A Sample Diet

If early rising is insisted upon, a child should never be set at any task before breakfast, especially in winter, and if it is not expedient to serve a full breakfast at half past six or seven the child should be given a bowl of hot milk and bread, or a cup of cocoa with a roll, or other light food: breakfast may be served later after the first exercises of the morning, and should be a substantial meal with animal food in the form of either fish, or eggs, or cold meat of some sort, with porridge of wheaten grits, or hominy with milk or cream and abundant sugar, also bread and butter, with some sweets in the form of jam, or marmalade, or stewed fruit. Dinner, which should always be served near the middle of the day, should comprise meat, potatoes, with one or two green vegetables, and some form of sweet pudding. The supper it is generally admitted should comprise only easily digestible articles of food, and such substances as pastry, cheese, and meats are better omitted. It should consist of either a porridge with milk or cream, or a light farinaceous pudding of rice, tapioca, sago, and the like, with bread and butter, and some simple form of preserve, or stewed apples or prunes, or very light plain cake, or a good bowl of nutritious broth with bread or crackers may be substituted for the porridge or pudding.

It will sometimes be found best to serve this meal at seven o'clock or half past seven, and if hungry the child may be given a slice of bread and butter and a cup of weak tea or coffee, mostly hot milk, at half past five or six o'clock.

Sample Diet From A Well-Known Boys' School In New England

Breakfast, 7.30 A. M

Oatmeal. Bread and butter. Stew or hashed meat, or beefsteak or chops. Twice a week, griddle cakes with sirup.

Dinner, 1 P. M

Soup. Fish once or twice a week. Meat, either roast beef, beefsteak, mutton, or chicken. Potatoes and green vegetables in season. Pudding, or pie, or plain cake, and lemonade. Fruit.

Supper, 7 P. M

Cold meat, or hashed meat, or fish balls. Potatoes. Bread and butter. Cake. Preserved fruits.

Time Allowed For Meals

Breakfast and supper, each half an hour; dinner, three quarters of an hour. Intervals of rest or recreation for the younger boys (thirteen to fourteen years), after breakfast, half an hour; before dinner, three quarters of an hour; after dinner, two hours and a half; before and after supper, fifteen minutes.

On Sundays, breakfast an hour and dinner half an hour later than on week-days, and supper five hours after dinner.

Some of the more important articles of school diet require special mention.

Bread, as a rule, should be made of whole meal, but must not be too coarse. The advantage of this bread for children consists in its containing a larger proportion of salts, which they need, than is found in refined white flour, and butter should be freely served with it, to supply the deficiency of fats which exist in wheat. Children need fat, but they do not digest meat fat well, as a rule, and are very apt to dislike it. They will often take suet pudding, however, when hot mutton fat disagrees.

Milk should be freely supplied not only in the form of puddings and porridges, but as an occasional beverage, and children should be made to understand that when hungry they can obtain a glass of milk, or a bowl of crackers or bread and milk, for the asking.

Chambers says: "The best luncheon that a growing young man can have is a dish of roast potatoes well buttered and peppered and a draught of milk".

Fresh Fish, eggs, and bacon are all wholesome and serviceable foods for children, and Meat, as a rule, may be given twice a day, but not oftener. It may sometimes be advisable to give it but once a day when fish or eggs are supplied; it should, however, always be given at least once daily, and better twice to rapidly growing children. Large, strong boys require a great deal of meat, and its use should not be stinted. The larger boys may eat from seven to nine or even twelve ounces of cooked meat as a ration, although many children may not require so much, the smaller boys doing well with from five to six ounces and the older boys with from seven to eight ounces daily.

During midwinter, when fresh vegetables are almost unobtainable in severe climates, vigorous boys sometimes have too much meat given them, and Yeo calls attention to the fact that eczema may be produced in them by a too exclusive animal diet.