required as soon as he begins to walk. Milk, eggs and cereals will
furnish this. The heavier protein diet is best given at eighteen months
to two years, in eggs, cooked soft. These soft cooked eggs are best
when mixed with broken, dry toast or broken crackers, because if dry
food is served with them, they will be better masticated, hence more
saliva be mixed with them. The habit of thorough mastication should be
cultivated at this period.
Oatmeal, thoroughly cooked, and shredded wheat, with cream and sugar,
ripe fruit, bread and butter, milk, soft cooked eggs (poached, baked or
boiled) constitute a rational diet.
If the child is hungry between meals, he should be fed at a regular
period, midway between breakfast and luncheon and between luncheon and
the evening meal. The food should be dry (toast or a dry cracker) to
require thorough and slow mastication.
Many object to “piecing” between meals, but if this piecing be done
at hours as regular as his meal hour, and the food be dry and well
masticated, it will readily digest and will not interfere with his
meals. The growing child needs more frequent meals than the adult.
His stomach is not so large, he is active in out door exercise, and
eliminates waste freely. He also requires much heat and energy. The
active child at outdoor play uses almost as much energy as the laboring
man.
The growing child craves sweets.
Candy should not be taken at any time during the day, because the
digestive system needs rest. It is quickly converted into heat and is
best eaten immediately following a meal. Sugar may be spread upon bread
for the four o’clock lunch or a little candy may be eaten at this time.
Two to three pieces of candy an inch square are sufficient.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Developing, or the Adolescent Period]
This period begins with a girl, usually near the thirteenth year, and
with a boy about fourteen. There is no time in life when a mother needs
to be so watchful of the diet. Growth is very rapid and much easily
digested protein is needed to build tissue, particularly to build the
tissue of red corpuscles.
The red meats, eggs, spinach and all kinds of greens are important
articles of diet at this time, because of the iron which they contain.
They should be supplied freely, particularly for developing girls,
or they may otherwise be inclined to anaemia, at this time. Butter
and milk are valuable and _regular exercises with deep breathing are
imperative_.
BREAKFAST.
Fruit.
Oatmeal or some other cereal, well cooked, with cream and sugar.
One egg, boiled, poached or baked (cooked soft), or chipped beef in
cream gravy.
Cereal coffee, toast coffee or hot water with cream and sugar.
Buttered toast, shredded wheat biscuit or triscuit.
LUNCH
Cream soup, bean soup, or pureé with crackers or dry toast.
Bread and butter.
Fruit and cake, or rice pudding, or bread, tapioca, cocoanut or cereal
pudding of any kind, or a cup of custard.
DINNER
An ample portion of meat, (preferably red meat).
Potatoes.
Vegetables, preferably spinach, or greens of some kinds, or beets
boiled with the tops.
Graham bread.
Fruit with triscuit, graham bread toasted or graham wafers.
Candy. (small quantity)
A growing child is usually hungry upon returning from school, and it is
well to take a little easily digested food regularly but not sufficient
to destroy the appetite for the evening meal. An egg lemonade is easily
digested and satisfying. If active and exercising freely, craving for
sweets should be gratified, to a limited extent.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Athlete]
The young man, active in athletics, needs the same food as given for
the adolescent, yet more in quantity. He needs to drink water before
his training and at rest periods during the game. If he is too fat, he
should train off the superfluous amount by exercise and by judiciously
abstaining from much sugars, starches and fats. Diets for reductions
must be governed by the condition of the kidneys and the digestive
organs.
Deep breathing habits are imperative and he must be careful not to
overtax lungs or heart.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Laboring Man]
The man engaged in muscular work requires plenty of food; he can digest
foods which the professional or business man, or the man of sedentary
habits, cannot. He will probably be able to drink coffee and tea
without any disturbance to nerves or to digestion. In his muscular
work he liberates the waste freely and needs fats, starches and sugars
to supply the heat and energy. This is especially true of men who work
in the fresh air; the muscular action liberates waste and heat and the
full breathing freely oxidizes the waste, putting it in condition to be
excreted through lungs, skin, kidneys and intestines.
He should have more meat, eggs and nitrogenous foods, and he also needs
more carbonaceous foods to supply heat and energy. Three hearty meals a
day are necessary.
