Living The Good Life With Helen And Scott Nearing

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By these various methods of storage we provided a year-round supply of fresh food. To be sure, during the depths of the Vermont winter it was not garden fresh, but—supplemented by greens from our sun-heated greenhouse-it gave us a satisfying and dependable supply of whole unprocessed foods. In most parts of the United States weather conditions are less severe than they are in the Green Mountains, consequently such procedures could be made even more effective.

Another source of winter greens, and a very important one, should be mentioned in passing: sprouted seeds. Asians have used sprouted mung beans successfully. Poultry growers sprout oats for their flocks. We sprouted mung beans, soybeans, peas, and wheat successfully. The sprouts may be eaten in salads, thrown raw into soups, Chinese fashion, or prepared in any other desired way for the table.

We dried aromatic herbs from our garden-basil, sage, thyme, summer savory, marjoram, parsley, and celery leaves-all of which go well with winter salads and soups. Chamomile, peppermint, spearmint, raspberry, and strawberry leaves we dried for tea. We hung the sprays in small bundles over our kitchen stove and when dead dry, crumbled the leaves and stored them away in jars

We aimed to keep our diet at fifty percent fruit, thiry-five percent vegetables, ten percent protein and starch, and five percent fat. The kind of fruits varied with the season. Its proportion of the total diet remained substantially the same. Of the vegetables we tried to have one-third green and leafy, one-third yellow, and onethird juicy. This ensured us a rounded quota of essential nutritives. In the summer, fruits and succulent vegetables were at least three-quarters of our dietary ... in winter perhaps a third to a half.

Our protein came from nuts, beans, olives, and the proteins contained in vegetables and in cereal grains and seeds. We believe that a far smaller amount of protein is necessary and healthful than usually advocated. The craving for concentrated protein foods is an acquired and a dangerous habit, in that it overenergizes the human organism and overloads the system with acid-forming elements.

Our fats were derived from vegetable oils ... olive, soy, corn, peanut, or sunflower. We have a high opinion of the efficacy of olive oil. Avocado pears are also an important source of vegetable fat for people living on the vegetarian diet.

Apply to vegetables and fruit the principles of wholeness, rawness, garden freshness, and one or few things at a meal, and you have the theory of our simple diet. In practice, the theory gave us a formulated regime: fruit for breakfast; soup and cereal for lunch; salad and vegetables for supper.

This fruit breakfast did not include the usual small glass of orange juice, a spoonful or two of berries or prunes or a dab of applesauce in a bowl with cornflakes or puffed wheat followed by toast and coffee.

Our breakfast was fruit. Fruit alone and plenty of it. It might be strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, or blueberry season; we picked the berries in the woods or garden and ate them, perhaps half a quart to a person. Melons and peaches were eaten when in season. Bananas, raisins, oranges, and dates were bought in the periods our local fruit gave out. Apples were the perennial staple as we had plenty of them on the place and they kept well all winter. Apples are a fine food, highly alkaline and extremely rich in iron and other important minerals. We often had a one-day exclusive apple diet to revivify and cleanse the system.

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