Dietetics for NursesProudfit, Fairfax T. (Fairfax Throckmorton)
Science
Dietetics for Nurses
Proudfit, Fairfax T. (Fairfax Throckmorton)
Diet in disease
(2) Malted Foods: Mellin's Food and malted milk are examples of this
group. These foods contain the carbohydrates in soluble form and when
added to milk make an acceptable addition, as they furnish the
carbohydrates in the most digestible form. When fed alone, diluted
only with water, they result in a mixture deficient in both fat and
protein.
(3) Imperial Granum is an example of this group, and there are several
others with similar compositions. These foods are very much like wheat
flour which has been subjected to heat, changing to a small extent the
starch to dextrose and dextrin.
(4) Nestle's Food, Eskay's Albumenized Food, and Allenbury's Food are
examples of this group, each containing sugar and a percentage of
starch. Upon dilution with water, the amount of fat in the mixture is
just a trace.
~Incomplete Foods as a Source of Danger.~--The ease with which the
majority of these foods are prepared and the way in which they agree
with the baby constitute the chief danger of their use. If they are
added to milk, with the exception of the condensed milk, they result
in a modified milk containing the carbohydrates in a more or less
digested form. But they are expensive, and give no better result as a
rule than a carefully modified milk containing a cereal gruel.
The giving of foods like malted milk alone is dangerous because they
are deficient in some of the most necessary constituents, and babies
fed in this way, while growing fat, are apt to have soft or brittle
bones and muscular tissue higher in fat and water than in protein, so
that they do not grow and develop in a normal way, and when they are
attacked by the diseases so prevalent in the early years of life, they
succumb rapidly, because the resistance given by a properly modified
food is lacking.
Condensed milks act in a like manner. That is, in the sweetened milks
the carbohydrate content is far in excess of the needs, and the
proteins and fats are deficient, so that while the baby fattens he
does not receive the building foods commensurate with his body
requirements.[83]
Many mothers adopt the use of these foods because they mean less work
than in modifying the milk properly, but the nurse should point out
the facts just mentioned, explaining that while these proprietary
infant foods are undoubtedly valuable at times to fill a place when
the milk formula has not proved satisfactory, the use of these foods
as a regular custom is expensive, not only from a financial standpoint
but from a standpoint of health, since their disadvantages far
outweigh their advantages in the long run.
SUMMARY
~Breast Milk as a Food.~--The superiority of breast milk over any
other known food cannot be too strongly emphasized.
~Regularity in Feeding.~--The absolute need for regularity in
feeding--"feeding by the clock" and not by guess or when the baby
cries.
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