ALWAYS BREAK THE SKINS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1619, 26 February 1884, Page 2

ALWAYS BREAK THE SKINS.

Many persons cannot eat so delicious and nourishing food as green com, or even green peas j and those who do so often suffer, unconscious of the cause. Currants, green or ripe, raisins or dried currants in cake, are as bad for some people as gravel stones, Children suffer diarrhoea from eating small fruits. Beans, which are among the most nutritious foods, cause severe indigestion with some, unless they are • boilod to a soft mass or porridge. There is a good reason. for all this. One of the benificent provisions of nature is to secure the widest diffusion of seeds that is possible, Some are supplied with wings, as in the thistle, and maple, die,, so that the winds float them to distant points, But by far the larger number of seeds are carried and scattered by birds or other animaty mainly in their excrements. To vent their being digested within the/*» body, most of them are covered with a thin, hard skin, called the cuticle, which is so formed that the gastric juice of the stomach does not act upon it. If this cuticle or outer skin of corn, peas, beans, and the like, and of most fruits, passes into the stomach unbroken, they' are not digested, but »o through the alimentary canal as solid bodios, producing irritation and pain to those having weak digestion-or at least an extra strain is put upon the alimentary organs, The tooth are provided to crush and break this cuticle; but few persons masticate their food so thoroughly that a considerable quantity of it does not get ' iuto the stomach unbroken. Attention to the simplo fact stated above will be of great advantage to multitudes. As children do not understand and cannot appreciate these facts, care should U: taken to prepare their food, fruits, so that it cannot be swallowed tmmashed. For green corn eaten liv young or old, an excellent method is, to always run a sharp knife down each row of kernels, cutting well through every one of them. There are convenient implements made for this, and sold by most house-furnishing dealers, Then if scraped off or eaten from the cob, no whole kernel will be swallowed. Green peas and beans, dry beans boiled or baked, raisins, ifee., should always hav6 every skin cut or broken, by mashing or otherwise,