St. Landry democrat., 1893-09-23
HOT WEATHER HINTS.
Some Suggestions as to What to Eat
and Drink

Some Suggestions as to What to Eat
and Drink.
A suitable diet can do a great deal to
make life more enjoyable during hot
| spell, says writer in the n Y. Sun. In
many households there is little change
in diet during the year so far as the main
part of it goes. The thousands of men
who have No homes aud breakfast and
dine at restaurants and club houses get
in the habit of ordering the same things
day after day and of eating and drinking
at their meals almost irrespective of the
weather. Here is where little knowl-
| edge of physiology would come in to
| good advantage to make it easier to bear
up against the hot, sultry days
Everybody knows that certain foods
tend to produce heat, and that in gen
eral way fruits and fresh vegetables are
cooling; but they do not realize how
easy it is to apply these laws of physiol-
ogy to the benefit of a mans personal
comfort. The natives of countries which
are always hot and Of the countries
which are always cold have naturally
! driftcd into the diet which is best
adapted to their needs. The Esquimaux
would have little appreciation of straw
berries, pineapple, lettuce, and other
| vegetables, even if they could get them,
while whale blub5er and seal fat would
be diet wholly unsuited to the negroes
under the equator. The people of the
United States, and particularly the peo-
pie of the city of New York, have the
widest choice of cheap food products
that there is. They have fresh vege-
tables from early in the spring, when the
trains bring them from Florida, until
well on in the fall, when the most
Northern vegetable gardens have ceased
to produce. They have all kinds of
meats and all kinds of fruits at low prices
always easy to get.
1t is 50 easy to let housekeeping get
into rut and to fall into the habit of
having substantially the same things to
eat every day, especially for breakfast,
that only a small fraction of the popula-
ton of New York take advantage of the
methods nature brings to their doors to
make summer life more comfortable
They cat meats in the summer two Or
three times day, just as they do in the
coolest part of winter. They have
starchy vegetables for breakfast, and
they drink sweet drinks. The man who
is in the habit of putting three Jumps of
sugar in cup Of coffee in the cold
winter time keeps on putting as many
humps in the coffee in the summer. If
he is in the habit of eating a hearty
meat luncheon in the winter he does the
same thing in the summer. There is
little change in the amount that he eats
except the change that is forced on him
by loss of appetite and depression conse-
quent upon heavy dict in hot weather.
Nature itself suggests to a man the
proper dict for the different seasons of
the year. Nature has so arranged things
that, beginning with the early spring,
the first fruits and vegetables to mature
have medicinal effect on the system to
make i: throw off the results Of the
heavier winter diet. to open the pores,
and 70 make the various functions work
more freely Instead of adopting this
suggestion of nature that with the first
ripening of vegetables in the spring
large quantities of them should be eaten,
the ma jority of people neglect natures
hint and take medicine instead
Nature always takes care to punish
those who are inattentative to her advice.
The summer colds which hang on 50
much longer and are so much more
troublesome than winter colds are the
direct results of the clogging of the sys
TEN through an improper diet. Nature
and mans constitution alike suggest
the diet and the behavior for the summer
which, if adopted. will make the warm,
long days enjoyable instead of opprcs-
sive. II man is working hard and is |
accustomed to meat three times day |
during the winter, it may be we'll for
him to eat meat once day during the
summer. Once a day is enough, and he !
should not eat greasy meat. This is |
good advice the year round, for though |
there are times when mans system |
Graves fatty diet, fried fat is not the
best shape to furnish it in. The meat
should be we'll cooked; little of it is
enough. The evening dinner is natural
ly the time for it, for then the day is
cooler and man can idle away an hour
or two after the repast, ameliorating by
rest the heat and increase in temperature,
which the digestion of meat usually
causes.
If man has not accustomed his sys-
ten to taking meat until the lack of
meat would make him ill, it would be
well for him to adopt an almost exclu-
sively vegetarian diet during the spring
and summer, and continue it until the
crisp days OF fall. Eggs, lean bacon,
spring chickens, and fish, during the
spring and summer should take the place
of the heavy meats of winter, especially
hot roasts and steaks. All the fats a man
needs in the summer can be taken in the
system in the form of vegetable oils,
helped out by the natural starch of raw
fruits.
Sweet drinks of any kind, drinks with
alcohol in them, and ice water are not
cooling in their ultimate effects. Any
thing with sugar in it or sweet syrups
is heating Acid drinks, especially those
made from natural fruit juice, are cool
ny. If any alcoholic drink is wanted,
The best is mildly acid wine, diluted aud
cooled, hut not too cold. One way to
start out cool with the days work is to
drink quantity of hot water some time
before breakfast and to wait for the re-
lction from it. The reaction from hot
thinks and hoy baths is cooling just as
he reaction from iced drinks and cold
paths is warming. Everybody knows
low in the winter cold shower or
old plunge, with a rub down to hasten
he reaction, brings glow and feeling .
If warmth which lasts for some time. In