206. Regulation Of Diet With Reference To The Combination Of Nutrients

The number of combinations of food materials that may be devised is almost endless, even of those that are rational from every point of view. It is not the purpose in this connection to give numerous examples of possible approved dietaries, but simply to illustrate how the principles herein set forth may be applied. The following menus for two days are suggested by a practical dietitian as examples of meals well combined, healthful, and economical.1

No. 1

Breakfast

Oatmeal Milk Sugar

Codfish balls

Toast Butter

Coffee

Lunch Pea soup Crackers

Macaroni and cheese Graham bread and butter

Tea Cookies

Dinner Mutton stew - dumplings Riced potatoes, bread and butter Poor man's rice pudding Coffee

1 For a list of raw materials required see pp. 232-233.

No. 2

Breakfast

Pancakes Syrup

Tea

Dinner

Corned beef

Potatoes Lima beans

Bread Butter

Bread pudding

Supper

Baked omelet

Creamed potatoes

Toast

Cheese Milk

In day No. 1 the mutton, codfish, milk and cheese are the distinctively protein foods, and in day No. 2 the proteins are supplied mainly from the corned beef, skimmed milk, eggs and cheese. The carbohydrates are supplied in abundance from the flour, bread, vegetables, and sugar, while the fats are introduced mostly in the meats, cheese, and butter. Such combinations would not be deficient in the ash elements.

The economy of these food combinations, both nutritively and as to money cost, will be discussed later (see pp. 231-234).

207. How An Ill-Considered Diet May Fail To Meet Physiological Requirements

It is not necessary to recount here the number of elements that are necessary to the building and maintenance of the human body, or to review the nutritive functions of the many compounds that are found in human foods, in order to point out possible errors in the selection of food and the ways in which various dangers may be avoided, p

Experience shows and science corroborates the fact, that the majority of persons, young and mature, are supplied with nutriment sufficient in quantity and kind to meet the needs of their bodies reasonably well. So many kinds of materials are ordinarily supplied to the table that in many families, at least, no physiological need is left unsatisfied. If man's diet included only the various products of the soil and of animal life in an unmodified condition except the cooking, there would doubtless be little danger that any one, however ignorant, would suffer from incomplete nutrition. But human foods are now so largely made up of what may be called "artificial" products, that is, materials so modified by some manufacturing process as to almost wholly lack nutrients of one or more classes, it is easy for a child, or even an adult, to so select his diet on the basis of pleasurable taste as to be badly nourished.