p. 375 | GOOD HEALTH by Loraine

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Dec 12, 1878

GOOD HEALTH.

By Loraine

Concerning Pork.

UNPLEASANT truths are not always comfortable things to hear and sometimes cause a little squirming, especially when they strike near home; but if the squirming produces a healthy reaction it is beneficial, and the truths should not be withheld.

Farmers' wives do not like to be told that they are fond of pork, and no wonder they are ashamed of it, after all the enlightening they have had from the most scientific journals in the country, with regard to this filthy disease-producing article of food; yet "poor piggy," as they pathetically term him, still finds his most earnest defenders in the farm-house.

I am aware that habit is all-powerful with the masses who possess little originality. What the mother and grandmother have always done the daughter is likely to do, simply because she has their example before her.

Now the question is this: shall we allow veneration to over-shadow common-sense, and keep on day after day and year after year in the same worn out track, practically repeating the old story of the heavy stone put in the bag to balance the grist, just because it may be considered irreverent to suppose we know more than our grandfathers or grandmothers did?

If old-fashioned customs are better than new ones, then, by all means, let us be old-fashioned; but if they have been proved to be irredeemably bad, why should we still cling to them?

However, with many it is not after all so much a question of veneration as one of convenience.

It is so "handy" to have a can of lard on the kitchen table, ready to dip a spoon into whenever a little grease is wanted, a little less trouble than to save drippings of beef or mutton, or prepare suet; and so the unclean substance is allowed to spoil many a dish that would otherwise be quite wholesome.

But the poorest excuse of all is that of economy. I know of more than one wealthy farmer's wife, on a dairy ranch, who obliges her children to eat poor fat or other greasy gravy, very much against their inclinations, instead of butter or milk, for the purpose of saving a little something. If that isn't down-right meanness then I do not know what you would call it! No wonder typhoid fever and diphtheria have found their way into so many farm-houses, where their children, by good rights, should be healthy and strong. It is an illustration of what we may term being "penny wise and pound foolish," for every dollar saved in this way, ten are paid out for doctors' bills, dentists' bills or patent medicines.

"But the doctor never tells us to be careful about diet and not to eat pork."

No, perhaps not, it would be poor policy. If all the people were careful with regard to diet, the doctor would lose nine-tenths of his fees.

It must be a source of satisfaction to the unprincipled, yet exceedingly practical physician to look at a pig-sty well stocked with fat porkers, or glance at the rows of lard cans in a grocery store; to say nothing of the adulterated spices and green pickles, and vinegar made of vitriol; all these things will put money into his pocket and he knows it.

To be sure all physicians are not unprincipled, and they do not themselves make the vinegar or put up the pickles or prepare the lard, but somebody does it, and there are always plenty of fools in the world to buy these things to use them, and consequently get sick and need doctoring. "It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good." That which is death to the people is life to the doctors and the undertakers.

But, to return to our subject, farmer's wives, as a class, have many estimable qualities or traits of character, but they are the most miserable cooks in the world. Health is undoubtedly of the very first importance, because it affects the whole system, mentally as well as physically, and health is very much dependent upon the food which we eat. Therefore the house-keeper or cook has the well-being of the whole family in her hands to a considerable extent, and her responsibility is correspondingly great.

Let farmers' wives go down to the root of some of their difficulties and reform their cooking, making it simple and wholesome, and a certain degree of both mental and moral improvement will follow the physical improvement, in their families, as certain as light follows the dawn of morning. — Loraine, in California Farmer.