Getting Your Mind Ready

( Originally Published 1922 )

Once more before taking up the following suggestions and recipes it seems opportune to say that they were compiled for those who, having read Mr. McCann's book, desired to change their routine and dietary in accordance with his findings. They are designed especially for those who are in earnest in their desire to make the change complete and who find it somewhat difficult and confusing to get away from the old established customs.

The following pages will serve as a handbook to the busy housewife who desires that the food pre-pared in her kitchen shall contain the blood-making, tissue-building elements which shall insure health to her children and all of her household at the same time that it satisfies their appetites and pleases their palates.

Once established the new routine will run as smoothly as the old and there will be no sudden at-tacks of tonsilitis, high temperature, etc., with the hurried call for the doctor and the unlimited worry.

This has been proven a hundred times.

The first thing then is to fix clearly in our minds where to find the minerals and vitamins, also which are acid-forming and which base-forming foods.

Hence let us make a list of them. It won't be long until we have them tabulated in our brains clearly and permanently.

Acid-forming Foods
White bread
Boiled potatoes
Polished rice
Cornstarch
Corn flakes
Corn meal (denatured)
Cream of wheat
Pearled barley
Whites of eggs
Cheese
Lard
Fat of any kind
Meat (especially salt meat)
Fish
All white flour products—as
Crackers Biscuits Pastry, etc.
Denatured rye flour
Denatured buckwheat flour
All refined cereals All refined sugars
Macaroni
Spaghetti
Tapioca

The following foods are naturally balanced as to bases and acids. The ones marked * contain a predominance of alkali- (base) forming elements and are therefore ideal to use as "balancers" at a meal where meat or other acid-forming food is served.

Balanced Foods
Whole wheat bread
Potatoes—baked or steamed in skins
Natural brown rice
Corn meal—ground from the whole grain
Unpearled barley
All natural cereals i.e., the entire grains
Whole wheat flour
Rye flour made from whole grain
Buckwheat flour made from whole grain
Eggs
Milk
All fresh vegetables
All greens
All fresh fruits

The entire egg is "balanced"the yolk is the base former; the white, the acid former.

Milk contains a predominance of alkaline elements and all the vitamins.

AND DON'T FORGET:

When foods are balanced as to acids and bases, they surely contain the minerals (because the bases are always mineral) and that where the minerals predominate we also find one or all of the vitamins.

So it is not three roads. It is one and a straight one.

"Eat everything which God has put on the earth for food—but eat it as He put it there. Refuse to have it juggled."

It will be noticed that all things as found in nature are "balanced." The fruits, the grains, the vegetables, and also the animals.

Your body is balanced—but:

The minerals (bases) are found in the bones and blood. This is why it is an acid-forming food. The wild animal of the forest who feeds on other animals gets his "balanced" food. He eats the bones and blood. We do not.

This does not mean that you must eliminate meat from your dietary. But it does mean that at a meat meal you must have sufficient vegetables, salads and fruits to give the mineral (base) balance to the acid of the meat. And it does mean that you must not go back to the old routine of meat, boiled (or mashed) potato and white bread, all three of which are acid-forming. It would be impossible at a single meal to eat sufficient other vegetables to offset the acids of the above combination.

Now for the New Routine.