, during which time he
managed to save enough money to make
the first payment on his land, had been
since paid for by the produce from the
farm itself. He had built and furnished
a beautiful little modern cottage,
furnished throughout with good
substantial furniture, not less than
twenty paintings, copies from some of
the great masters of Europe, adorned
the walls, and he had a large library
of books for himself and his wife and
his two children. The source of his
income was chiefly from his garden
produce in addition to his cows which
afforded dairy products, and pigs wliich
were sold through the cooperating
marketing associations at high prices.
Our informant went on to say that
every single inch of the eight plots was
properly cared for all the time and
yielded its part of produce. It is needless
to say that the family was practically
one hundred per cent healthy.
The standard unit that has been
adopted in discussing the needs of the
body in terms of food value is the
calorie or heat unit. A calorie is the
amount of heat required to raise one
liter of water—that is, about a quart
of water—one degree centigrade. That
means nearly one and one-half degrees
Fahrenheit. The scientists have fairly
accurately measured the caloric value
of different foods outside of the body
by using a device known as a bomb
calorimeter.
The average adult requires each
twenty-four hours somewhere between
2600 and 3300 calories. The farmer
who does hard manual labor on the
farm, or the city laborer, requires approximately
a little more, or in the
neighborhood of about 350O calories. A
boy of twelve years of age, however,
requires only about 1500 calories daily.
It is an important requirement that the
caloric value of foods consumed each
day should comprise as wide a variety
of food as possible.
The average person consumes a great
deal more protein than is necessary
or best for health. At the same time
the average adult consumes not more
than 20 or 30 per cent the amount of
calcium needed to maintain good
health. Calcium is contained in large
quantities in milk, cheese, certain kinds
of beans, especially string beans, beets.
cabbages, carrots, onions, oranges, as
well as other food. The expectant
mother should consume a sufficient
amount of foods containing liberal
quantities of calcium, because calcium
is one of the very necessary ingredients
to insure health and development
of the new born child. In fact,
the mother for several years before
and including the whole child-bearing
period should have a liberal diet containing
plenty of calcium, iron, and
phosphate. Such foods as beans contain
liberal amounts of iron as well as
calcium.
To make a long story short, the diet
on the average farm table if properly
cooked and prepared and a large variety
used, as every farm will afford,
comprises practically the ideal diet. To
repeat, milk in aboundance, milk products—that
is, butter and cheese—fruits,
especially apples ; the different berries,
such as strawberries, in season ; vegetables,
especially collards. cabbage,
turnips, white potatoes, sweet potatoes,
garden peas, fresh and canned, which
may be had from the garden the year
round ; some whole-wheat bread, which
can be procured anywhere, any time
together with poultry and eggs, which
may be said to be a by-product of the
garden ; corn and its different products,
celery, lettuce, tomatoes, and many
other different products too numerous to
mention, afford a diet unsurpassed anywhere.
We will let Mrs. McKimmon and her
folks advise as to cooking methods
and naturally we hope that she will advise
as little use of the frying pan as
possible, because we said in the beginning
that garden products properly
cooked and served afford the ideal
diet.
There is nothing finer than for a
happy contented family to be able tO'
go into its own garden nearly every
month in the year and bring its own
products fresh to the table. Then thereis
no danger in eating raw foods with
home-made salad dressings, which i.s;
certainly conducive to long life, healtli
and happiness.
It costs little to keep well.
It costs much to get well.
Learn how to keep well.