The Health Cookery Book

Phiroz Mehta wrote four chapters of The Health Cookery Book, probably in the early years after the Second World War. He seemed to have intended it for publication, but it does not appear ever to have been printed

Continued from part 1 and part 2

To enjoy good health, it is most important to have a clean blood-stream. A pure blood-stream has a certain degree of alkalinity. When acid forming foods are consumed in excess, and the acid waste products are not eliminated fast enough, they enter into the blood-stream, and the purity of the blood, as measured by its alkalinity, diminishes. Here is a useful table telling you which foods promote alkalinity and which promote acidity:

Alkalinity: Most fresh fruits and unsulphured dry fruits, green leaf and root vegetables, potatoes (baked), milk in its natural state (as it comes from the animal and not after it is boiled), and buttermilk.
Acidity: All flesh foods and fish, eggs and cheese, cereals and cereal products (i.e. wheat, rice, oats, cornflakes, rice-krispies, etc.), nuts, legumes (i.e. beans, lentils, peas), heavily sulphured fruits and fruits preserved in syrup, prunes, cranberries and rhubarb, refined sugar, candy and confectionery, butter, margarine, lard, cream and other fats, tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, artificial mineral waters (sweetened and coloured), and all alcoholic beverages.

It is necessary to eat all kinds of foods, and for good health we must balance the alkaline and acid foods by taking them in the right proportions.

About ¾ of the total food should consist of the alkaline foods, and ¼ of the acid foods.

Another important point to remember is that we should have as much variety as possible. This means that during the course of each week — and a week is chosen because it is the most convenient unit to use — you should have all the available fruits, vegetables etc. compatible with the season and your own needs. But whilst the variety is observed during the course of the week, do not have too much variety at any single meal.

We will give you one more list of the minimum essential foods, each of which you should include in some meal or other during the week, in proper proportion. This will ensure your “safety margin” for good health.

Proteins (flesh formers and muscle builders) — Light helpings of pure fresh lean meat, fresh fish (cod, herring, plain white fish), 3 or 4 fresh eggs (each week), nuts, and beans (especially soya beans).
Cereals — Wholemeal bread (preferably use stone—ground flour), oats.
Fats & Oils — Butter, olive oil; and for cooking, pure margarine or nut oil.
Milk and a little honey.
Vegetables — Spinach, tomatoes (mostly uncooked), carrots (cooked and uncooked), lettuce , potatoes, cabbage (part raw, part cooked), onions.
Fruits — Oranges, lemons (or limes), apples (most beneficial fruit of all, especially for children), figs, dates, prunes.

We mentioned before that fads and fancies should be avoided, and it will be well to mention a few here:

The vitamin fad

Whilst it is entirely true that vitamins are of such paramount importance that without them we get diseased and die in a comparatively short time, we must bear in mind all the other factors — the balance of carbohydrates, proteins and fats; simple and wholesome preparation so as not to lose the mineral salts; the comparative indigestibility of fried foods — when preparing our meals. So do not think of food entirely in terms of vitamins, and become so vitamin crazy that you will even take vitamin tablets. Man can never manufacture food in his laboratory as Nature creates in hers because man’s proportions, combinations, and complexity of structure of the different elements in each food are nowhere near the perfection which Nature achieves. Help Nature, as a true doctor would say, by being clean personally, by careful clean food cultivation, and by good clean rearing of livestock.

The fruitarian fad

Fruitarians are unicorns! When you do meet a person who calls himself a fruitarian, you find that his “fruit” diet includes many things — nuts and vegetables (green leaf vegetables particularly), and maybe even milk — which we do not usually call “fruit”. Such a diet, where fruits are highly in excess of all other foods, may suit some people. The average man and woman must beware of excess of fruit. It may not do obvious harm, but you will find that in our present conditions excess of fruit will not help us to get the best out of life. Such a diet may be possible for generations in the distant future.

The no-starch fad

Here again, some people may find it suitable to cut out bread, porridge, potatoes, etc. But most of us need our right share of starch which we get by eating wholemeal bread, potatoes with their skins, porridge made from coarse oats, etc. It is wise however not to eat too much starch, even via wholemeal bread and whole potatoes, because the excess of starch is a cause of catarrhal complaints, as excess of protein (meat, fish, eggs, lentils, etc.) is of the uric acid family of complaints.

The uncooked food fad

Very few people can live successfully on uncooked food only. We should have a balance between cooked and uncooked food.

There should be at least four raw vegetable salads during the course of a week. If your digestion is not very strong, this is a normal amount to take. If it is really weak, you must get yourself fit by a carefully worked out course of dieting, balanced for your particular condition. If your digestion is naturally quite strong, you can take salads once every day.

In hot weather, and in warm or hot climates, take more juicy fruits and fruit salads (without cream for most of them), and lessen the amount of cooked foods.

