It is tragic for one to brag about the different foods that one does not like. Yet, that very thing is evident in daily conversation all over the world. Food is a popular subject; nearly as much so as the weather. That is quite natural, when each of us must think and act in the food realm three, or more, times a day.
We repeat. We have repeated. We repeat again: It is the foods one does not eat which causes indigestion, systemic deficiencies, and organic disease. All such repetition in this book has been more, or less, intentional. If repetition can drive home to you eaters the fact that you must increase the number and types of food you eat, the purpose of this entire effort will have been accomplish-ed.
Do not say you cannot eat any item of food. Learn to like it. You can learn to like any food in a very short time, even if taste goes against you at present. At least, you should learn to eat all types of food, if not individual food items.
If you do learn to eat all types of food, you will assure furnishing your system with every kind of vitamin, mineral, and protein; also, you may save yourself an occasional embarrassing situation. To wit; The writer over-stayed a Sunday call at a friend’s house one time and never has forgotten the embarrassment caused by not liking oysters. In fact, time was not realized until an invitation for a snack was issued.
Evidently, the family were not prepared for a guest. They may have intended to dine out. The daughter of the house skipped away for a time, and must have located some oysters, for it was oyster stew to which I was invited. I hated oysters. I could not eat them, and had to say so. The embarrassment of that family, and mine, was so acute that, after thirty years, I still suffer in memory. Needless to say, I have learned to like oysters, and now enjoy a good oyster stew.
However, one does not have to like each member of a food family. If you do not like oysters, there are other sea foods which are equally rich in vitamins, minerals, and proteins. Just do not turn down the entire sea food family. You need their food value.
One does not have to eat limburger cheese. Who can? Bah ! However, do not dislike all cheese. It is a very valuable food.
You bellyachers turn down every member of some food families. That is why you are bellyachers. If you hated grapefruit, and liked oranges; if you disliked vinegared lettuce, but liked tomato juice, you could do nicely. But, you turn down practically all sour foods, and, most of the time, leave out the leaves and stalk vegetables. You can not do it, unless you pay the price of indigestion and organic misfunction. Good health does not demand each and every food known, but it does need every type of food grown.
In learning to eat a disliked food, put a very small amount with some food you do like. If you dislike peas, put a very few with potato. Repeat the performance, and after many such attempts, you will find you like the peas for themselves.
The cry of freedom rings! We have been regimented politically, financially, and socially, but WILL NOT be told what to eat. That is our own indisputable right. We eat what we like and will not eat what we do not like. It is freedom alright, but sometimes we do not use freedom as it should be used. We weld the bars of a cell by turning down too many foods. It is a long process, and we do not realize we are building a cell until it is almost completed. it is sometimes a shock to learn that the bars of food freedom have welded a cell of death.
If you will not correct your own deficiencies, please do not neglect your children in like fashion. Do not stop the attempt to introduce a new food to your child when it turns up the nose or pushes the hand away. Teach your child to eat all types of food. You will be starting that child upon the road to one hundred years of life; a life without the many miseries and pains which attack through food deficiencies and so-called stomach troubles. DO NOT START ANOTHER BELLYACHER.