The Kitchen: Foods That Do More Harm Than Good

Foods That Do More Harm Than Good

Tea; coffee that is boiled over again; chocolate and cocoa, which contain foreign substances. Tomatoes contain acids that cause nervous illness, though they benefit certain persons. Small dried raisins; potatoes with green skins; old, dried-out potatoes. Spices do no harm unless they are used together with other seasonings such as cinnamon and the like. Every kind of fat; pickles; radishes; blackberries; every kind of unripe fruit.

It would never occur to the reader of this list that all these items are considered harmful. True, most of them cause nervous illness in certain persons who are prone to it; but if one takes only a very small quantity of them, they do no harm.

The winter foods that warm the body:

Boiled wheat, butter, cream, dates, figs, corn porridge with eggs; fish, above all red mullet, and the like.

Summer foods:

Greens, egg white, fresh fish, oatmeal, and wheat — these last two are eaten the whole year round.

If you wish to eat a single kind of food in the evening, choose potatoes cooked with cream or milk. In the morning you will feel like a new creature.

Beverages:

Water is the one natural drink, as everyone knows. The customary beverages are: coffee, tea, chocolate, bran water, milk, and laban. Coffee is not a nourishing drink; it is delicious and appetizing, and it does not harm persons with strong hearts, but it is forbidden to weak hearts. Its poison shows itself when it is boiled over the fire; taken with milk, however, it does no harm.

Tea is a direct poison, in that it weakens every organ in the body; its harm falls swiftly upon the gall bladder, so that the fluid there can hardly keep its proper course. Tea weakens the memory and the mental powers, robs a man of his wits before his time, and irritates the nerves; the tea drinker is afflicted with melancholy all night and through the day, and its end is palsy.

Cocoa, if it is pure and mixed with milk, is beneficial and does no harm. Chocolate is not beneficial like cocoa; rather, it swells the liver.

The Most Important Beneficial Foods

The salted dish (salad), made of raw cabbage, lettuce, celery, and the like; every supper should include this salad, and a cold cup should be drunk with it. Tea, however, must not be drunk, and coffee should be taken in the morning mixed with milk. Potatoes cooked with milk are very beneficial. Toasted bread with butter is very delicious and wholesome.