'.•I) MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



mitted into the heat that warms our bodies, and into the power 

 exerted by muscle, nerve and brain. 



[f the propositions just stated are correct, food may be defined as 

 anything which taken into the body aids in the building of tissues, 

 keeping up the body heat or in the production of energy. 



From this it logically follows that the most healthful foods are 

 those which are best fitted to the wants of the user, and that the 

 best foods are those which are most wholesome and most economical. 



There is much talk about the relation of diet to health that is 

 equally foolish and hurtful. Foolish because it subserves no good 

 purpose and hurtful because it tends to fortify the pernicious idea 

 that our bodies are in such wretched condition as to need constant 

 tinkering, and that some sort of self-medication is a positive duty. 

 In the place of this wide-spread delusion there should be an inbuilt 

 conviction that there are various products known as foods in the 

 choice of which, and in the quantity used, each one has daily oppor- 

 tunity to exercise the virtues of common sense and moderation. 



One of the most pitiable errors with respect to certain food pro- 

 ducts is that which somehow confounds them with medicine. For 

 example when one eats freely of fruits he does not feel justified in 

 simply saying he does so because he finds them agreeable, he likes 

 and enjoys them, but is constrained to look wise, and solemnly 

 observe that "fruits are healthy." Some even go so far as to have 

 for each bodily ailment a different variety of fruit. Let us banish 

 the idea of making a drug store of our fruit gardens and orchards, 

 and cease looking upon the family fruit dish as a sort of homeo- 

 pathic pill-box. 



Foods are not medicines. A medicine is something which is 

 taken into the body to produce a certain specific and unusual effect, 

 the object being to counteract some injurious tendency, or correct 

 some abnormal condition. If taken when not needed its effect is 

 likely to be directly injurious. 



The normal healthy body demands what is wholesome, not what 

 is medicinal. Anything that has real medicinal value is almost 

 certain to be unwholesome, but an almost uncontrollable appetite 

 may be developed for what, if properly used, may be considered 

 medicinal. 



"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst" can be as truly said 



