The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-11
Home Nursing
EIlen,s Garden

EIIon'S Garden
 FLLEN SMITH lived in the kind M of home where no one cares
 much about anything except to eat-always in a hurry-and to have some place to sleep when there is noth- ing else to do.
 lessly, saying, Really. and truly, she fed her children food out of cans, and brown paper bags, and cooked as little las possible. t@
 Her father did not like children. X The noise they made annoyed him. So poor little Ellen had a rather unhappy time of it trying to keep quiet when she felt like laughing and romping, and wishing that her mother sometimes would have some-made soup and pud- dings like other little girls mothers. Ellen was so tired of eating canned food
 By the time she was almost sixteen and attending high. school Ellen began to assert herself.
 Her mother went around rather aim lessly, saying, Really an dtruly, I don't know what's got into our Ellen, with her talk of proper eating, and hygiene, and geFms.'
 Our Ellen" opened bedroom windows and lectured her father gently when he stole around closing them, declaring that he didn't buy coal to heat ''all- outdoors"
 When springtime came Ellen reclaim ed vacant lot at the back of the house and dug and planted until she ached al, over. But for the first summer in their lives the shiftlessf Smith family had green vegetables on their table at least twice a day.
 Ellen's garden was such a novelty in the neighborhood that other girls fa- thers came to lean over the fence at night when she was wedding. They would smoke, comment upon it, and go home thoughtfully.
 A few other gardens appeared where in other years tin cans had accumulated and chickens scratched.
 Something like pride in Ellen began to stir in the heart of her father and he became interested in the things that interested her. He became convert to healthful eating and was interested in food values, Yitamines and calOrieS.
 Ellen talked with him about food and diet-subjects that had never in teFested him sufficiently to give him anything but hazy ideas. She impress ed upon him that vegetables are neces- sary to healthful eating because they contain high percentages of water, starches, sugars and oils. Cereals and nuts are included in the vegetable king doms, as most people. know, and they too make valuable contribution to- ward good health if eaten in a mixed diet. All green vegetables, such as spin ach, lettuce, potatoes, beets, carrots, cabbage and celery are rich in min eral salts which help to build strong straight bones and preserve white teeth. Even milk contains some min eral salts, though no growing person can be properly nOurished on one food alone. s5,
 A. diet must be mixed so that it fur nishes the body with its various needs to, keep up the repair.
 Green vegetables have a value of POO calories to the pound. When Ellen's father learned this he was quite i'm pressed, because he belonged to the class of people who think of all vegeta- bles as garden truck'' and believe that true nOurishment lies in much bread and gravy, milk and eggs. <
 Vegetables have asmost important contribution to make to the properly balanced diet. They should be care fully cooked in boiling water. They should be simmered gently, not boiled violently so that they are cooked to pulp and all their valuable contents strained off with the water they are cooked ius <