Swiss Diet

“ A boy,—that is a Zulu man—would run almost anywhere for a shilling with a portmanteau on his head. I often heard of 7s. a month as the amount of wages paid by a farmer,—with a diet exclusively of mealies or of Kafir corn. And yet housekeepers have told me that they paid £5 and £6 a month wages for a man, and that they considered his diet to cost them 15s. a week. In the heat of argument exceptional circumstances are often taken to prove general statements. You will be assured that the Swiss are the tallest people in Europe because a Swiss has been found seven feet high. ”

“ But the reader must not infer that meat is indispensable for the support of the bodily strength. The peasants of some parts of Switzerland, who hardly ever taste any thing but bread, cheese, and butter, are vigorous people.
"The nations of the north are inclined, generally, more to animal aliment; those of the south and the Orientals, more to vegetable. The latter are generally more simple in their diet than the former, when their taste has not been corrupted by luxurious indulgence. Some tribes in the East, and the caste of Bramins in India, live entirely on vegetable food." ”

“ You may guess, from this fact, that neatness and cleanliness are not, I grieve to say, among their good qualities.
It is strange that, though the men and women here are mostly handsome, the children are very plain. The contrary of this occurs in parts of Switzerland. Here, it a good deal arises from the diet: all the children look diseased—as well they may be, considering their food—and the wonder is, so many arrive at maturity. The deaths, however, are in a much larger proportion than with us. ”

“ Maurice platform and help the kindly Swiss in their distribution of welcome material comforts among this daily consignment of sorely afflicted humanity.
Switzerland, indeed, today is changed beyond recognition. Prices are high and food is scarce. Rationing runs its difficult course, as elsewhere in our dislocated world. Trains are reduced, and railway, as also amusement, tickets heavily taxed. Instead of cheese and butter, the rule, strictly enforced, is cheese or butter, while one lump of sugar and one speck of saccharine is the sweetening allowance with thé or café complet. ”

“ But warm, moist climates rather favour sedentary habits and tend to lessen appetite, so that the nutrition of the patient is apt to suffer; and although phthisical patients may live in comparative comfort in such climates, their tendency to recovery in them is small. At the Swiss health resorts, on the contrary, during the winter the air is very pure, and has just sufficient coldness to make exercise agreeable to patients. They are thus induced to be out the whole day, and to take food with an appetite which greatly improves their nutrition and aids their restoration to health. ”

“ Many of the doctors who were with me thought that the heavy eating and large consumption of wine and beer had unfavourably affected the German national character, and had made the people more aggressive and irritable and consequently readier for war. The influence of diet on national character should not be under-estimated. Meat-eating nations have always ruled vegetarians. ”

“ Thus we see that the people of Northern and Central Italy have a very well-balanced diet in their own country, with protein from milk, cheese, eggs, and meat; carbohydrates from macaroni in various forms and from bread; mineral matter from fruits and vegetables; and fat from olive oil, lard, and pork. From the milk, vegetables, and egg yolks they derive vitamines to promote growth and repair tissue.
It is difficult to measure their daily food in calories, as they generally have a one-dish meal, prepared in a large kettle from which each one helps himself, eating until he is satisfied. ”

“ Now, although I am strongly of opinion that a more widespread use of fish, vegetables, and salads in Australia would be attended by the happiest results (both by benefiting the national health and by developing Australia's food-industries) , yet it must not be understood that I countenance vegetarianism. So far from being a vegetarian, I am one of those who firmly believe in the advantages derived from a mixed diet. But my assertion is that we in Australia habitually consume an injurious amount of meat to the exclusion of far more needed nourishment. ”

“ That this is the fact has been proven by experiments in nutrition, recently reported by two Italian scientists. The metabolic assimilation of a population that has long since lived on a vegetable diet exclusively, was examined. Such an agricultural population, living in wretched economic conditions, is met with in southern Italy in the Abruzzi. Their nourishment consists of corn, vegetables and olive oil. They do not partake of milk, cheese or eggs. Meat is brought to their tables only three or four times a year. By way of experiment meat was added to their diet. ”

“ The meadows are aided in no less degree than the climate by constant fertilizing and extraordinary care in the way of watering, draining, etc. A Swiss acre of good grass-land is worth, in the richer and more populous Cantons, from 1500 to 2000 francs. Milk, and what is made from it, constitute the most important resource of the peasant’s income. The manufacture of cheese is one of the most ancient industries of the country, instruments for this purpose having been found in different parts among the ruins of the “Lake-dwellers,” whose date is anterior to all historical records. ”

“ The cardinal difference, and one which stands out in bold relief, is that the Australian food habits are characterised by a preponderancy of meat diet and a corresponding neglect of vegetable products. On the other hand, the dietary of Southern Europe is in rational harmony with its climate, and there is not that insensate insistence of a highly nitrogenous animal fare to the exclusion of all else. The striking features, then, in connection with the Australian dietary are this extraordinary consumption of meat and the faith which is presumably attached to its food value. ”

“ Those who know what are the habits of Swiss swine in summer, when kept on the mountains about the châlets where the cows pass the night, will not be able to bring themselves to touch pig in any form in Switzerland. As therefore I was obliged to reject the mummy ham, and had not yet discovered the merits of mummy beef, I dined on bread and cheese and wine, and supped on bread and cheese and coffee. ”

“ In prescribing diets for the Jewish people, it might be helpful both to the person who prescribes and to the patient for whom the diet is prescribed to remember that all their foods may be classified under three heads: (1) meat or fish; (2) milk and its products; and (3) neutrals. Meat and milk are never mixed. Neutrals may be used with meat or with milk products, but never with both in the same meal.
The Jewish children suffer from too many pickles, too few vegetables, and too little milk. Because of their dietary laws, they cannot drink milk with their meals if they have meat. ”

