CORRESP ONDENCE. 



265 



THE VALUE OF VEGETABLE FOODS. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



IR: I hare just read Dr. Benjafield's lec- 

 JO ture, in the September number, on Fruit 

 as a Food and Medicine. I have read the Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly for twenty-five years, or 

 rather from the very first number, and have 

 always found it filled with very valuable and 

 intensely interesting matter ; but the above 

 article I consider, from a hygienic standpoint, 

 rather superior to anything I have read any- 

 where for a long time. 



I am well aware of the great value of 

 fruits as food and medicine. I prefer a ripe 

 Baldwin apple to any other fruit grown or 

 sold in this country. A deep-red Baldwin 

 is the finest. Its color indicates that it is 

 grown in the sunlight, which makes it chem- 

 ically superior to one grown in the shade, 

 which is more apt to be of green color. As 

 the doctor says, lemon juice is of great value. 

 My spring medicine for many years has been 

 the juice of one lemon in as much, or a little 

 more, water no sugar taken every morn- 

 ing for a week or ten days. I usually take 

 it fifteen or twenty minutes before breakfast. 

 It corrects biliary tendencies, and acts as a 

 fine tonic and appetizer. 



I have found apples to have a fine tonic 

 effect on the stomach ; one good apple will 

 usually give me a fine appetite in ten min- 

 utes. I usually eat two or three good- sized 

 apples at every meal ; they constitute a large 

 part of the meal, not an embellishment at the 

 end of it. 



I have found, since using apples largely, 

 that the physical power of endurance under 

 labor, either mental or physical, is very 

 much increased ; also a gain in flesh. This 



1 attribute largely to the fact that apples 

 assist the digestion and assimilation of food 

 of other kinds. Chemists record that ap- 

 ples contain a larger percentage of nitrates 

 and phosphates (food for brain and muscle) 

 than any other fruit. 



Care should be taken in the selection of 

 the fruit to be used. Most of the fruits sold 

 in the market in the early fall are not well 

 ripened. Apples, peaches, pears, and other 

 fruits grown in southern latitudes are gathered 

 before they are ripe and shipped north, where 

 they bring a high price before the northern 

 crop is ripe. This green fruit is ripened 

 on the cars and boats, and in cellars, 

 warehouses, and stores, where it is shut out 

 from the sunlight, and where the air often- 

 times is not of the purest. Fruit ripened in 

 such places is very inferior to that ripened 

 on the tree where it grew. Fruit grown in 

 northern sections is often gathered quite un- 



VOL. XLVIII. 19 



ripe, and, marketed early in the season, it 

 brings a high price. This green fruit has 

 not been chemically elaborated in the sun- 

 light and fresh air on the parent stem, the 

 only way it can obtain the proper elements 

 in proper combination. 



Of course, this green fruit is better than 

 none, but fruit can not be perfect unless 

 ripened as Nature intends it should be. 



I was lately reading the reports of apples 

 exported from this country to England and 

 other countries. If my memory is not at 

 fault, I think the number of barrels exported 

 hi 1894 and 1896 was in the vicinity of half 

 a million. We ought not to export a barrel ; 

 the people of this country are suffering be- 

 cause they have not consumed them all. 



There is another article of food of which 

 we do not consume enough namely, baked 

 beans. Many people complain that they can 

 not eat them. Well, cooked as they are in 

 many families, they can not and ought not. 

 Our physiological text-books have for a good 

 many years taught that persons of sedentary 

 habits do not require a diet that feeds and 

 strengthens the muscles so much as those 

 who perform muscular work. Well, per- 

 haps not quite as much, but a great fault 

 with the majority of people in this country 

 is, that they do not consume enough food 

 which feeds the muscles, brain, and nerves 

 i. e., nitrates and phosphates. In the first 

 place, food can not be well chewed without 

 muscular action ; secondly, the stomach is 

 required to exercise muscular activity as a 

 part of the digestive process ; thirdly, the 

 peristaltic action of the bowels is indispen- 

 sable ; fourthly, the heart is one of the most 

 if not the most powerful muscle in the hu- 

 man body ; it never ceases working from the 

 moment life begins until it ends. How can 

 we expect this most important organ to go 

 on year after year performing hard muscular 

 work without being nourished by such food 

 as muscles require ? In my opinion, the many 

 cases we hear of nowadays of heart failure 

 are simply cases of heart starvation. We 

 consume too much fat forming food, and the 

 result is a shrinking and weakening of the 

 muscles of the heart and other important 

 organs. The muscles of the heart shrink 

 away and fat is substituted in place (fatty 

 degeneration). Whatever a person's occu- 

 pation may be, a good supply of muscle-mak- 

 ing, brain and nerve-making food should be 

 daily eaten. Baked beans properly baked 

 contain over twenty-five per cent of ni- 

 trates for muscles, and fully four per cent of 

 food for brain and bones ; but they must be 

 thoroughly cooked. I would not care to 

 eat them cooked less than twelve hours. 



