HOME HEALTH GLIDE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1943, Page 5

HOME HEALTH GLIDE

SPONGY GUMS THE WAY TO TREAT THEM (By the Department of Health) Do your gums bleed easily when you brush your tepth? If they do, you probably have spongy gums. And if you look in the mirror, does the edge where tooth and gum meet seem firm and pale pink—it’s natural condition —or is it a little swollen, or loose, or pinker in colour than the rest of the gums? If it is, then'you definitely have spongy gums. This condition of the. gums is common both in children and in adults, but the cure is not found in a tin of dental powder or a tube of tooth-paste. It is found, curiously enough, in the kitchen.

Spongy gums are caused through lack of Vitamin C, and in good times the most palatable way of making up this Vitamin C deficiency was by eating oranges. We haven’t got the oranges these days in anything like the same quantities as of old. You may have some lemons or grapefruit in your garden. Some of these every day will help build up your supply of Vitamin C. But not everyone has citrus fruits outside the back door, so let’s, get back to the kitchen. You may have some rose hips syrup, which is four times as strong as orange juice in Vitamin C; there may be tomatoes preserved or tinned, raw or cooked —they are half the strength of orange juice. Again you may have available vegetables’ water, or puree, made from brussels sprouts, cabbage, spinach, cauliflower, swedes, kohlrabi, silver beet. From any. of these vegetables the water or puree is valuable, if made this way:— To two cups of shredded fresh vegetable add a cup of boiling water. Bring quickly to the boil and-cook for 10 to 20 minutes. Squeeze as much liquid out of the vegetable as you can. This liquid will equal tomato juice in value or be half as valuable as orange juice. You do not, therefore, have to look ! far for a cure —and an economical cure, too —for spongy gum condition.