Evening star., 1935-10-17
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES Z. TRACEWELL.

lar diet "fads," as the author calls them,
are inveighed against, but on one page
he admits that few persons take them up
except when doctors fail 70 help them,
and on another he declares See your
DOCTOR" In italics. Some eight rules for
judging good diet, given in the last
chapter, perfectly At and describe one
OF the diets" he lambaSteS, II Judgment
is used in its application.
Few persons ever worry about their
diet until they feel unwell, and then
they find that ones mind (our No. 81
must come into play.
The state Of health ought to determine
what one eats, and 1t commonly does, If
one is feeling unwell.
There are times when nothing seems
quite so good as milk toast, commonly
called graveyard stew" in the jargon
of the restaurants. 1t is too bad that
the latter bit Of cant has been applied
to this perfectly nutritious and tasty
dish, for no doubt it has prevented
many persons from taking it when moth
ing else quite filled the bill.
Especially must breakfast be a meal of
the mind as well as of the stomach.
Here is where, no doubt, our No. 2, or
brought up in family where heavy meat
breakfasts were the rule. only severe Ill
health thereafter will make one feel that
such breakfasts are not exactly the thing.
If one, on the other hand, has lived
since childhood in a family where very
light breakfasts were eaten, a great
heavy meal in the forenoon will seem
almost criminal and at least totally un-
necessary.
These are matters every one must settle
for himself, and most of us do If we have
the price, but the thing to keep in mind
Is the personality. One has but to think
of the thousands upon thousands of per-
sons who attempt to make their per-
sonalitieS like other personalities, instead
of doing their best to be themselves, to
realize the necessity for bringing the
mind, and ones bringing up, and ones
state of health, into even so small an
affair as the daily breakfast.
1t is possible to eat slow or fast. or not
to eat at all, or else to eat very heavily
or very lightly, or at different hours from
most or make breakfast into two meals,
really, as they do in Europe. 1t is
feasible and often practical to eat down.
town If one refuses to get up early
enough to have an unhampered break
fast at home. 1t is strange the way many
people hamper themselves in this regard.
The common way is to lie abed until the
morning ablutions must be hurried so
that there is not time left for even the
tiniest breakfast. We recall once taking
an after breakfast cup of coffee in
restaurant, seeing a woman rush in.
seize a cup of boiling hot coffee, stand
up at the counter and pour the entire
contents of the cup 'adown her warm
esophagus," as the old rhyme had it, in
exactly 80 seconds. We timed her
No matter what sort of breakfast one
eats, if it is eaten at all it ought to be
a leisurely affair, more so than any meal
of the day, perhaps. There should be
time before it and during 1t and after it.
If all this cannot be managed it is
better to eat no breakfast at all, or at
least very little one, rather than swal-
low down food almost whole and in such
a hurry that one doesn't taste it. Taste
is physiologically part of eating, and
necessary part. Mere swallowing is
something else again.