His muscular movements of the trunk keeps the circulation forceful and
the vital organs strong so that his diet may be almost as heavy as that
of the football player. Meat or eggs, two or even three times a day,
with tea or coffee, and even _pie_ may be eaten with impunity. He needs
a good nourishing breakfast of bacon and eggs or meat, also potatoes,
or a liberal allowance of bread and butter, corn bread, muffins, etc.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Aged]
The term aged is not governed entirely by years. If one stops physical
and mental activity, the vital forces recede, muscles and vital organs
become weak and inactive, the waste of the system is not fully relieved
and such a man at fifty-five is physically and mentally older than the
man who is in active business or is taking daily vigorous exercise, at
seventy or eighty. The latter may follow the same diet which he follows
at fifty, while the former should follow the diet of the old man who
has stopped active work. It should be simple, easily digested and
nutritious, and should be reduced in quantity.
BREAKFAST
Cereal, well cooked, with cream or sugar. Oatmeal is preferred because
it is laxative.
One egg, boiled, poached or baked (soft).
One slice of toast.
Cereal coffee.
DINNER
Bouillon or soup.
Meat—small portion.
Potato (preferably baked).
Vegetable.
Cup custard, or bread, rice or cornmeal pudding with lemon cream sauce.
SUPPER
Soup.
Bread and butter.
Stewed fruit.
Tea.
An old person needs little meat. The food should be masticated to
a pulp. Tea and coffee are best omitted, but if used to tea, one
small cup, prepared by turning boiling water on the leaves and served
immediately, may be included. The tea should not be strong and, for
reasons given on page 183, should never be allowed to steep.
If inclined to constipation, or if the kidneys are inactive, grapes or
an apple, or some fruit may be eaten just before retiring.
MENUS FOR ABNORMAL CONDITIONS.
Where the body is not in normal condition, because elements are lacking
in the blood, these elements must be supplied in larger proportions
with the food, and the case is one for a food chemist, or for one who
has made food conditions a study. When medical colleges broaden their
curriculum, or physicians employ methods other than medicine and the
knife, for correction of physical ailments, the relief will be with
this profession. If they do not, professional schools for the education
of the physical culturist and food specialists, for the correction of
deranged conditions of the system, due to poor circulation and abnormal
blood conditions, which have so long been controlled entirely through
medicine, will spring up and replace much of the correction previously
left entirely to the medical fraternity.
In case of an abnormal condition, the food must be regulated according
to the case. This also applies to a diet where one carries an abnormal
amount of fat.
In the early stage of various diseases, where toxins are hoarded in
the system, it is often advisable to abstain from food for from one to
three days, according to conditions. As previously stated, where the
system is not properly eliminating the waste, it is wise to abstain
from food, to take brisk exercise, breathe deeply and drink freely of
water, until the waste is eliminated. A laxative is also desirable.
The above suggestions are for abnormal conditions. To _keep_ the body
in health, eat at regular periods.
It is the purpose here to give diets for chronic cases, which the
average person attempts to regulate without a physician in regular
attendance.
The foundation education in regard to foods, belongs in the public
schools. How many lives are lost on account of the lack of knowledge of
food values will never be known.
The system readily excretes an excess of vegetable products, and, as a
rule, no acute difficulties result; however, such chronic difficulties,
as Constipation, Torpid Liver and Indigestion, frequently result from
an excess of starch, over that consumed in energy. On account of the
readiness to putrefaction of protein products, care should be taken not
to consume these in too great proportion.
Broadly speaking, a diet largely of protein, which is digested in the
stomach, rests the intestines, and a diet largely of carbohydrates,
rests the stomach, because the gastric juice is not active in starch
digestion. In case sufficient saliva is not swallowed with the food to
digest the starches and sugars in the stomach they are passed into the
intestines for digestion. In the absence of sufficient saliva, water
with the food is desirable to dissolve the starches, that they may more
readily pass the pylorus.
A study of the habitual taste for foods, in connection with the
physical ailments of eighteen thousand women, shows that by the
constituents in the blood, and the condition of the different organs
of the digestive system, one can usually determine which food the
individual has formed a habit of eating, because the blood will show a
lack of the elements which that patient has denied himself on account
of his likes and dislikes.
