Tomato

The tomato stimulates peristalsis and is a wonderful tonic for the liver. It is one of the most perfect fruits, rich in oxalic acid and iron, and unsurpassed as a medicinal food. It contains a vegetable calomel and serves as a purifier for the liver in bilious conditions. It can be prepared and combined in many different ways. It may be one of the first articles given to a patient after an operation, serving as a food and tonic; it counteracts the sweetish taste of the chloroform and prevents fatty degeneration of the liver.

Whether a food is eaten raw or cooked it is important that it be ripe. (Not ripened on the market.) For people with weak digestive organs, the best way to serve tomatoes is in the form of sterilized strained juice over toast in combination with 'milk or in the form of soup from canned strained tomatoes. The theory that tomatoes are liable to produce cancer is entirely unfounded. Any kind of food if eaten in excess and wrongly combined will aid in the progress of disease, but.all natural foods rightly combined are wholesome if eaten according to needs of the individual.

Tomatoes combine well with fatty foods, - eggs, cheese, meats and fish.

Lettuce

This is the most desirable greens on our tables and combines well with almost any kind of food. Being rich in minerals and alkaloidal extracts, it tends to render the digestive fluids alkaline and promotes oxidation and nutrition. If lettuce is eaten in proper proportion with other foods at the morning or noon meal, it has a sedative effect and keeps an excitable constitution, better balanced throughout the day. People with delicate stomachs should not eat lettuce at the evening meal. All raw salads prepared from greens and super-acid fruits are best eaten at the beginning of the meal, or with the meat dish at the morning or noon meal.

Cucumbers

They are a valuable food and should be eaten almost daily by growing children and anemic people, especially if much muscular work is required. The cucumber is considered an indigestible article of food by people with perverted appetites. The way in which the cucumber is usually prepared in the average household renders it unfit to eat. The extraction of the natural juice and the treatment with salt make the cucumber tough and indigestible, and, if eaten in combination with half a dozen other articles, it produces indigestion. Cucumbers should never be eaten at night.

Nuts

Nuts are high in nutritive value, and are better evenly combined with non-protein elements than flesh foods are. They are rich in fat and minerals, and form an ideal diet in combination with raw fruits and greens. They are not sufficiently appreciated as a food, and receive much unjust criticism as to their digestibility. All nuts are wholesome. The right combination and proportion, and the time of day when eaten, are of great importance. The kind of activity as well as individual peculiarities have much to do with likes and dislikes or requirements of certain foods.