During the last week of my recent stay in Buenos Aires, I was a guest at a formal dinner party in one of the old Argen­tine mansions. My host was the elder brother of my estanciero friend who raised thoroughbred horses, and on whose estancia I had met those marvelous old Gauchos saluted in an earlier chapter.

The guests at this dinner party were a cosmopolitan group made up of an English couple, several Argentineans, a Brazilian scientist and his wife, a Uruguayan diplomat, a visiting Italian general and a French count and countess.

The evening hadn't progressed very far when I noticed the French countess, an extremely attractive woman, speak­ing earnestly with our host who singled me out with his glance, then nodded, apparently in answer to some question of hers concerning me. Immediately the countess came over to me.

"Monsieur Kordel," she said, "how old would you think me?"

I was taken aback by this abrupt question. It's not good policy to play at age-guessing games with the ladies, no matter how charming and youthful they may be. A guess of a year or two too many, and one really has blundered!

"My dear Countess," I hedged, "you are so attractive that one does not think of you in terms of years." There I was proud of myself for that truthful evasion.

"But truly, monsieur," she insisted, "I have a reason for asking. Your honest guess. No flattery, please!"

"Very well." I looked closely at her clear, fresh skin, her sparkling gray eyes, and her lustrous dark brown hair. She could have been anywhere between thirty and a youthful forty. Her figure was well-rounded without being lumpy, and her carriage was remarkably graceful. So I waded in with my best guess.

"Thirty-three, perhaps. And surely not more than thirty-five."

She gave me a searching look. "Yes, I believe you are being honest. Well, monsieur, last month I celebrated—yes, that is the right word, celebrated—my fifty-third birthday! I have a son as old as you guessed me!'*

Apart from my relief at not having over-guessed her age, I was totally unprepared for the truth. It was incredible that this attractive woman, whose appearance of youth very plainly did not depend upon make-up or hair dye, could have passed the half-century mark.

"My congratulations, Countess," I managed to say. "You have been born with a talent for staying young. How your friends must envy you!"

At this her eyes danced and she called to her husband, "One moment, Georges." The count left his conversation group and joined us. "Show, please, to Monsieur Kordel the photograph."

Smiling indulgently at her, the count extracted from his wallet a small, worn photograph and passed it to me. It was a picture of a woman, quite evidently a relative of the countess, for the features showed a marked resemblance to hers. Yet this was a much older woman, perhaps an elder sister or an aunt. Written across the lower corner were the words, "Heloise, Paris, 1945."

I glanced up at the countess. She was smiling at me.

"That, Monsieur Kordel," she said, "was my face five years ago. Before Georges and I left France to come live in this so wonderful country."

"It's hard to believe," I said. "This woman looks a good fifty-five, if not more."

"And so I did!" she agreed.

Quite apparently there was an exciting story behind the incredible rejuvenation of a woman who had looked every one o£ her middle-aged years into an attractive creature who could have passed for her own much younger sister.

I glanced closely at her face. It bore none o£ the telltale traces ordinarily left by a face-lifting operation. Still, every­one knows how clever are the plastic surgeons who practice their art in Paris. Yet, even so, a mechanical rejuvenation of the facial muscles cannot possibly restore sparkle to dull eyes, or sheen to lifeless hair.

"I was about to guess plastic surgery/' I admitted frankly. "But there most certainly is more to your secret than a face ­lifting operation."

Her laugh was delightful, the laugh of a truly happy woman. The count joined in her laughter, then addressed me.

"The 'secret,' as you call it, monsieur," he said, "is one you also share." He glanced at the countess as though seeking her permission before continuing. She gave a quick nod of approval. "My wife has been a zealous follower of your teachings on nutrition since arriving in Buenos Aires in 1946. An American friend loaned her a copy of your book Health the Easy Way. And from that day it has become the book of rules for our kitchen. No dish on the menu unless Heloise is certain it has so many grams of protein, such-and-such minerals, so many vitamins. . ."

The countess broke in smiling. "I'm not quite the tyrant you say! But sincerely, Monsieur Kordel, when I read your book it came like a great revelation to me. Always in France we have eaten for the sheer pleasure of it, never thinking what harm all those rich foods did to our appearance. Or whether we were fully nourished. But now, with the so plenti­ful meat of this country and its delicious cheeses, fruits and vegetables, I have found a new plainer way of eating . . . And I have found the youth I lost many years ago in France." She turned toward her husband. "You, too, Georges, how much younger you look than when we left France. Only you, vain one, were too wise to have a photograph made then!"

If only I could bring this young middle-aged woman as "Exhibit A" into the beauty salons where women spend fortunes each year to be massaged, creamed and dyed back to a semblance of their former youthful attractiveness—and all the while they are eating or dieting (even smoking to stifle their normal appetite) themselves into a prematurely aged appearance that even the most expensive beauty treat­ments can never conceal.

Firm muscles, smooth complexions, bright eyes and thick hair are the health-right of every man and woman—not of those alone who can afford to cater to expensive beauty salons, and so-called "muscle-developing" and "hair-restoring" es­tablishments.

All these outward attributes of a prolonged youth can be yours, if you start to work inwardly on attaining them. Muscle "developers," beauty creams, wrinkle eradicators and hair tonics are, at best, only stop-gap measures; they cannot feed the muscles, the skin, the hair.

You must reverse the abnormal chemical reactions in your body that produce flabby muscles, sallow and unduly wrinkled skins, dull eyes and grayed, thinning hair. But first you must understand why these unwelcome signs of a premature age begin to show up decades too soon in most persons. That is what I shall attempt to explain to you in the next few chap­ters, plus outlining for you the recommended diet regimen that can help you regain the vital attractiveness associated with youth. The same diet regimen, by the way, that was followed to the letter by a well-known author who happens to have been a health student of mine for several years.