It is necessary to change the mental attitude toward certain foods
before the system will assimilate them; thus _a taste for the foods
which the body requires should be cultivated_.
Every mother, with growing children, should be a thorough student of
the chemistry of food. If the child’s bones do not grow to sufficient
size and strength, care in the selection of foods, rich in proteins,
lime, magnesium and phosphates, may correct it. Such a child should
have meat, whole wheat bread and eggs.
Where the child stores up too much fat, care in the amount of exercise,
and of oxygen consumed, as well as the regulation of diet, are of vital
importance. If one is thin and undernourished, chemical analysis of the
contents of stomach, intestines and kidneys should be made, the nerves
be rested and proper food, exercise and breathing should accompany
medical treatment, if medicine is needed.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Anaemia]
Regular exercise and deep breathing are fully as important as the
regulation of diet for the anaemic. In anaemia the red blood corpuscles
are lacking, or there is not sufficient blood. The red corpuscles
not being sufficient in number to carry the necessary quantity of
oxygen to the tissues to oxidize the waste, the system becomes clogged
with waste, which affects the nerves and brain cells. The patient is
tired and disinclined to exercise, thus the decreased number of red
corpuscles are not kept in forceful circulation and the carbonic acid
gas is not freely thrown off by the lungs; this further aggravates the
condition.
Pus formation, in abscesses, are frequent in anaemic cases.
There is little desire for food when the system is clogged, and there
is little use in forcing food.
The red corpuscles are made in the red marrow of the bones and free
action of the joints is desirable.
The initial work, therefore in the correction of anaemia, lies in
brisk, every day exercise and deep breathing of fresh air. Such
exercise should be intelligently directed to the joints and to the
vital organs, particularly to the liver, that it may be kept in normal
condition to break down the protein waste. The windows at night should
admit of a good circulation of air through the sleeping room. These
habits being established, the diet should consist of foods containing
iron, such as red meat, eggs and the green leaves of vegetables. Milk
sipped slowly and a free use of butter are desirable.
It will usually be found that the anaemic individual has no taste for
vegetables containing iron, or for meats rich in albuminoids,—or, that
these foods have been denied because of their scarcity; therefore, the
elements necessary for red blood corpuscles have been deficient.
The following is a suggestive diet:
BREAKFAST
Fruit, in plenty.
Two eggs, soft boiled, poached or baked.
Cereal coffee or cambric tea.
Toast, graham bread or graham or corn muffins.
MIDDLE OF THE FORENOON
Lemonade with spoonful of beef =juice= (not beef extract) or with a
beaten egg.
LUNCH
Split pea or bean soup with dry toast.
Fruit and nut salad (no vinegar).
Fruit, fresh or stewed.
Cake.
Glass of milk.
MIDDLE OF AFTERNOON
Egg lemonade or eggnog.
DINNER
Bouillon.
Tenderloin steak or lamb chops.
Baked potato.
Spinach, beet or dandelion greens.
Custard, fruit gelatin, or cornstarch pudding, or rice with lemon
cream sauce.
Glass milk.
If the patient still has no appetite, more exercise, deep breathing
and abstinence from all food for a day or two are desirable. This will
give the system a chance to clear itself of waste and when the waste
is relieved through exercise and diet the desire for food will assert
itself.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Indigestion and Dyspepsia]
Indigestion or Dyspepsia is the broad term commonly applied to most
chronic stomach and intestinal difficulties—due, not to structural
disease, but to their being incapable of normally performing their
functions in digesting ordinary foods. The term includes troubles
arising from so many different causes that the cause must be determined
and remedied before definite results can be attained through diet.
Most chronic cases are due to improper hygiene,—such as irregular
meals; over eating; insufficient mastication; wrong choice of foods;
or to a general run down condition, with a weakness of muscles of
the stomach, due to insufficient blood supply; or to a weakened or
over-strenuous condition of nerves controlling the stomach.
Indigestion is usually accompanied by constipation, or by irregular
action of the intestines.
Plenty of fresh air, and exercise, directed definitely to muscles and
nerves of the stomach, that it may be strengthened by a better blood
supply, as well as exercises and deep breathing to build up the general
health, should be systematically followed.
