Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Science
Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)
Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Diet; Hygiene
The acid fruits should not be given in the meals containing starchy
foods. Strong children who have plenty of opportunity to be in the fresh
air and who are very active can stand this combination, but it is
injurious to the nervous type. It is not a good thing to make such
combinations habitually for robust children. A good meal can be made of
fruit followed by milk. Do not slice the fruit, sprinkle it with sugar
and cover it with cream. Give the child the fruit and nothing else.
Neither oranges nor grapefruits are to be sugared. Their flavor is
better without. If the children want sweets, give them a meal of sweet
fruits.
When the child is eighteen months old it should have learned to
masticate well enough to eat various fruits. Apples, oranges,
grapefruits, berries, cherries, grapes and melons are among the foods
that may be given. If the child does not masticate well, either grind
the fruit or scrape it very fine. The sweet fruits require so much
mastication that only their juices should be fed until the child is old
enough to masticate thoroughly. Bananas should also be withheld until
there is no doubt about the mastication. They must be thoroughly ripe,
the skin being dark in spots and the flesh firm and sweet. A green
banana is very starchy, but a ripe one contains hardly any starch and
digests easily.
At first the meal is fruit, followed with milk. Buttermilk or clabbered
milk may be substituted for sweet milk. A little later, begin giving
cottage cheese occasionally in place of milk, if the child likes it.
The succulent vegetables may be given quite early. At the age of two
years stewed onions, green peas, cauliflower, egg plant and summer
squash may be given. Gradually increase the variety until all the
succulent vegetables are used. At first it may be necessary to mash
these vegetables.
The longer children go without meat the better, and if they never
acquired the meat-eating habit it would be a blessing. If the parents
believe in feeding their children meat, they should wait until the
little ones are at least four years old before beginning. Meats are
digestible enough, but too stimulating for young people. Chicken and
other fowls may be used at first, and it is best to use young birds.
Beef and pork should not be on the children's menu. At the age of seven
or eight the variety may be increased. However, parents who wish to do
the best by their children will give them little or no meat. Many of the
sorrows that parents suffer through their wayward children would be done
away with if the young people were fed on less stimulating foods.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account