A few fruit salads to serve as examples are: Apples, grapes and lettuce; peaches, strawberries and celery; bananas, pineapples and nuts; strawberries, tomatoes and lettuce. Combine to suit taste and dress likewise, but avoid large quantities of cream and sugar, not only on your salads, but on all fruits. No acid should be necessary, but if it is desired, use lemon juice or incorporate oranges as a part of the salad. CHAPTER XVII. OILS AND FATS. Oils and fats are the most concentrated foods we have. Weight for weight, they contain more than twice as much fuel or energy value as any other food. Taken in moderation they are easily digested, but if taken in excess they become a burden to the system. About 7 or 8 per cent of the weight of a normal body is fat, and this fat is formed chiefly from the fatty foods taken into the system, supplemented by the sugar and starch. When the body becomes very fat, it is a disease, called obesity. Fat people are never healthy. The fat usurps the place that should be occupied by normal tissues and organs. It crowds the heart and the lungs, and even replaces the muscle cells in the heart. The result is that the heart and lungs are overcrowded and overworked and the blood gets insufficient oxygen. Not only the lungs pant for breath after a little exercise, but the entire body. Much fat is as destructive of health as it is of beauty. Those who find themselves growing corpulent should decrease their intake of concentrated foods and increase their physical activity. Our chief sources of fat supply are cream and butter, vegetable oils, nuts and the flesh of animals. Most meats, especially when mature, contain considerable fat. When the fat is mixed in with the meat, it is more difficult to digest than the lean flesh. Fresh fish, most of which contains very little fat, is digested very easily, while the fattest of all flesh, pork, is tedious of digestion. There is an instinctive craving for fat with foods that contain little or none of it. That is why we use butter with cereals and lean fish, and oil dressings on vegetables. In moderation this is all right. Fats are not very rich in salts, which must be supplied by other foods. Because of their great fuel value, more fats are naturally consumed in cold than in hot climates. The Esquimeaux thrive when a large part of their rations is fat. Such a diet would soon nauseate people in milder climes. Fats and oils are used too much in cooking. Fried foods and those cooked in oil are made indigestible. Sometimes we read directions not to use animal fats, but to use olive oil or cotton seed oil for frying. It is poor cooking, no matter whether the grease is of animal or vegetable origin.