Above all, never overcook or twice cook any food, though you may quickly re-heat (but only once) food that is cold. The reason why you should avoid re-heating is that the vitamin value is thereby diminished — sometimes even destroyed. Overcooking deprives food of its real value, makes it too soft (which is not good for your teeth), and makes it too easily digestible (which ruins the natural capacity of your intestines to do their normal work).

The slimming diet fad

Beware of all slimming diets which do not observe a scientific balance — and unfortunately, most of them certainly do not. When you lose weight rapidly in a few days, you do something quite unnatural. Later on, when you go back to your “ordinary” food, there is a heavy price to pay.

“But I weigh far too much — I must get these rolls of fat off me — I look terrible if I don’t truss myself up with corsets…” Yes, we can cure you of all that, in the right way, so that you don’t look like a bale of cotton, or a dustbin, for the rest of your life.

First, the mind: Throw out your fear of fatness. Get the idea of real beauty, which is not indiscriminately getting slim, but attaining the right proportions for your particular build of body. If you lead a healthy life — right food and exercise, proper sleep, and a generally sensible life — you will undoubtedly be as beautiful as is possible for you, and have as much strength as you are capable of developing. So let your mind be at rest.

Second, the body: The two most important factors are (1) Activity and Rest, and (2) Food and Drink. Ordinary household work, or your occupation, or games or set exercises, or gardening etc., are usually sufficient. But if housework or your official duties do not give you enough activity, then you must play games, or do exercises, or anything similar to them. To balance your daily activity you must have sufficient rest, otherwise the waste products generated by activity cannot be cleared out of the body in time. Above all, do not be over-active. Too strenuous exercise or work can make you muscle-bound (and ugly) or too thin. Where you take up a system of exercises, choose one where you are taught Relaxation, Breathing, and Rhythmic Movements.

As regards food and drink: All excess substance means that we are carrying so much useless or waste material with us which ought to be eliminated. If we adopt a drastic remedy, and lose weight quickly, we more often than not lose good healthy tissue too. Also, we upset the normal functioning of the body. And in the majority of cases we include a wrong psychological state, for unconsciously we are now longing to throw off these restraints and “eat, drink, and be — fat again!” But with a balanced diet — which you will find in the specimen menus — you will inevitably attain your correct bodily proportions without indecent hurry and without any evil effects during or after.

The best drink at all times is water. Fruit juices — orange, lemon, grapefruit — assist in loosening up and removing waste products. But do not overdo it. Do not drink at meals, but only between meals; and take no drink between the half hour before and the full hour after any meal. Above all, remember that the combination of drinks like beer, with bread (especially white), and protein food (especially fat meat or fish, and cheese), is the royal road to a barrel-shaped body.

The worst and most dangerous fad…

“This food (say lean meat, for it is a good source of suitable proteins and of vitamin B2) is good for me, therefore 10 times the usual amount of lean meat will be 10 times as good for me.” Nothing could be more fallacious! Any food substance is valuable to its full extent only when taken in the right amount. All amounts beyond that optimum amount are harmful. Similarly, it is unwise to take manufactured food products which claim to give you so much more of this vitamin or that mineral salt than the amount Nature gives you.

A note on vegetarianism

If you do not wish to eat meat and fish, leave it alone. You can thrive perfectly without meat and fish in any country in the world which is sufficiently organized to supply a reasonable variety of fruits and vegetables. The idea that one cannot live without meat and fish is a foolish fad.

Vegetarianism has its advantages as well as disadvantages. If by vegetarianism you mean living on stodgy, tasteless and sloppy food, wrongly cooked and wrongly combined, then please go back to meat and fish. But if you are scientifically vegetarian, then, generally speaking, you will find that:

You are more resistant to falling a victim to any epidemic, or to getting ill at any time.
If you do get ill, you recover more quickly.
You have more nervous vitality (averagely speaking) but less brute force (again averagely) than when you eat meat.
You have calmer and more equable nerves than when you eat meat.
You become more sensitive physically and mentally than when you eat meat. This may often be disadvantageous, for if you become too sensitive you may find yourself unable to cape with the strain set up in our present social order with its competition, its noise and turmoil, and other unpleasant factors.

Your best guide is your own inner feeling and conviction. In warm weather and in hot countries avoid flesh foods. This will only benefit you, and do you no harm. Flesh food (protein from animal sources) has a highly “exciting” effect as compared with vegetable proteins, and it makes you less controlled where your nerves are concerned. It also putrefies much faster than vegetable proteins do and these products of putrefaction need more efficient elimination than those derived from vegetable proteins.

You must also take into account your heredity and your psychological reactions. In a country like England, meat and fish have been main articles of food for centuries. If moreover you have a natural desire for meat, it is likely to be a disadvantage to you if you force yourself to give it up. At the same time, do not be a slave to any unhealthy craving (for it is not a natural appetite), but follow a sensible middle path.

Continued in part 4, part 5 and part 6