Have you ever been cold and hungry?

Well, I have.
Here's a post from a local newspaper a couple of months ago.

Op Walker Talks Oatmeal Medicine

By Dr. Opless Walker

Oats for breakfast…nothing at lunch…and oats for supper! Oats were cheap and they came with a dish inside the box.

For many families residing in Monterey in the 1940s, life was a day-to-day struggle. Being the youngest of twelve children reared in poverty, I remember days when the opening sentence above was a fact. Families ate what they could obtain and had very little money, if any, for the supplementation of their diets by purchasing from the grocery store. Many households had gardens supplying fresh vegetables in season, and preserving by canning was widely practiced.

Although I didn’t realize the advantages of being poor in my childhood, I have since learned that it was a blessing to have had little on which to dine. Thankfully, we couldn’t afford the processed foods available from the local grocery.
While viewed as ‘food,’ garden produce had hidden within “nature’s medicine” – powerful cures with little or no side effects!

Our understanding of the medicinal power of the vegetable garden began (scientifically speaking) in 1978 in Germany. Not until the year 1998 did the United States get serious about medicine from sources other than a chemistry laboratory. The first edition of the Physician Desk Reference for Herbal Medicine was published that year, and mainstream medicine could no longer ignore the value of nature’s cures.

Institutions highly respected, such as the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic and Harvard are publishing verifiable data on the value of the medicinal chemicals taken from the plant and herb kingdoms.

It is now possible to ascertain the advantages of growing up poor in Monterey in the 1940s:

Exercise: with no vehicle, we walked everywhere we went. With no television, we “played” outside all four seasons. Only lightning rain us indoors.

House with cracks and no insulation: with plenty of ventilation, indoor air pollution did not exists with the possible exception of the coal oil lamps, the coal stove in the “front’ room, and the woodstove in the kitchen. I have often said that the ‘only difference in the outside temperature and the indoor temperature was the wind chill factor.

Well water: water for drinking was safe with little or no ground pollution.

Garden Vegetables:

Cabbage: known as the poor man’s medicine, cabbage is one of the most powerful cancer fighters and preventatives known to man. Canned kraut was common in early Monterey, and is the most powerful anti-cancer form of cabbage. In addition, cabbage is beneficial for preventing and treating stomach ailments, rheumatism, arthritis, and cardiovascular disease.

Onions: Nature’s antibiotic. Controls asthma and blood sugar. Onions strengthen capillary walls, break up mucous in the lungs allowing for easier breathing. They are anti-cancer with yellow onions being the most medicinal of the common garden variety.

Cucumbers – Alkalizes the human body, thus preventing many diseases, especially diseases of the small and large colon. Excellent for healthy skin.

Tomatoes – Red tomatoes are the most medicinal. Lycopene is the ingredient that makes a tomato ‘red,’ and is the medicine component of the tomato. Lycopene prevents cancer, boosts the immune system, and helps maintain health hair and nails.

Remember the nuts gathered in the fall of the year and the cracking of the shells on an old iron shoe last? Walnuts are the healthiest of nuts, and provide high protein levels for muscle strength and endurance as well as providing for brain power and cardiovascular health.

And then there are the oats. Oats are known as a complete body overhaul, inside and out. They prevent and/or treat depression, provide for skin health, decrease wound healing time and establish a healthy gastrointestinal tract. Oats are anti-stress and low in calories.

The two major causes of disease and death are:

1) too many calories and

2) too much stress in one’s life

Now we have scientific proof that growing up poor was a blessing. What wonderful memories! We had our medicine with each meal, be it ever lacking in other ways.

PS Opless is a doctor of pharmacology at the local hospital. He is also an amateur historian, and the brother of the late Oscar Walker