The main part of the meals of each day should consist of simply prepared, mild-flavored, non-stimulating, and easily digested foods. Well-cooked cereals, thoroughly baked, sweet-flavored bread, potatoes, milk, eggs, fresh, succulent vegetables and fruits should constitute the background of the dietary. Meats and meat soups, candies, preserves, desserts, cakes and other sweets, rich sauces, pickles, and condiments should be used in moderation to give color and interest to the dietary; they should not furnish the bulk of the food at any one meal.

Milk should be used liberally in order to replace a part of the meat in the average dietary, and because, of all foods, it is richest in lime. Milk is the cheapest animal food; and since some animal food is necessary, milk should be the first to be considered. It has building materials which are of special value for constructing young human tissue. No other food contains as much lime. It is also the most important source of two necessary growth-promoting factors (page 412). It tends to hold in check abnormal changes in the intestine. It is mild in flavor and lends itself to a variety of uses. When it undergoes normal souring, it still is of value and may be used in many ways.

If possible, provision should be made to supply each child in the family with a quart of clean, wholesome milk eveiy day. A pint of milk for each adult is desirable if the meat consumption is low. If it is impossible to supply as much milk as this for both children and adults, the children should receive a pint of milk each, while the amount for the adults may be reduced to a cupful apiece. If the milk supply for the family must be reduced still further, the milk should be given to the children, since the adults can eat coarser foods. Less than a pint of milk a day for each child is a very small allowance and is likely to result in some form of malnutrition. No milk at all for the child means, without doubt, malnutrition, unless knowledge and skill are combined in planning a correct and much more expensive dietary.

If it is impossible to obtain whole-milk, skim-milk is better than no milk, even for little children, although the child on a skim-milk diet will not grow so normally as one fed on whole-milk. The milk may be used as a beverage, or it may be cooked in various ways. The correct amount, not the form in which it is used, is the important point. If the family must economize, the amount of butter may be reduced, but the amount of milk should at the same time be increased to insure the correct total of the fat-soluble growth-promoting factor.

Clean, sweet, skim-milk is as valuable as whole-milk for its supply of lime, its good type of protein, its water-soluble growth-promoting factor and for a part of its fat-soluble growth-promoting factor. Skim-milk has a lower energy value than does whole-milk because of the loss of its fat. Half of its fat-soluble growth-promoting factor is lost with the fat; therefore, skim-milk has not the same growth-promoting power as whole-milk, although it still contains growth-promoting properties. For this reason, children should have whole-milk instead of skim-milk.

Buttermilk has the same food value as skim-milk. Some persons digest buttermilk more easily than skim-milk because the casein is clotted by the acid in the milk. It is believed that when the casein of milk is clotted before it reaches the stomach, either by natural souring or by the addition of orange, lemon, or other fruit juice or junket, it does not form the large firm clots sometimes formed in the case of sweet milk. The nutritive value of the milk is unchanged, and the clotting may make the milk more easily digested by some persons.

Cottage cheese, made of the curd of milk, is a valuable food. It contains most of the protein of the whole-milk and is a good source of this important building material. It contains a part of the lime and the phosphorus of the whole-milk, and part of the growth-promoting factors, though little can be said as yet concerning the comparative amounts of these substances present in it. As a protein food, it is a valuable meat substitute.

Whey also has nutritive value and should never be discarded. It contains the water-soluble, and a small part of the fat-soluble, growth-promoting factors, much of the lime, part of the phosphorus, and it may contain most of the carbohydrate of the original milk. It should find many uses in the dietary in the form of breads and cakes, gelatin desserts, frozen desserts, and pudding sauces.

The American Cheddar, or cream, cheese made from whole-milk contains both the protein and the fat of the milk. Pound for pound, cheese is considerably richer than meat in both protein and fat. Cheese is rich not only in protein and fat but also in lime, phosphorus, and growth-promoting substances. When cheese is served as a meat-saver, that is, cooked in combination with other foods, it is generally easily digested; it is probably the serving of cheese with pie at the end of a hearty meal that has given it the undeserved name of being difficult to digest.

Cream, as well as the butter and ice cream made from it, has a definite place in the daily food because of growth-promoting substances and the high energy value of the fat. The souring of cream does not change its nutritive value any more than does the souring of milk. One pound of butter is equivalent to five quarts of milk in energy value; but counting the proteins, lime, and growth-promoting factors that milk contains, three quarts of milk will give as much total food as a pound of butter. It is said that not only should three quarts of milk be used in place of every pound of butter given up, but when a pound of butter costs more than the three quarts of milk, it is wise economy to use the milk instead of the butter. In a family where there are three or more little children, no money should be spent for a pound of butter or of meat until after an allowance has been made for three quarts of milk.