A severely cold climate requires a different kind of food from that needed in an extremely hot climate or in hot weather. People who live in a cold climate usually take to heat-producing foods which are fatty, sometimes to sweet foods. It is true to a degree that people build better than they know when they eat according to habits that have been formed by generation after generation. With the modern scientific knowledge of food and nutrition, people in cold climates can eat correctly and people in hot climates can also eat what is best for them.
Cold weather or a cold climate requires easily digestible energy-producing breakfasts, noon meals and suppers. A dish of freshly cooked apples or pears is a better breakfast for most people than hot cooked cereal. No one needs the fried pancakes or meats for breakfast that some people in the United States and Canada consume.
Those people who know anything about food eat no breakfast. Very religious Catholics or Jews go without breakfast until they attend morning religious services. It is really not necessary for adults to eat any breakfast other than freshly made fruit juice or fruit. There would be fewer people with liver disease or stomach disease if no breakfast were taken other than fresh raw fruit.
Noon meals for cold climates may consist of some hearty hot dish, such as a vegetable soup or stew, properly steamed rice or some other starchy food, or a protein dish. (See the chapter on health menus and recipes for luncheon meals.) A simple rule for an adequate luncheon in cold weather is to have one raw dish and one hot cooked dish.
Evening meals should also be devised to include about equal quantities of fresh raw food and properly steamed or cooked foods.
Hot weather and hot climates require cooling foods. Anyone who must live in hot climates will enjoy better health by living mainly on raw fruits and vegetables. Every country has its own natural and wholesome foods on which its people thrive; all that is required is a knowledge of what to eat and how to prepare it. This book can be applied by people who live in every part of the world.
Certainly, in hot weather and in hot climates, fatty foods should be left alone. Cakes made with sugar should be left alone. Meats are absolutely not needed. In summertime or in hot climates, even nuts are objectionable because they become infested by worms, etc.
Sweet fruits such as dates, figs and raisins are not good in summertime. When these foods must be used, they should be taken for an evening meal, when tropical countries cool down. The cooling fruits and melons, especially those that are protected by a tough exterior, such as oranges, grapefruit, pineapples and melons, are usually safe. When fruits or melons are contaminated or diseased they do not have to be examined with a microscope. They look “sick” when they are unwholesome.
Some people who live in tropical climates do not get sick of parasitic diseases while others do. The latter must acquire such diseases by eating contaminated foods of an animal substance.
Intelligent consumption of food and adjustment to climate and weather will make each community healthier, happier, free from disease.