CHAP. IV.
Of the foods persons in years should avoid.
Every thing that is heavy, and hard of digestion, must be avoided. Tho’ vegetables may be thought innocent; too much of them will in some cases prove hurtful: and there are certain kinds that should be let alone entirely.
Carrots are to be avoided, no weak stomach can digest them: turnips are innocent; and parsnips are nourishing.
Salads should be shunned: cabbage, and all its kinds, breed wind; but asparagus is diuretic; and is excellent against that common old man’s complaint, the gravel.
Bad cheese should be avoided; and there is nothing worse than eating too much butter: but very fine Cheshire cheese; or the Parmezan in a small quantity after other food, are not amiss.
All sharp-tasted things, whether in food or drink, are carefully to be shunned. They cannot be neutral upon the stomach; and they are much more likely to do harm than good.
Fruits of a due ripeness, are innocent; and much more good than this may be said of them: unripe, they hurt the stomach, and often bring on dangerous cholics.
Cucumbers weaken the digestion; and greatly prevent the natural and necessary secretions.
The pine-apple, the most pleasant of all fruits, is one of the most dangerous: its sharpness fleas the mouth; and we know what effect such a thing must have upon the stomach and bowels, when weakened by age. I have known it bring on bloody fluxes, which have been fatal. There are several kinds of this fruit; somewhat differing in quality; and a perfect degree of ripeness, in a great measure, takes off its worst effects: but these are nice distinctions: he who is wise will judge as he does of mushrooms: where many are dangerous; avoid all.
Beside rejecting things which are hurtful in themselves, those who are advanced in years would be upon their guard against all such as they are not accustomed to.
Particular constitutions will shew unforeseen aversions to peculiar medicines; and it is the same in foods. Let him who knows what agrees with him stick to it. Change is always wrong; and it may be hazardous: and ’tis idle to run into the way of danger, where there is no advantage.
All mixtures of food upon the stomach are bad: and there is not a greater error in an old person than to eat of many dishes at one meal. He must not deceive himself by arguing that they all are innocent: for two things of known qualities will often, on mixing, produce a third that is perfectly different from them both: and these are dangerous trials in an aged person’s stomach.
Right management in these articles is nearly as important as a right choice. A regularity of eating is the next care to the selecting proper food; and fixing on a right quantity.