First Lessons in Food and Diet

From the Introduction - First Lessons in Food and Diet Each living thing has its food, without which it dies. This food may vary within certain limits; beyond them disease sets in, even if life continues. Every child who has kept chickens or rabbits knows how carefully and regularly they need to be fed. Every child who has grown house plants or cultivated a garden plot knows how necessary air, water, and soil are for their life and growth. It is only needful to transfer this knowledge to ourselves to see that we, as living beings, need our food in the same way; and that air and water, as well as meat and milk, sugar and eggs, are our foods, without which we cannot live. The baby's food is milk, which contains all the substances needed except oxygen of the air. This must be breathed in through the lungs. To milk is added for the child of two years starch in various forms, rice, potatoes, wheat bread, corn mush, etc. For the six years old there are added a few fruits and vegetables, eggs and a very little meat. The youth of twelve to fifteen years takes with profit all kinds of food if it is well cooked and not in the form of soggy bread or greasy, fried things. The young person from eighteen to twenty-five has a digestion which even the worst cooking does not always spoil, but there is even then a risk in overtaxing willing stomachs, for bad effects may not be manifest for many years. If the chicken is to be killed as soon as grown, then it may be stuffed with food to prepare it for market, but if it is to be kept as a useful laying fowl for the term of its natural life, it is far better that it learn to work for most of its food cleaning the garden and orchard of grubs. It thus develops naturally. In the same way, if a plant is to be used only at an exhibition it may be forced to bloom by extra fertilizer and a hothouse atmosphere, but if it is to bear wholesome fruit or fertile seed in due season and to live to bear again, then it is treated with the utmost moderation and not overfed. As human beings, what we all wish to know is what to eat, when, and how much. We also ask for a warning bell to caution us when we are liable to go wrong. This much every well person needs. The really sick must have a special treatment, but at this time we are concerned only with that food which keeps us well and strong and happy.