"The food is wonderful and it is a lot of fun to be here"!

So wrote a ten year old student in a letter to his parents from North Country School, Lake Placid, New York.
In this one sentence, he unwittingly revealed the basic philosophy of the nutrition and psychological programs in operation at the school.

Because the food is selected with thought for its nutritional value, care for its origin, and prepared in a manner that retains the most nutrients, the food does taste good.
When served in a psychological atmosphere that allows young bodies to assimilate the greatest good from what they eat because they are free from tension, a foundation is laid for a high level of health that releases the children from physical handicaps to participate with enjoyment in the work assignments, the athletic programs and the most important phase, the educational opportunities.

Situated in a region of some of the loveliest mountain scenery in the country, the school buildings are located amid open fields and farm lands.
These contemporary structures, beautifully adapted to a school in the country, are home to 60 children, ages eight to fourteen, grades four through eight.
From fourteen states and three foreign countries they come to spend the months from mid-September to June.

The Director, Walter E. Clark, believes that a school with children living full time in its care must take full responsibility for their welfare.
To him this means caring for the whole child, providing basic nutrition, and a spiritual attitude that lends freedom for the development of the mind.

Improved farming methods

The concept of good nutrition really began with the garden.
The school has always maintained a farm to supply the needs of the school.
In a climate hostile to agriculture, Mr. Clark has had to keep alert to the most productive farm techniques.

Where a growing season may, with luck, allow 60 days without frost, and where the soil is poor, sandy, quick-drying and subject to erosion, many farmers fail.
Throughout the Adirondack region abandoned farm homes and wild orchards bear ghostly testimony that their owners met defeat.

Mr. Clark found that orthodox procedures of deep plowing, use of chemical fertilizers and insecticides, plus the application of conservation principles of rotation and contouring, did not prevent sheet erosion in the potato fields and depreciation of the soil.

"To give up these notions required a revolution in thought", Mr. Clark said in reminiscing about the abrupt changes in ideas he experienced when he began reading "Organic Gardening" And "Modern Nutrition" in a search for help with his problems.

"Louis Bromfield's writings excited me as a conservationist".
By 1952 he was convinced he would no longer spray.
He locked his equipment in a cabinet where it still remains.
After reading "Plowman's Folly" by Edward H. Faulkner, he stopped plowing.

The basis for compost materials already existed on the school farm with a stable of animals for the riding program, poultry for eggs, pigs to eat garbage, a beef herd and wastes of all kinds.
Separate pails were kept in the kitchen for coffee grounds and egg shells.

All these materials and supplementary manure and other fertilizers from neighboring dairy and poultry farms made over 40 tons of finished compost a year.
It was applied with a compost shredder made from a converted manure spreader.

Years of patient application of compost and leaf mulching has changed the structure of the soil and its water-holding capacity.
Soon after the method changed, visitors began asking how he managed to irrigate his soil to keep it looking moist, when in reality, it was the soil treatment alone that accomplished this.

To demonstrate the soil of his vegetable gardens as it is today, Mr. Clark stooped to scoop up a handful of rich dark earth.
Sniffing its sweet smell and letting it fall to show its good crumbly consistency, he pointed to the nearby driveway and said, "This soil used to be like that hard packed road over there".

"People and soils respond slowly", says Walter Clark, "but the time has now come when the gardens produce delicious long-keeping vegetables due to this enrichment program.
No chemical fertilizers and poisonous insecticides and fungicides are used".

The garden supplies enough carrots, turnips, rutabagas, potatoes, beets, cabbage and squash to store for winter meals in the root cellar.
The carrots sometimes don't make it through the winter;
the cabbage and squash keep until March or April.
There is never enough corn, peas or strawberries.

Mr. Clark still has to use rotenone with potatoes grown on the least fertile fields, but he has watched the insect damage decrease steadily and hopes that continued use of compost and leaf mulch will allow him to do without it in the future.
A new project planned is the use of Bio-Dynamic Starter.

New ideas for improving nutrition came with the study of soil treatment.
"After the soil, the kitchen", says Mr. Clark.
The first major change was that of providing wholewheat bread instead of white bread.

"Adults take a long time to convince and you are thwarted if you try to push".
At first the kitchen help was tolerant, but ordered their own supply of white bread for themselves.
"You can't make French toast with whole-wheat bread", was an early complaint.
Of course they learned in time that they not only could use whole-wheat bread, but the children liked it better.

Homemade bread

Mrs. Clark, as house manager, planned the menus and cared for the ordering.
Then Miss Lillian Colman came from Vermont to be kitchen manager.
Today whole grains are freshly ground every day and baked into bread.
Mr. Clark's studies taught him that the only way to conserve the vitamins in the whole grain was prompt use of the flour.
Once the grains are ground, vitamin E begins to deteriorate immediately and half of it is lost by oxidation and exposure to the air within one week.

