This section is from the "Maintaining Health" book, by Rasmus Larssen Alsaker. Also available from Amazon: Maintaining Health Formerly Health and Efficiency
As a general rule, the starchy foods should be eaten but once a day, but those who are very moderate may take them twice a day without bad results. Vegetarians have eggs and milk to take the place of flesh foods. They also have lentils, peas, beans and the protein in the whole wheat and other cereals. Lentils, peas and beans must be taken in moderation, for they are rich in nutriment and if too much is eaten they soon cause disease. Nuts, if well masticated, are also all right.
The general basis of feeding should be starch once a day and protein once a day in moderation. All kinds of starch and all kinds of protein may be used. Fruits more moderately than during the earlier years of life is best. All the succulent vegetables that are desired may be partaken of. By cooking the foods simply, as recommended in this book, they are rendered easier to digest than under the conventional manner of cooking. Simple cooking will help to preserve health and prolong life.
Work is one of the greatest blessings of life. Those who would live long and be useful must exercise both body and mind. Like all other blessings, if it is carried to excess it is injurious. It is unfortunate that some people must work too hard because there is a class of people who do nothing useful, being content to be wasters.
Work has been looked upon as a curse. This is a mistake. Those who live in the hope and expectation that they may some day cease working in order to enjoy life, will find when they reach the goal that life without work is not worth while. Those who can afford it can with benefit lessen the amount of productive work they do and evolve more into cultural lines, but it is dangerous to cease working. The human being is so constituted that without activity of body and mind there is degeneration. What is sadder than to see a capable individual who has won a competence and then has retired to enjoy it! He does not enjoy it. Either he has to get into some line of work, physical or mental, or he soon dies. We must have a lively interest in something or there is stagnation.
There are many beautiful things in life, and we should cultivate them while we are young enough to be able to learn to enjoy them. The loftiest spirits of the ages have left their inspirations and their aspirations with us in poetry, prose, music, painting, statuary and in other forms. We should try to cultivate understanding of these subjects, not necessarily all of them, but of one or more, for with understanding come the elevation and broadening of mind that are always present when there is sympathy, and sympathy is closely related to understanding. Culture along one or more lines broadens the mind and makes a person more worth while not only to himself, but to others. We can not estimate the value of the beauty in life in dollars and cents, but he is poor indeed who is rich in worldly goods alone.
It is necessary to be interested in the activities about us. Those who think of nothing or no one except themselves are almost dead to the world, even though they go through the same physical activities as other people. The tendency is to get into a rut with advancing years and remain there. It is easy to keep both a pliable mind and a pliable body in spite of age, and this can be done by intelligent use. A short time daily should be spent in becoming informed of what is happening throughout the world and thinking it over. A mental hobby is most excellent. A garden or a few birds can furnish an almost inexhaustible source of interest. Those who doubt this should read of the comedy and tragedy among such humble beings as the spider, the fly and the beetle. J. H. Fabre has written charmingly about these, investing them with an interest rarely to be found in good fiction. This naturalist is a good example of what can be accomplished when one has years to do it in and is content to labor along from day to day without giving too much thought for the morrow. At fifty Mr. Fabre was practically unknown. Now, at about ninety, he is one of the most admired and best loved of men. His recognition came late and he has done much of his best work during his later years. If Mr. Fabre had died at the average age of forty, the world would have been deprived of his beautiful insight.
Another cause of old age is getting mentally old. An individual begins to grow old by dwelling on the subject. The girl of thirteen must cease romping and racing about because it is not lady-like. At twenty-five it is very, very undignified to run a little. At forty a woman must be rather sedate, for being natural would mean frivolity. People are continually growing too old to do this and that, not because they have lost the desire and the ability, but because it is unbecoming at their age. This is folly. Keep a young heart all through life. A heartfelt laugh is one of nature's best tonics. There is no more harm in dancing at fifty than at fifteen and not so much danger.
The relaxation of muscles and sagging of the face are as much the result of mental attitude as of loss of tonicity. Thinking young and associating with children are helpful and healthful. People who are very stiff and dignified are mentally sterile. The charming people are the ones who are willing and able to understand and sympathize with the aims and aspirations of others, and in order to do so it is necessary to thaw out.
The art of life is delightful if properly developed.
Worry is such a detriment that its victims can neither live nor work as they should. It is necessary to overcome this bad habit. Most of the worry is due to narrow selfishness. Much of it is caused by the fact that others will not do as we do. To try to make others accept our standards and then worry and fret because they will not is folly. When force is employed to convert anyone the conversion is but superficial and lasts only so long as the converted individual's hypocrisy holds out. To get the best out of life we have to be broad, forbearing, patient and forgiving.
A normal old age is beautiful. It is the privilege, nay more, the duty of every intelligent being to attain it. When we adjust ourselves we shall live longer.
It is with old age as it is with health. We can have it if we wish it. Accidents alone can deprive us of either. Let us hope that the day will come when men and women will not be satisfied to die as life is but beginning, but that they will live as they should and could live, thus proving a blessing to the race.
 
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