Food Guide for War Service at Home - Prepared under the direction of the United States Food Administration in co-operation with the United States Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Education, with a preface by Herbert Hoover by Florence Powdermaker;Katharine Blunt;Frances L. Swain
page 64 of 79 (81%)
page 64 of 79 (81%)
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to-day and all the Governments have taken steps to keep up the supply.
It is a regular part of the English army ration. _To Keep the Nation Well_. An increase in the use of vegetables and fruits is practically sure to mean an increase in health. Many of us, especially city-dwellers, do not eat enough of them. Many a young girl who "does not like vegetables" probably owes part of her languor to inadequate diet. The old-fashioned "touch of scurvy" formerly noticed at the end of the winter and even now not an unknown thing, was probably due to lack of vegetables in the winter diet. The constipation which is so disturbingly prevalent can usually be cured or prevented by eating vegetables and fruits in sufficient quantities. One of the most serious limitations in the diet of many of the very poor is the lack of vegetables as well as milk and the unduly large proportion of meat and bread. In a community in New York City with high mortality rate, 75 mothers whose diet was observed, ate vegetables on the average only twice a week, and fruit about the same number of times. It is not difficult to understand why vegetables and fruits are so important. Only a few are especially valuable as fuel or as a source of protein, but almost all are high in mineral salts and can supply the "roughage" desirable in the diet. Some also contain the vitamines, the leafy vegetables being especially valuable because, like milk, they contain the two kinds. The "greens," leafy vegetables like spinach, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, and lettuce, are the ones that help most in these last ways--"protective foods," they have been called. They are rich in the iron, calcium, and other minerals that some of the other foods lack. The use of plenty of these vegetables should go far toward keeping up health. |
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