This author, whose detective stories have entertained thousands of persons on two continents with their clever, resourceful heroes and courageous heroines, found himself becoming old-looking much too soon for his peace of mind. As he phrases his dilemma: "I could save my fiction offspring from horrible deaths a dozen times a chapter, yet I wasn't able to prevent the steadily approaching death o£ my own youth. That set me to thinking." And after he had thought seriously about his problem, he came to the conclusion that he didn't know enough about his own body to solve the mystery o£ his vanishing youth. Whereupon he sought more knowledge, and became a regular attendant at my lectures whenever I appeared in his city. He says that all my previous books and pamphlets on nutrition have become his "text­books" on youth preservation.

"Not only do I look and feel a whole lot younger," he told me, "but I'm doing better writing these days with a lot less drain on my nervous energy. In the old days I was able to keep myself going at the typewriter only by drinking cups and cups of black coffee, and smoking one cigarette after another. Then, after the manuscript was finished and the let­down came, I was like a caged beast. My nerves went to pieces with a bang, and I wouldn't be any good for months."

He is now feeling and looking younger than he ever thought possible for his fifty-eight years.

The average person of middle age—and many younger people—exists on a diet woefully deficient on almost every nutritional count (proteins, minerals, vitamins), unless a conscious effort is made for planned diet. Small wonder, then, that good looks and charm are so rare past forty. And small wonder that this early loss of vitality and youthful appearance is particularly true of men, since they need even greater amounts of the B-vitamins (paramount factors in helping your youth stay on the job) than women. Yet how many men at this critical period in life make a conscious effort to guard against losing the sensations and appearances of youth in the only sure way—through a planned diet? Too few, I'm afraid. All too often the convert to a planned diet is the woman of the family, and her efforts to make friend husband realize the dietary facts behind his loss of energy and youthful appearance meet with indifference, if not open derision.

And yet men are as vain of their good looks and youthful attractions as are women. They may not admit that their ap­pearance matters as much to their happiness as it does to a woman. But I, as one of the "stronger sex," will admit it for them. We men do care—and how!—when the signs of age begin to sneak up on us. Otherwise, why all the hue and cry when a "sure cure" for baldness appears periodically in the headlines; or how else account for the perennial prosperity of the "health establishments" where paunchy business and professional men attempt to defeat a premature old age by enduring strenuous exercises, massages and steam baths that actually harm their undernourished hearts?

In the preceding chapters I have dwelt at length on the paramount need in every diet for plenty of protein—meat, fish, fowl, eggs, cheese, milk and seed cereals. But I have saved until now the full story of the youth-bestowing B-vitamins because they enter so frequently into any mention of "diet and good looks."

Up to the date of this writing, vitamin B-complex is known t© be made up of thiamin (commonly referred to as B-i), riboflavin, niacin, biotin, pantothenic acid, choline, inositol, pyridoxine, para-aminobenzoic acid, folic acid and B-12, plus several other factors as yet not isolated or tagged specifically enough to mention.

All these youth-preserving members of the B-complex family are found in varying degrees in meats, fish, fowl, eggs, milk, cheese, seed cereals (like millet, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds), green vegetables, legumes, whole grains, berries, melons and fresh fruits. Wheat germ (the raw product found mostly in health food stores, and not the toasted, malted variety found on grocery shelves) is another good source of the B-vitamins. Dried brewers' yeast, of course, is a rich source of concentrated B-complex, but many persons who need added B-vitamins in their diets find themselves unable to use brewers' yeast since it creates abdominal discomforts such as griping and flatulence. Some even object to its highly pronounced yeasty flavor. As I have mentioned before, millet and sunflower seeds are equally as rich sources of the B-vita-mins as brewers' yeast, and even more valuable in the diet because of the high-grade protein they furnish.

The full story on millet and dry skim milk is told in Chapters 10 and 11. But a generous mention of these two foods belongs in any advice on "diet and good looks," because both are unusually rich sources of riboflavin, the B-vitamin so everlastingly concerned with the health of your eyes, your skin, your hair. Any noticeable change for the worse in the appearance or health of these features should be an immediate warning that there's not enough riboflavin in the diet.

Here's what usually happens when your body is skimped on riboflavin: Your elbows may become red and wrinkled; the skin over your entire body may coarsen, with a quick tendency toward rashes and other forms of skin disorders. Your hair may grow dull and fall out readily. Unsightly fingernails—split, grooved or fissured—often disappear after the body receives enough riboflavin. If you suddenly develop an abnormally oily complexion, more than likely it's be­cause you need more riboflavin in your diet. Because ribo­flavin acts on the muscles and nerves of the eyes, a serious lack of this B-vitamin will bring on visual disorders, not the least of which is cataract.

I cannot stress too emphatically the importance of abun­dant riboflavin in the diet of every person past the age of forty. Symptoms of riboflavin deficiencies are so widespread among persons in this age group that obtaining enough of this B-vitamin is one of the major nutritional problems from middle age onward. From recent work being done in the nutritional laboratories, I believe that regular use in the diet of millet as well as daily use of powdered skim milk can easily solve the problem of too-little-riboflavin in an economi­cal and tasty way. It may well be we are continuing to em­phasize "brewers' yeast for the B-vitamins" when the emphasis should rightly be switched to delicious, easily digested, nonfattening foods like millet and powdered skim milk, especially for their high concentration of riboflavin.

Keeping in mind all the listed food sources of the important B-vitamins, let's go on in the following chapters to discover how this hard-working vitamin family affects your beauty and attractiveness at any age, but especially after you've blown out the candles on your fortieth birthday cake.

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