FOODS AND THEIR MEDICINAL USES

Almond

Almond soup is an excellent substitute for beef-tea for convalescents. It is made by simply blanching and pounding a quarter of a pound of sweet almonds with half a pint of milk, or vegetable stock. Another pint of milk or stock is then to be added and the whole warmed. After this add another pint and a half of stock if the soup is to be a vegetable one, or rice water if milk has been used.
An emulsion of almonds is useful in chest affections. It is made by well macerating the nuts in a nut butter machine, and mixing with orange or lemon juice.
Almonds should always be blanched, that is, skinned by pouring boiling water on the nuts and allowing them to soak for one minute, after which the skins are easily removed. The latter possess irritating properties. 

Bitter almonds should not be used as a food. They contain a poison identical with prussic acid.

Apple

It is hardly possible to take up any newspaper or magazine now a days without happening on advertisements of patent medicines whose chief recommendation is that they "contain phosphorus." They are generally very expensive, but the reader is assured that they are worth ten times the price asked on account of their
wonderful properties as nerve and brain foods. The proprietors of these concoctions seemingly flourish like green bay trees and spend many thousands of pounds per annum in advertising. From which it may be deduced that sufferers from nervous exhaustion and brain fag number millions. And surely only a sufferer from brain fag would suffer himself to be led blindly into wasting his money, and still further injuring his health, by buying and swallowing drugs about whose properties and effects he knows absolutely nothing. How much simpler, cheaper, and more enjoyable to eat apples!

The apple contains a larger percentage of phosphorus than any other fruit or vegetable. For this reason it is an invaluable nerve and brain food. Sufferers from nerve and brain exhaustion should eat at least two apples at the beginning of each meal. At the same time they should avoid tea and coffee, and supply their place with barley water or bran tea flavoured with lemon juice, or even apple tea.
Apples are also invaluable to sufferers from the stone or calculus. It has been observed that in cider countries where the natural unsweetened cider is the common beverage, cases of stone are practically unknown. Food-reformers do not deduce from this that the drinking of cider is to be recommended, but that even better results may be obtained from eating the fresh, ripe fruit.



Apples periodically appear upon the tables of carnivorous feeders in the form of apple sauce. This accompanies bilious dishes like roast pork and roast goose. The cook who set this fashion was evidently acquainted with the action of the fruit upon the liver. All sufferers from sluggish livers should eat apples.
Apples will afford much relief to sufferers from gout. The malic acid contained in them neutralises the chalky matter which causes the gouty patient's sufferings.
Apples, when eaten ripe and without the addition of sugar, diminish acidity in the stomach. Certain vegetable salts are converted into alkaline carbonates, and thus correct the acidity.
An old remedy for weak or inflamed eyes is an apple poultice. I am told that in Lancashire they use rotten apples for this purpose, but personally I should prefer them sound.

A good remedy for a sore or relaxed throat is to take a raw ripe apple and scrape it to a fine pulp with a silver teaspoon. Eat this pulp by the spoonful, very slowly, holding it against the back of the throat as long as possible before swallowing.

A diet consisting chiefly of apples has been found an excellent cure for inebriety. Health and strength may be fully maintained upon fine wholemeal unleavened bread, pure dairy or nut butter, and apples.
Apple water or apple tea is an excellent drink for fever patients.
Apples possess tonic properties and provoke appetite for food. Hence the old-fashioned custom of eating an apple before dinner.

Apple Tea

The following are two good recipes for apple tea:—(1) Take 2 sound apples, wash, but do not peel, and cut into thin slices. Add some strips of lemon rind. Pour on 1 pint of boiling water (distilled). Strain when cold. (2) Bake 2 apples. Pour over them 1 pint boiling water. Strain when cold.

Asparagus

Asparagus is said to strengthen and develop the artistic faculties. It also calms palpitation of the heart. It is very helpful to rheumatic patients on account of its salts of potash. It should be steamed, not boiled, otherwise part of the valuable salts are lost.

Banana

The banana is invaluable in inflammation of all kinds. For this reason it is very useful in cases of typhoid fever, gastritis, peritonitis, etc., and may constitute the only food allowed for a time.
Not only does it actually subdue the inflammation of the intestines, but, in the opinion of at least one authority, as it consists of 95 per cent. nutriment, it does not possess sufficient waste matter to irritate the inflamed spots.

But great care should be taken in its administration. The banana should be thoroughly sound and ripe, and all the stringy portion carefully removed. It should then be mashed and beaten to a cream. In severe cases I think it is better to give this neat, but if not liked by the patient a little lemon juice, well mixed in, may render it more acceptable. It may also be taken with fresh cream.

A friend who has had a very wide experience in illness told me that she was once hurriedly sent for at night to a girl suffering from peritonitis. Not knowing what she might, or might not, find in the way of remedies when she arrived at her destination, my friend took with her some strong barley water, bananas, and an enema syringe. She found the girl lying across the bed screaming, obviously in agony. First of all my friend administered a warm water enema. A pint of plain warm water was injected first, and after this had come away as much warm water as could be got in was injected and then allowed to come away.

 The object of this was to thoroughly wash out the bowels. Then the barley water was warmed, the bananas mashed, beaten to cream, and mixed in with the barley water. A soothing nutrient lotion was thus prepared, and as much as the patient could bear comfortably was injected in the bowel and retained as long as possible. The effect was magical. The pain subsided, and the patient ultimately recovered.

In the absence of perfectly ripe bananas, baked bananas may be used. But, although better than no fruit at all, cooked fruit is never so valuable as the fresh fruit, if only the latter be perfectly ripe. Bananas should be baked in their skins, and the stringy pieces carefully removed before eating. From twenty minutes to half an hour's slow cooking is required.

Bananas are excellent food for anæmic persons on account of the iron they contain. A very palatable way of taking them is with fresh orange juice.
A comparatively old-fashioned remedy, for sprained or bruised places that show a tendency to become inflamed is to apply a plaster of banana skin.