Easily digested food, well masticated, and regular meals served
daintily, with following of above directions, will gradually regulate
digestion.
Without doubt, the intelligent medical treatment of stomach
difficulties in the future will be directed by a chemical analysis
of the stomach contents. If the stomach is not secreting normal
proportions of pepsin or hydrochloric acid, the deficiency can be
regulated. The chemical analysis of the gastric secretions will alone
determine what elements are lacking. As stated above, the permanent
relief must lie in gaining a good circulation of blood through the
entire body and through the stomach, that it may be strengthened and
thus enabled to secrete these elements in proper proportions.
Many cases of stomach difficulty are due to the condition of the nerves.
* * * * *
=Nervous Indigestion= is due to the general nerve condition. In such
cases the entire nervous system should be regulated through exercise,
breathing, relaxation and a change of thought. Physicians usually
recommend change of scene to direct change of thought.
The diet should be light and laxative and low in protein. Cream soup,
bread and milk, crackers and milk, custards, egg lemonade, and gruels,
furnish an easily digested list. No tea, coffee, very little meat and
no fried food. Where the walls of the stomach are weak and distended,
light food six times a day is preferable to a hearty meal, which
distends the stomach walls.
Where a loss of weight occurs, it usually indicates a failure to
_assimilate_ a sufficient amount of food, rather than a failure to
eat sufficient. A good circulation, particularly through the vital
organs, deep full breathing of fresh air, and regular and complete rest
periods, should be observed. Usually a dietitian, or a physician, is
not called in chronic cases until the condition has prevailed for so
long that other complications have set in and the patient has lost
much flesh. It takes months to pull the system down and it takes months
of following of proper hygiene to build it up.
* * * * *
=Gastritis or Catarrh of the Stomach= involving an inflammation of the
mucous lining of the stomach, is a most common phase of indigestion. In
acute cases the physician is called at once. He can treat the case in
its initial stages and bring about a much more rapid recovery.
* * * * *
=Acute Gastritis= is accompanied by nausea and vomiting and the patient
should rest from all food and drink for two days. If the mouth is dry,
water or ice may be given frequently and held in the mouth, but not
swallowed.
After two days rest, begin the nourishment with water and a small
portion of liquid food (not over two ounces) every two hours. Toast
tea, made by pouring hot water over toast, oatmeal, or barley gruel
(thoroughly strained so that no coarse matter may irritate the
stomach), limewater and milk, and egg lemonade are easily digested
foods to begin to eat. Increase the quantity the fourth day and
lengthen the time between feedings to three hours. Gradually increase
the diet by semi-liquid food, soft boiled eggs, moistened toast, raw
oysters, etc., slowly returning to the regular bill of fare.
Avoid, as you do so, any food difficult of digestion and any vegetable
containing coarse fibre. Tea, coffee, pickles, and alcoholic drinks
should be avoided.
* * * * *
=Chronic Gastritis= is accompanied with a thickening of the mucous
lining of the stomach. It is usually caused by prolonged use of
irritating foods and the regulation of the diet is of utmost
importance. Alcohol is a common cause. The difficulty begins gradually
and the relief must likewise be gradual.
The stomach needs water. If the drinking of water causes nausea it is
well to wash it out with a stomach pump each morning before breakfast.
If not convenient to use the stomach pump the washing may be
accomplished by drinking two glasses of water at least an hour before
breakfast, followed by stomach exercises, to cause a regurgitation of
the water through the stomach. This will be uncomfortable at first,
with a very full feeling and one may begin by drinking one glass,
followed by stomach exercises, gradually taking another glass within
a half hour of the first. This, with the exercises, will wash out the
mucus. In many cases as much as a pint of slimy mucus collects in the
stomach during the night. Where the stomach cleansing is impossible, in
above manner, the stomach tube should be used.
Chronic gastritis, in any of its phases, is frequently accompanied by
constipation, and the diet should be so selected as to be as laxative
as possible, without irritating the lining of the stomach. The liquid
diet assists the intestines, to a certain extent, particularly if the
stomach be cleansed by the water in the morning, as indicated under
Mucous Gastritis below.
Fruit in the morning and just before retiring aid the intestines. Two
prunes chopped up with one fig or a bunch of grapes or an apple just
before retiring assist the action of the intestines and the kidneys.