A mill stands in a room off the kitchen.
Surrounding it are metal cans of grains ordered from organic farms in the state.
Miss Colman pours measures of whole wheat, oats, and soy beans and turns on the motor.
She goes on about her work and listens for the completion of the grinding.
The bread baked from this mixture is light in color and fragrant in aroma.
It is well liked by the children and faculty.

There is one problem with the bread.
"Lillian's bread is so good and everything tastes so much better here that it is hard not to eat too much", said the secretary ruefully eyeing her extra pounds.

Hot, freshly-ground cereal

The school has not used cold prepared cereals for years, though at one time that was all they ever served.
When the chance came, they first eliminated cold cereal once a week, then gradually converted to hot fresh-ground cereal every day.

They serve cracked wheat, oats or cornmeal.
Occasionally, the children find steamed, whole-wheat grains for cereal which they call "buckshot".
At the beginning of the school year, the new students don't eat the cereal right away, but within a short time they are eating it voraciously.

When they leave for vacations they miss the hot cereal.
The school has received letters from parents asking, "What happened to Johnny?
He never used to like any hot cereal, now that's the only kind he wants.
Where can we get this cereal he likes so much"?

Body-building foods

Salads are served at least once a day.
Vegetables are served liberally.
Most come from the root cellar or from the freezer.
Home-made sauerkraut is served once a week.
Sprouted grains and seeds are used in salads and dishes such as chop suey.
Sometimes sprouted wheat is added to bread and causes the children to remark, "Lillian, did you put nuts in the bread today"?

Milk appears twice a day.
The school raises enough poultry, pigs, and beef cattle for most of their needs.
Lots of cheese made from June grass milk is served.
Hens are kept on the range and roosters are kept with them for their fertility.

Organ meats such as beef and chicken liver, tongue and heart are planned once a week.
Also, salt water fish is on the table once a week.

For deserts, puddings and pies are each served once a week.
Most other desserts are fruit in some form, fresh fruits once daily at least, sometimes at snack time.
Dried fruits are purchased from sources where they are neither sulphured nor sprayed.
Apples come from a farm in Vermont where they are not sprayed.
Oranges and grapefruit are shipped from Florida weekly from an organic farm.

Finding sources for these high quality foods is a problem.
Sometimes the solution comes in unexpected ways.
Following a talk by Mr. Clark at the New York State Natural Food Associates Convention, a man from the audience offered to ship his unsprayed apples to the school from Vermont.

Wheat-germ, brewer's yeast and ground kelp are used in bread and in dishes such as spaghetti sauce, meat loaves.
Miss Colman hopes to find suitable shakers so that kelp can be available at the tables.
Raw wheat-germ is available on the breakfast table for the children to help themselves.

Very few fried foods are used and the use of salt and pepper is discouraged.
Drinking with meals is also discouraged;
pitchers of water merely appear on the tables.

Nothing is peeled.
The source is known so there is no necessity to remove insecticide residues.
The cooking conserves a maximum of the vitamin C content of vegetables by methods which use very little water and cook in the shortest time possible.

Wholesome snacks, no candy

Since Mr. Clark believes firmly that the chewing of hard foods helps develop healthy gums and teeth, raw vegetables and raw whole-wheat grains are handed out with fresh fruit and whole-wheat cookies at snack time in the afternoons.
To solve the problem of the wheat grains spilling on the floor and getting underfoot, a ball of maple syrup boiled to candy consistency was invented to hold the grains.

On their frequent hikes into the nearby mountains, the children carry whole grains to munch along the trail.
They learn to like these so well that it isn't surprising to hear that one boy tried the oats he was feeding his horse at chore time.
They tasted good to him, so he brought some to breakfast to eat in his cereal bowl with milk and honey.

Maple syrup is made by the children in the woods on the school grounds.
This and raw sugar replace ordinary refined sugar on the tables and very little sugar is used in cooking.
Candy is not allowed.
Parents are asked in the bulletin to send packages of treats consisting of fruit and nuts, but no candy.

Nourishing meals
Mr. Clark believes in a good full breakfast of fruit, hot cereal, milk, honey, whole-wheat toast with real butter and eggs.
The heavy meal comes in the middle of the day.
Soup is often the important dish at supper.
Homemade of meat, bones and vegetables, it is rich in dissolved minerals and vitamins.

The school finds that the children are satisfied with smaller amounts of food since all of it is high in quality.
The cost to feed one person is just under one dollar a day.

Outdoor exercises

Even before he saw the necessity of growing better food and planning good nutrition, Mr. Clark felt the school had a good health program.
Rugged outdoor exercise for an hour and a half every day in all kinds of weather was the rule.
A vigorous program existed in skiing, skating sports and overnight hiking.

Healthier children

Since the change to better nutrition, he feels he can report on improvements in health, though he considers the following statements observations and not scientific proof.

Visitors to the school ask what shampoo they use on the children's hair to bring out the sheen.
The ruddy complexion of the faces also brings comment.