YOUR HEALTH: HERE'S HOW!
Stafford, Jane
YOUR HEALTH: Here's How! By JANE STAFFORD IN these last few days before school opens, parents who have not already done so should make haste to have the children's health checked by the family...
...By JANE STAFFORD IN these last few days before school opens, parents who have not already done so should make haste to have the children's health checked by the family doctor, or to finish carrying out his earlier advice for correction of health defects...
...Cooking peas with the lid on is advised...
...Other health and medical authorities will agree...
...The ban itself resulted from the fact that the pinch of soda most cooks used was large enough to cause considerable loss of vitamins B and C while the vegetables cooked...
...If the children have not yet been immunized against diptheria and whooping cough and vaccinated against smallpox, these protective measures should be started without delay...
...The Department has not made similar tests with other vegetables, but the Utah Experiment Station made earlier tests of frozen lima beans, cooked with and without small quantities^ of soda...
...The children may have had these immunizations during their first year of life...
...Besides this, too much soda may give an unpleasant flavor and make the vegetables mushy...
...The doctor will probably weigh the child and measure his height...
...They found that the soda caused no loss of vitamin C, shortened the cooking time 15 to 17 minutes, and helped preserve the natural color of the beans...
...Eyesight and hearing, of course, will be checked to make sure the child is not being handicapped at school by inability to see the blackboard or lesson books or to hear the teacher clearly...
...Comparisons of weight and height between one child and another of the same age do not mean as much, because children, like grownups, vary in build...
...A miserly pinch at the tip of the spoon" is the way U. S. Department of Agriculture home economists describe it...
...The easing of the long-familiar ban on the use of baking soda in cooking green vegetables comes as a result of recent research on vegetable cookery at the U. S. Department of Agriculture and the Utah State Experiment Station...
...More specifically, they okay about one-sixteenth of a teaspoon of soda for a pound and a half of peas...
...Miserly Pinch Of Soda In Vegetables That pinch of baking soda many cooks like to put with green vegetables to keep the green color during cooking is all right if the pinch is a very tiny one...
...Salt may be added at the start or end of cooking...
...it makes little difference in food value, though salting at the start helps to get the seasoning through the peas...
...Vegetables cook faster covered, with less vitamin loss...
...Whether or not soda is added, Department of Agriculture scientists recommend starting green peas in just enough briskly boiling water to cover them...
...In tests at the Department of Agriculture, peas, which ordinarily take from 10 to 20 minutes to cook, depending on their natural tenderness, cooked in 7 to 9 minutes when this minute quantity of soda was added...
...The doctor may think it wise, however, to repeat the smallpox vaccination and to give another Schick test to learn whether the child still has good protection against diphtheria...
...The tiny bit of baking soda now recommended speeds the softening of the fiber in the vegetable...
...This is particularly important for the child entering school for the first time, since he is the one most apt to catch any disease which another child in school may have...
...Every child should enter school in September with a clean bill of health, with no handicap to deter him in his studies or make him a health hazard to other children," the Indiana State Medical Society has declared...
...Many a child has been labelled stupid or disobedient when his trouble was an unsuspected case of poor eyesight or poor hearing...
...These will be checked against the child's own record of the previous year, to see whether he is growing and gaining as he should...
Vol. 9 • September 1945 • No. 36
