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Show Eat and Grow Younger The 'Thou Shalts' of Good Eating Habits By LELORD KORDEL Number Fourteen of a Series Your great desire is to live a long, useful life, all the while looking and feeling far younger than your years. Certainly this is a goal worth aiming at. But are you prepared to abide by the Commandments? Because everything worth attaining has a price. And the price of a long, youthful life is planned diet. At first, the careful and judicious selection of youth-protecting youth-protecting foods will be a novelty you'll enjoy. But after that may come the danger period when the novelty provided by a new regimen begins to wear off, and you are tempted to lapse into the "oh, it's too much trouble" trou-ble" kind of defeatist thinking. Yet 1 promise you that once you have successfully weathered this period of temptation to return to the old haphazard way of eating, you'll subconsciously begin accepting, or rejecting, each food on the basis of its contribution to your youthfulness and long life, with the same skill as that exercised by a trained nutritionist. Instictively, you will avoid the old "goey" meals with which you formerly insulted your body. FOOD COMMANDMENTS The food commandments I shall lay down are those that will afford you taste pleasures and adventures in good eating the like of which you have seldom enjoyed before. Let's take these six general rules -- commandments I have called them-one by one, in detail, as they pertain to your goal of attaining a long, youthful, enjoyable life. My first commandment is high-grade proteins in abundance. The protein story has been developed rather fully for you in the preceding chapters, so there is no need to repeat at length the fact that protein is essential for feeding, repairing and rebuilding your muscles, nerves, tissues, glands and vital organs. In case of illness or convalescence, protein is the rebuilder of your health. Life insurance companies have an unsentimental, dollars-and-cents interest in keeping you well and alive for a long time. For that reason they issue series of pamphlets and booklets loaded with sane advice on how to avoid illness and early death. I quote from one of the pamphlets directed at the 40-and-over group: "An ample, nutritious diet is as important to adults as to growing children. Learn to like and to choose foods -that are good for you. Well-balanced meals of vegetables, veget-ables, meats and fresh fruits are health-building meals. The impression that people in the older ages should avoid eating meat is entirely erroneous. In fact, some diseases are due to lack of protein which is contained in such foods as meat, fish, poultry, eggs and cheese." Let's see what nutritional science has been doing to fight these "disease enemies of your youth." BLOOD DISORDERS First, we'll take blood disorders. One of the most common of these in persons past 40 is anemia. The paleness which has come to be associated with growing older is often nothing except a visible symptom of nutritional nutri-tional anemia. There's no reason why a person shouldn't possess a healthy, glowing complexion in later years, provided his blood is rich with red coloring 1 matter. But healthy blood cannot be formed without protein any more than it can be maintained without the minerals iron and copper. You can't build good red blood on tea and toast. Anemia at any age cannot be shrugged off as "not serious." But in middle life anemia is an ailment that can shorten your years of useful, vigorous living. If you suspect you may be anemic, go at once to your doctor or to a reliable laboratory and have a blood count taken. If a blood count reveals too few red cells and a low percentage of hemoglobin (that is, it is not red enough), then you should act at once to restore your blood to normal. How? By immediately converting to high-protein meals (those containing lean meat, liver, kidney, heart, dark meat of poultry, eggs, cheese and low-fat milk products. pro-ducts. Eat generously of iron-rich apricots, molasses, prunes, raisins, whole grains, beets, parsley, radishes, citrus fruits and pineapple, to mention but a few foods highest in iron content. MINERAL SUPPLEMENT As a safety measure, your doctor will probably also prescribe a mineral supplement containing organic iron to rebuild your blood as quickly as possible. As an added iron tonic which you can prepare for yourself at home, buy some unbleached apricots (usually (usual-ly found in health food stores). If apricots can't be had, the next best fruits are dried peaches or raisins. Put a handful of the fruit in a glass, cover with lukewarm luke-warm water, stir, let stand overnight. Next morning stir the mixture again, drain off the water into another glass, adding to it one tablespoon of black molasses. Prepare and drink this iron tonic several times a week (the fruit should also be eaten). I have, of course, been speaking exclusively of simple, sim-ple, iron-deficiency anemia which comprises about 95 percent of all anemia cases. Condensed from the book "Eat and (Irow Younger' ' by Lelord Kordvl. All rights reserved. Distributed by Specialty Spe-cialty features Syndicate. Next: More of the "commandments:" Why vitamins are essential elements to good health; how they buck-up proteins. |