FRUIT AS FOOD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 448, 16 March 1912, Page 3

FRUIT AS FOOD.

The following on "Fruits as Food and Medicine" is just as applicable to-day as it was 25 years ago. Its publication is timely, in view uf the fact that diet reformers are much more numerous than ever befure. Of all the fruits with whch we are blessed, the peach is the most digestible. There is nothing more palatable, wholesome, and medicinal than ripe peaches. They should be ripe, but not over-ripe and half rotten, and they may make a good part of cither meal or be eaten between meals; but it is better to make them part of the regular meals. The apple is one of the best of fruits. Baked or stewed apples will generally agree with the most delicate stomach, and are an excellent medicine in many cases of sickness. Green or half-ripe apples stewed and sweetened are pleasant to the taste, cooling, nourishing, and laxative, far superior in many cases to the abominable doses of salts and oil usually given in fever and other diseases. Raw apples and dried apples stewed are better for constipation than most liver pills. Oranges are very acceptable to most stomachs, but the orange juice alone should be taken, rejecting the pulp. The same may be said of lemons, pomegranates, and all that class. Lemonade is the best.drink in fevers and, when thickened with sugar, is better than sryups of squills and other noxious drugs in many cases of cough. Tomatoes act on the liver and bowels, and are much more pleasant and safe than ''liver regulators." The juice should be used alone rejecting the skins. The small seeded

fruits, such as blackberries, figs, raspberries, currants, and strawberrier, may be classed among the best foods and medicines. The sugar in them is nutritious, the acid is cooling and purifying, and the seeds are a laxative. We would be much the gainer if we should look more to our orchards and gardens for our medicine and less to our drug stores. To cure fever or act on the kidneys no fibrifuge or diuretic is superior to watermelon, which may, with very few exceptions, be taken in sickness and health in almost unlimited quantities, not only without injury but with positive benefit. But in using them the water nor juice should be taken, excluding the pulp, and the melon should be fresh and ripe, but not over-ripe, and stale.