healthful

healthful, healthy, wholesome, salubrious, salutary, hygienic, sanitary are comparable when they mean conducive or beneficial to the health or soundness of body or mind.

Healthful is more common than healthy as the term carrying this sense (see also HEALTHY 2), but the two are often interchangeable

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a healthful climate

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one of the healthiest climates in England— Bennett

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healthful recreation

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the French boy gets healthy recreation— Grandgent

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sound sleep is healthful

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all mothers wish their children to sleep, because it is . . . healthy— Russell

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the second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding— Bacon

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Wholesome (see also HEALTHY 2) is a more homely word than healthful that is typically perfectly interchangeable with the latter

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provide wholesome, well- balanced meals

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books that are wholesome reading

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mathematics ... is a wholesome discipline because it requires a high degree of concentration and because it shows so inexorably the difference between right and wrong— Grandgent

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but wholesome is the one of these words that may also be used in a much weakened sense to mean not detrimental to health or well-being

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some sausages may contain wholesome filler as well as meat and seasonings

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Reexamining our idea of a wholesome food, particularly from the point of view of its freedom from chemical additives which may be harmful to the consumer— JAMA

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Salubrious applies chiefly to climate or to air that is pleasantly invigorating yet devoid of harshness or extremes

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the salubrious mountain air and water—C. B. Davisy

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Salutary implies a tonic, corrective, or similarly beneficial effectiveness; often it is applied to something that is in itself unpleasant

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salutary advice

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idle ladies and gentlemen are treated with salutary contempt— Shaw

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the use of force in education should be very rare. But for the conquest of fear it is, I think, sometimes salutary— Russell

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Hygienic suggests reference to the means and the rules of promoting physical or mental health, especially of the public. The term therefore commonly implies use of approved means or obedience to approved rules because they are conducive to health

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instruct children in the hygienic care of mouth and teeth

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stuffy schoolrooms are not hygienic

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provision is made ... for safe and hygienic working conditions— Amer. Guide Series: Mich.

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Sanitary implies reference to measures taken or that can be taken to guard against infections or conditions that promote disease. The term therefore usually implies the promotion of health, especially public health, through interference with causes that bring about disease or epidemics

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sanitary plumbing

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sanitary regulations

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the sanitary care of foods

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drainage of swamps and similar sanitary measures

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Sanitary is sometimes used in place of healthful but with a stronger emphasis upon effectiveness

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solitary communion with nature does not seem to have been sanitary or sweetening in its influence on Thoreau's character— J. R. Lowell

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Analogous words: *beneficial, advantageous, profitable: remedying or remedial, correcting or corrective (see corresponding verbs at CORRECT): helping or helpful, aiding (see corresponding verbs at HELP)

Contrasted words: deleterious, detrimental, noxious, *pernicious