Almost all fruits contain acid, which increases peristalsis, and the
resultant flow of gastric juice. Cooked pears, stewed or baked apples,
prunes and dates are mild fruits which may be used if they agree with
the patient. The juice of an orange upon first arising may be used,
except in case of a diminution, or absence, of hydrochloric acid.
Peptonized milk is an excellent food both for chronic and acute cases
especially in severe cases. This is prepared by putting “pancreatin,”
a pancreatic ferment, (trypsin), into fresh milk. Preparations of
“pancreatin” are sold in the drug stores. The peptonized milk does not
form curds and readily passes through the stomach for digestion in
the intestine. This may be given for a few days, followed by milk and
limewater, barley and toast water, kumyss, oatmeal gruel, meat juices,
scraped meat (raw, boiled or roasted), broths thickened with thoroughly
cooked cereals, ice cream, egg lemonade, gelatins and whipped cream,
custards, raw oysters.
After one week gradually assume the regular diet of easily digested
foods. All cereals should be thoroughly cooked. The white meat of
chicken is readily digested. As the solid food diet is assumed,
regularity of food, in small amounts, and thorough mastication are
important. If the patient imagines he is chewing it will help him to
keep chewing until the food is reduced to a pulp.
Avoid meat with tough fibre, too fat meat (pork), sausage, lobster,
salmon, chicken salads, mayonnaise, cucumbers, pickles, cabbage, tea,
coffee and alcohol.
Four or five light meals a day are preferable to three heavy meals.
_The regulation of the flow of gastric juices_ is constitutional. The
general circulation must be forceful, the habit of deep breathing and
of regular periods of complete rest of body and mind established.
Since one with chronic gastritis is liable to have many idiosyncracies,
he should not be urged to eat foods for which he has a dislike. The
easily digested foods should be prepared in various ways and served in
an appetizing, dainty manner.
There are four special phases of chronic gastritis, Mucous Gastritis,
Hyperchlorhydria, Hypochlorhydria and Achlorhydria.
In _Mucous Gastritis_ there is a profuse secretion of mucus into the
stomach. In this case it is always well to wash out the stomach before
introducing food, as suggested above.
The same general diet, suggested above for acute gastritis, should be
followed.
_Hyperchlorhydria._ The condition known as Hyperchlorhydria shows a
liberal excess of hydrochloric acid. The condition is common, and
is brought on by worry, nervous excitement, eating when overtired,
irregularity of food, imperfect mastication and excessive use of
alcohol. The diet should be a mixed one, in about normal proportions.
If anything, it should incline more to proteins than to starches.
The hydrochloric acid is necessary for the digestion of proteins. It
reduces the protein to acid albumin, which is less irritating to the
stomach. However the proteins are stimulating to the stomach and the
protein proportion should not be carried to excess.
The juice of one-fourth of a lemon taken one half hour before the meal
will decrease the secretion of hydrochloric acid into the stomach.
Limewater and milk may constitute the diet for two days; alkaline,
effervescing mineral water may be used and then the diet should follow
the general principles for chronic gastritis. Avoid all irritating
foods.
_Hypochlorhydria_ is a diminution in the amount of hydrochloric acid.
Physicians often administer hydrochloric acid about one half hour to an
hour after the meal.
Many advocate a diet omitting protein, but since protein foods
stimulate the flow of gastric juices, they should _not_ be omitted, but
used a little less freely.
_Achlorhydria._ Where there is an entire absence of hydrochloric acid,
as in Achlorhydria, the stomach, of course, cannot digest proteins and
this digestion must be done entirely by the trypsin of the pancreatic
juice. The presence of liquified protein as beef juice in the stomach,
however, acts as a stimulus to the gastric juice and is an agency in
again starting its flow.
The foods should be liquid, so as to pass through the stomach without
irritation. Clear milk must be excluded, because of the action of the
rennin in coagulating the casein. This would irritate the stomach.
Peptonized milk, described on page 245 may be used as an article of
diet,—also milk with limewater, gelatin, cream, olive oil, gruels, and
any foods which would pass through the stomach in a liquid state. Any
cereals must exclude the bran and must be masticated to a pulp, so that
they may readily pass into the small intestine.
* * * * *