“ For some reason the general reputation of German cookery is not very high in this country: in fact, not a few think that the German diet consists chiefly of boiled beef and dumplings, milk soup, peas pudding, sauerkraut, and sausages. ”

“ The food question between the United States and Switzerland requires delicate handling. We like the Swiss and do not wish them to suffer, but the Swiss must understand that our food is our own and that we do not propose it shall go to nourish Germans or that it shall take the place, in Switzerland, of Swiss food sold by the Swiss to our enemies. ”

“ If the same thing happened to me earlier in my life, I would have vomited it the next moment.
"All the protein I need I get from this pappadam. That's enough. Normally people eat their ideas and tastes. They sprinkle them on their food and mix their food with them, and they ruin their stomachs and their heads with theories such as: there ought to be vitamins in a diet for good health, nutrients must be in equal quantities, and the diet must be balanced.
"I like cheese. Yogurt is important. In Switzerland you can find as many as a hundred different kinds of cheese. ”

“ The tourists here are just daffy about climbing mountains and glaziers, and they talk about it all the time, and I could see dad's finish. They told him that no American that ever visited Switzerland would be recognized when he got home if he had not climbed the glaziers, so dad arranged for a trip up into the sky. We went 100 miles or so on the cars, passing along valleys where all the cows wear tea bells, and it sounds like chimes in the distance. It is beautiful in Switzerland, but the cheese is something awful. A piece of native Swiss cheese would break up a family. ”

“ Either they leave out both milk and meat and live largely on starches—bread, macaroni, and potatoes—and vegetables, or meat is used at the sacrifice of vegetables and milk. When the health of the family suffers through this great change in diet, one often hears, "My man no like his work; he sick," or "My child, he no good since he came here," always attributing the difficulty to the wrong cause. Eggs are another staple in the diet in Italy which is almost prohibited here because of the high prices, unless the family keep hens. ”

“ It is held that flesh food is in itself a stimulant, and that incidentally it is very liable to transmit disease, while vegetarianism, on the contrary, is a simple, natural, less inflammatory diet, which from the earliest times has been known and practised by a few wise persons as containing the secret of health. In Germany, especially, the system of "natural living" has attracted much attention, and the propaganda of food reform is there mainly on those lines ”

“ The Frau Secundärlehrer had some lettuce which she generously invited us to help ourselves to as long as it lasted, but she would not sell it. One hardly realizes that it is summer, for one has to depend so much on canned things. One learns to eat a lot of the local cheese, which is always good. And I must not forget the honey. It is the invariable accompaniment of the Swiss breakfast, which consists for the rest of rolls and butter, coffee and milk. When the bees have gathered their honey from the wild flowers on the Alpine meadows, the flavor is complexly delicious. ”

“ Alpine pasture season the cheese is made in the little stone huts or sennes of the herdsmen, and brought down in the autumn; the herdsman will descend from the pastures with a cheese weighing from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five pounds on his shoulders. The larger the cheese the better its quality. Each cow is supposed to yield a hundred-weight of cheese during the summer months. The average of fat contained in the milk of the best Swiss cows is three and three-tenths per cent., though in a few cases it may show four to four and a half per cent. ”

“ First of all, then, it is worthy of note that in the old country that advocate for rational feeding, Sir Henry Thompson, has recently expressed his opinion that a large proportion of the town population would profit by exchanging some of their meat, as an article of daily diet, for fish. He further adds that the digestive system is apt to become overloaded and oppressed by meals consisting chiefly of meat, and that many a constitution suffers from an over-supply in this way, which cannot be remedied without a considerable amount of exercise. ”

“ I had nothing to eat but half-putrid corned beef and bread, served on a dirty tin plate, tea of the cheapest sort, boiled in a bucket, and sweetened with dirty black sugar, was my fare too. How could any sick person eat or drink such stuff? As I write now it seems to me it is enough to cause a strong man to die of slow starvation, and yet it is the ordinary average diet put before working men all over the Queensland bush twenty-one times a week. ”

“ In this country, with its many sources of supply, eggs, milk, cheese, butter, fresh fruit, and vegetables should be available in sufficient abundance and at low-enough prices to displace to a greater extent the meat that is such a prominent article of diet in many households.
The value of rest, both physical and mental, for children is not adequately recognized. ”

“ The peasants of Switzerland and of Scotland, nourished on bread, milk, and cheese, attain a very old age, and enjoy great bodily strength.
"Where there is too much excitement of the body, generally, from fullness of the blood-vessels, or of any one of the organs, owing to a wrong direction of the blood to it (and in one or the other of these conditions we find almost every body now-a-days) , animal food, by being long retained in the stomach, and calling into greater action other parts during digestion, as well as furnishing them with more blood afterward, must be obviously improper. ”

“ In Germany it is the lack of fat that is the cause, perhaps, of the most discomfort and makes the German most dissatisfied with his rations. Even when the diet was sufficient, it was not satisfactory if low in fat.
This dependence on fat in the diet is due to several reasons, both physiological and psychological. Some people, the Japanese for example, habitually eat but little. But it is the habit of both Europeans and Americans to use considerable fat both on the table and in cooking. The taste of food is not so pleasing without it. ”

“ A Turk may breakfast for thirty years on figs and roasted chestnuts, and yet be quite as comfortable in Switzerland, where they treat him to milk and bread. Not so the dram-drinker: his "thirst" can not be assuaged with water or milk, his enslaved appetite craves the wonted tipple—or else a stronger stimulant. Natural food has no effect on the poison-hunger; Nature has nothing to do with such appetites. ”