, many other
things! Mother Nature has given us all these good things, that we may
have not only enough to eat but plenty of different kinds. We soon
grow tired of one kind, and that is how she tells us that we need many
kinds.

When I was little, oranges were not so common as they are now; and I
never but once had as many as I wanted. That once, my father told me
to eat all I liked, and I did; but for weeks afterwards I didn't want
even to see an orange! Did you ever feel that way too, though perhaps
not about oranges? Nature sometimes has to teach us not to eat too
much of one kind at a time.

Some people like one thing, and some another. Do all of you like
onions? I think not; but those who do, like them very much. The same
thing is true of tomatoes and sweet potatoes and red raspberries and
oysters and many other things. But there are some things that almost
everybody likes; and our grandfathers and great-grandfathers and
great-great-grandfathers ate them. One of them is called the "staff of
life" because we lean, or depend, on it so much; we have it for
breakfast, dinner, and supper. That is bread, of course. Meat and eggs
and milk and butter, too, are among the foods that we all like.

These might be called our "main foods," and we should eat one or two
or even three of them at each meal. Meat and milk and eggs and butter,
animals give us. But these are not enough; we need besides some of the
foods that plants give us, because, as I have told you, we need
different kinds of food at one time to keep the body fires going
briskly.

What are some of the foods that plants give us? Bread is made from a
plant--from wheat. Oatmeal comes from the oat plant; and hominy, from
corn. Some of our plant foods, such as potatoes, turnips, onions,
sweet potatoes, parsnips, and radishes, grow under ground. Some, such
as peas and beans, grow on vines. Then there are lettuce and cabbage
and celery. And there are fruits--cherries, apples, peaches, plums,
pears, melons, tomatoes, berries.

Nature has given us all these foods, and many more; and she wants us
to use them all. She wants us to use, every day and every meal, some
foods that come from plants and some that come from animals.

A good dinner would be a slice of roast beef or mutton, a potato, a
helping of some sort of vegetable like peas or beans or onions or
tomatoes or celery; and a dish of milk pudding or apple dumpling, or
stewed fruit with bread and butter, or pie t