Diet and Health - Lulu Hunt Peters (great books to read .txt) 📗

February, 1, 1921

An Added Chapter in Which Are Offered Twenty-one Suggestive Menus

After nearly two years with the American Red Cross in the Balkans I return to find the little book has been carrying on in my absence—I write this for the fifth edition—and my publishers insisting that I must furnish some more menus. They affirm that there are many who do not care to or cannot figure out their own.

After being so long under military discipline I obey now instinctively, although I do not want to do this. But you know publishers. They say that if there are menus for those who do not have the desire to compute them, the usefulness of the book will be increased. Publishers are so altruistic.

Now far be it from me to scorn the possibility of increased sales myself. So I comply, and after you are reduced you will have the energy and the increased keenness to scout around in the calories and make out your own.

A little of my Balkan experience in the reducing line may not be amiss. In Albania, where I was stationed most of the time, life is very strenuous. We all had to work hard and expend a great deal of nervous energy. Medical calls on foot in the scorching sun over unkind cobblestones, long distance calls on unkinder mules, long hours in nerve-racking clinics, ferocious man-eating mosquitos, scorpions, centipedes, sandflies, and fleas, and other unspeakable animals kept us hopping and slapping and scratching.

But there was one consolation to me. With this work, more intensive and more strenuous than I had ever done before, I would not have to diet—I would not have to watch my weight—I would not have to count my calories! Oh, joy!

We lived a community life, we Red Crossers. We had plain blunt food, American canned mostly, supplemented with the fare that could be eked out of Albania, and cooked by an Albanese who could not be taught that we Americans were not Esquimos and did not like food swimming in fat. However, it tasted good to famished Red Crossers, and I ate three meals a day, confident that I would retain my girlish middle-aged slenderness and not have to diet. We had no scales and no mirrors larger than our hand mirrors. Our uniforms were big and comfortable.

The French who are in charge of Scutari depart, the officers leaving to us some of their furniture, including a full length French plate mirror. Ordinarily when I look in a full-length mirror I don't hate myself so much—so it is with some degree of anticipated pleasure that I complacently approach, to get a life-size reflection of myself after many months of deprivation of that pleasure.

"Mon Dieu!" I exclaim. "Bogomi!" (Serbian—'For the love of Allah!') "This is no mirror," I mutter. "This is one of those musee things that make you look like a Tony Sarg picture of Irvin Cobb."

"What's irritating you, Dockie?" asks one of the girls, coming up and standing back of me. I look at her reflection. She does not look like Irvin Cobb!

"Peggy," I say tragically, "Peggy, do I look like my reflection?"

"Yes, dear, we have all noticed how stout you have been getting. Aren't you supposed to be some shark on the subject of ideal weight?"

And the bitter truth is borne in upon me—no matter how hard I work—no matter how much I exercise, no matter what I suffer, I will always have to watch my weight, I will always have to count my calories.

This is what I did then:

I stopped going to the breakfast table. I kept some canned milk and coffee in my room, and made me two cups of coffee. For lunch I ate practically what I wanted, limiting myself to one slice of bread or one potato (we had no butter), with fruit for dessert. For dinner I came down only when the dessert was being served, and had a share of that with some coffee. I was jeered and derided. You know how in community life we all are as disagreeable as we like, and still love each other. Did not I know the desserts were the most fattening part of the meal? I was some authority on how to reduce, I was!

In vain I told them that it did not matter so long as my total caloric intake did not equal the number that I needed. It was not until some months after, when they saw that I was normal weight again, that they began to realize I knew whereof I spoke.

Then came our withdrawal from Albania and release from duty. After months of canned goods came Paris with its famous dishes; Crème d'Isigny avec crème! Artichauts an beurre! Patisseries francaises! Oo lala! Again I said calories be dashed! I can reduce when I get home. I had no delusions now, you see.

And now I am home trying to help raise the funds for the starving children of Central Europe, and explaining to my friends that while there is a food shortage in Europe it is not because I was there; and that I am reducing and the money that I can save will help keep a child from starving, and that they can do the same; that for every pang of hunger we feel we can have a double joy, that of knowing we are saving worse pangs in some little children, and that of knowing that for every pang we feel we lose a pound. A pang's a pound the world around we'll say.

Every once in a while you hear that the caloric theory has been exploded. There is no caloric "theory." Therefore none to explode. Calories are simply units for measuring heat and energy and never will be exploded any more than the yard or meter "theory" will be exploded. Foods must contain essential salts and the growth and health maintaining elements. These cannot be measured by calories. The quantity of heat or energy production but not the quality of the foods is measured in calories, and one must have a knowledge of the qualities also. No scientifically educated individual has ever thought otherwise.

The chief objection to following the advice of the numerous laymen who write eat-and-grow-thin menus is that they advise the elimination of all fats, sugars and starches. They lose sight of the fact, or they do not know, that the obese individual—I dislike that term —will have to have a balanced diet even while reducing if he is to maintain his health. One will lose weight on these menus, but as very many can testify they lose their health also. One cannot live on an unbalanced diet for any length of time without becoming unbalanced also. And furthermore the over-weighter will always have to diet more or less, and will have to have menus which he can continue to use. After normal weight is reached he will not have to be nearly so abstemious, but the same dietetic errors which produced overweight in the first place will produce it again. So he must know something of dietetics and he must have a balanced diet.

Now I shall make out some balanced menus, 1200 C's a day, being careful to include a large amount of the leafy vegetables and some milk or its products, the foods that McCollom calls PROTECTIVE FOODS because they contain in a large measure the essential mineral salts, and those vital elements he has called "Fat soluble A" and "Water soluble B"—others call vitamines—which he has proved to be so vital and necessary for growth in the young and the maintenance of health in the adult. I shall also include 200-300 C's of protein.

The leafy vegetables, cabbage, cauliflower, celery tops, lettuce, onion, Swiss chard, turnip tops, and other leaves employed as greens, water cress, etc., not only contain these vital elements, but they also exert a favourable influence on sluggish bowels and kidneys. They are low in caloric value, hence are low in fat-producing properties, and can be consumed with indiscretion, properly masticated.

It is better while you are reducing to stay away from the dining table when you do not expect to eat. If you are rooming, get a tiny sterno outfit, some substitute or coffee, some canned or dry milk, some sugar if you use it, and you can make a hot drink in your room and be independent for your breakfast and your evening meal, when you decide some day to go without that. Do not take more than 100 calories for your breakfast. That leaves you 1100 calories to be divided during the day if you go on a 1200 calorie schedule. I suggest the following distribution of the calories: