For a balanced dietary we need some building food, protein; some force food, starch, sugar and fat; some of the mineral salts in organic form, best obtained from raw fruits and vegetables; and a medium in which the foods can be dissolved, water.

We need a replenishment of these food stuffs at intervals, but it is not necessary to take all of them at the same meal, or even during the same day. Those who believe that all alimentary principles must enter into every meal must necessarily injure themselves through too complex eating. In talking of these alimentary principles, reference is made to them only when they are present in appreciable quantities.

To have the subject better in hand, let us again classify the most important foods:

Flesh foods, which are rich in protein.

Nuts, which contain considerable protein and fat.

Milk and cheese, which contain much protein.

Eggs, taken principally for their protein.

Cereals, the most important contents being starches.

Tubers, containing much starch.

Legumes, rich in protein and starch.

Fresh fruits, well flavored and high in salt contents.

Sweet fruits, containing much fruit sugar.

Succulent vegetables, chiefly valuable because of salts and juices.

Fats and oils, no matter what their source, are concentrated foods which furnish heat and energy when burned in the body.

When people are free and active in the fresh air they can eat in a way that would soon ruin the digestive powers of those who lead more artificial lives. It is a well known fact that we can go hunting, fishing, tramping or picnicking and eat mixtures and quantities of foods that would ordinarily give us discomfort. The freedom and activity, the change and the better state of mind give greater digestive power.

Those who wish to live their best must pay some attention to the combination of food. It is true that very moderate people, those who take no more food than the body demands, can combine about as they please. These moderate people do not care to mix their foods much. They are satisfied with very plain fare. Much as we dislike to acknowledge the fact, nearly all of us take too much food, even those who most strongly preach moderation. By combining properly much of the harmful effect of overeating can be overcome.

FRUITARIANS.

I class as fruitarians those who eat only cereals, fruits and nuts. This may not be a correct definition, but after reading much literature on dietetics it is the best I can do. Their combinations should present no difficulties.

They should take cereals once or twice a day; nuts once or twice a day; fruit once a day in winter and once or twice a day in summer. The winter fruit should be sweet part of the time. In summer it can be the juicy fruit and berries at all times.

The fruitarians should be careful to avoid the habitual combination of acid fruits with their cereals.

One meal a day can be made of one or two varieties of fruit and nothing else. Nuts may be added to the fruit at times.

Another meal may be made of some cereal product with nut butter or some kind of vegetable oil.

A third meal may be some form of sweet fruit, with which may be eaten either bread or nuts, or better still, combine one sweet fruit with an acid one.

Most people would consider such a diet very limited, but it is easy to thrive on it, and it is not a tiresome one. There are so many varieties of fruits, nuts and cereals that it is easy to get variety. These foods do not become monotonous when taken in proper amounts. On such a diet it does not make much difference which meal is breakfast, lunch or dinner. The rule should be to take the heartiest meal after the heavy work is done, for hearty meals do not digest well if either mind or body is hard at work.

It is not difficult to get all the food necessary in two meals, but inasmuch as the three meal a day plan is prevalent the menus here given include that number of meals.

Breakfast: Apples, baked or raw.

Lunch: Brown rice and raisins.

Dinner: Whole wheat zwieback with nut butter.

Breakfast: Oranges or grapefruit.

Lunch: Pecans and figs.

Dinner: Bread made of rye or whole wheat flour, with nut butter or olive oil.

Breakfast: Any kind of berries.

Lunch: Dates.

Dinner: Whole wheat bread, with or without oil, Brazil nuts.

These combinations are indeed simple, but these foods are very nourishing and most of them concentrated, so it is best not to mix too much. They are natural foods, which digest easily when taken in moderation, but if eaten to excess they soon produce trouble.

It is no hardship to live on simple combinations. We have so much food that we have fallen into the bad habit of partaking of too great variety at a meal. The fact is that those who combine simply enjoy their foods more than those who coax their appetite with too great variety. There is no physical hardship connected with simple eating, and as soon as the mind is made up to it, neither is there any mental hardship.

VEGETARIANS.

It is difficult to give an acceptable definition for vegetarianism. For a working basis we shall take it for granted that those are vegetarians who reject flesh foods. Those who wish can also reject dairy products and eggs. It is largely a matter of satisfying the mind.

The chief trouble with the vegetarians is that they believe that the fact that they abstain from flesh will bring them health. So they combine all kinds of foods and take several kinds of starches and fruits at the same meal. The consequence is that they soon get an acid condition of the digestive organs and a great deal of fermentation. Among vegetarians, prolapsus of the stomach and bowels is quite common, and this is due to gas pressure displacing the organs.

Their foods are all right, but their combinations, as a rule, are bad. The various vegetarian roasts, composed of nuts, cereals, legumes and succulent vegetables are hard to digest. It would be much better for them not to make such dishes.

A few suggestions for vegetarian combining follow:

Breakfast: Berries and a glass of milk.

Lunch: Baked potatoes and lettuce with oil.

Dinner: Nuts, cooked succulent vegetables, one or two varieties, sliced tomatoes.

Breakfast: Cottage cheese and oranges.

Lunch: Nuts and raisins.

Dinner: Whole wheat bread, stewed onions, butter, salad of lettuce and celery.

Breakfast: Cantaloupe.

Lunch: Buttermilk, bread and butter.

Dinner: Nuts, stewed succulent vegetables, lettuce and sliced tomatoes, with or without oil.

Breakfast: Boiled brown rice with raisins and milk.

Lunch: Grapes.

Dinner: Cooked lentils or baked beans, lettuce and celery.

OMNIVOROUS PEOPLE.

In this country, most people are omnivorous. The food is plentiful and people believe in generous living. They put upon their tables at each meal enough variety for a whole day and the custom is to eat some of each. Some breakfasts are heavy enough for dinners. Three heavy meals a day are common. Some can eat this way for years and be in condition to work most of the time, but they are never 100 per cent. efficient. They are never as able as they could be. Besides, they have their times of illness and grow old while they should be young. They generally die while they should be in their prime, leaving their friends and families to mourn them when they ought to be at their best. They are worn out by their food supply, plus other conventional bad habits.

One of the best plans that has been proposed for omnivorous people is that which has been worked out by Dr. J. H. Tilden. Its skeleton is, fruit once a day, starchy food once a day, flesh or other protein with succulent vegetables once a day. I shall make up menus for a few days based on this plan:

Breakfast: Baked apples, a glass of milk.

Lunch: Boiled rice with butter.

Dinner: Roast mutton, spinach and carrots, salad of raw vegetables.

Breakfast: Cantaloupe.

Lunch: Biscuits or toast with butter, buttermilk.

Dinner: Pecans, two stewed succulent vegetables, salad of lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers, dressing.

Breakfast: Peaches, cottage cheese.

Lunch: Baked potatoes, butter, lettuce.

Dinner: Fresh fish baked, liberal helping of one, two or three of the raw salad vegetables.

Breakfast: Shredded wheat or puffed wheat sprinkled with melted butter, glass of milk.

Lunch: Watermelon.

Dinner: Roast beef, boiled cabbage, stewed onions, butter dressing, sliced tomatoes with salt and oil.

The doctor allows considerable dessert. That generally goes with the dinner.

It is nonsense to write, "So and so shalt thou eat and not otherwise." The menus here given simply serve as suggestions. Where one succulent vegetable is mentioned another may be substituted. One cereal may be substituted for another. One juicy fruit for another. One sweet fruit for another. One legume for another. One food rich in protein for another.

In combining food the principal things to remember are:

Use only a few foods at a meal; use only one hearty, concentrated food in a meal, as a rule, with the exception that various fats and oils in moderation are allowable as dressings for fruits, vegetables and starches; that much fat or oil retards the digestion of the rest of the food; that the habitual combining of acid food with foods heavy in starch is a trouble-maker; that concentrated starchy foods should be taken not to exceed twice a day; that the heating, stimulating foods rich in protein, which include nearly all meats, should be taken only once a day in winter, and less in summer; that either raw fruit or raw vegetables should be a part of the daily food intake, because the salts they contain are essential to health; that fats should be used sparingly in summer, but more freely in winter; that juicy fruits are to be used liberally in summer and sparingly in winter, when the sweet fruits are to take their place a part of the time.

The dried sweet fruits are quite different from the fresh juicy ones. The former serve more the purpose of the starches than that of fruits. They are rich in sugar, which produces heat and energy. The same is true of the banana, which is about one-fifth sugar. It is not as sweet as would be expected from this fact. Some sugars are sweeter than others. This you can easily verify by tasting some milk sugar and then taking the same amount of commercial sugar made of cane or beets.

The food need in summer is surprisingly small, so small that the average person will scarcely believe it. Some writers on dietetics advise eating as much in summer as in winter. How they can do so it is difficult to understand, for reason tells us that in summertime practically no food is needed for heating purposes, and that is how most of the food is used. A little experience and experiment show that reason is right. Nature herself confirms this fact, for at the tropics she has made it easy for man to subsist on fruits, while in the polar regions she furnishes him the most heating of all foods, fats.

Because fats are so concentrated it is very easy to take too much of them. An ounce of butter contains as much nourishment as about twenty-five ounces of watermelon. Those who simplify their cooking and their combining and partake of food in moderation are repaid many times over in improved health. It is necessary to supply good building material in proper form if we would have health.