When it comes to quantities of food to be prescribed, the author avoids
giving even suggestions. This has been the trouble with the past
attempts at reform. Had Luigi Cornaro told us in his autobiography the
manner of taking his food with other particulars, instead of giving
alone a maximum weight to which he limited himself, he might have
saved the world three hundred years of uncertainty and confusion. His
twelve ounces of solid food and fourteen ounces of new wine (fresh
grape juice) means little. The solid food might have been almost water
free or might have contained 50 per cent of moisture. The new wine
contained a trifle of sugar and probably more than 95 per cent of water
and supplied moisture to the body instead of water. During the Yale
tests reported elsewhere, and more fully in the "A. B.-Z. of Our Own
Nutrition," the daily ration did not exceed the reported amount of
Cornaro, even with the most generous allowance for moisture.
I have steadily refused to prescribe by weight or quantity or to
suggest the best kinds of foods for any one, but there are so many
questions arising from the publicity already given by the Yale
experiment, that it will do no harm to give some outline.
DIET IN THE YALE EXAMINATION OF THE AUTHOR
In the first place the selection of food for this test is no basis
of general choice. The analysis of food for its elemental molecule
values, and for its heat content, is a very difficult thing to do and
takes much time; hence to bring a large variety into a diet during a
test would entail enormous labour on the laboratory staff. Knowing
this difficulty, when I was requested to choose something which
would entirely satisfy my sense of taste gratification so as to best
stimulate the flow of the digestive juices, I chose a cereal with a
known content value. That is to say, I fed from different brands of
cereals, the content value of which was known. A quart of fresh milk a
day furnished the moisture required, and was not every day entirely
consumed. Maple sugar was the most variable ingredient of the diet in
regard to quantity. Of the milk I took nearly or quite one quart each
day, of the cereal I averaged about 150 grams, or say 5 ounces, and the
demand for the sugar varied from 150 grams to 200 grams, or say 5-7
ounces.
This food was taken in at two meals daily,--12-1 and 6-7 P.M.,--and
the time required in taking was 12-14 minutes to the meal, including
any delay necessitated in taking notes and in weighing the food.
These delays were inconsiderable, however, as facilities for weighing
and taking notes were perfected and their use well accustomed by the
subject. The 26-28 minutes per day, then, may be set down as the
careful but industrious eating time required to satisfy the waste and
appetite of a man doing 'Varsity Crew work, as reported by Dr. Anderson
and Professor Chittenden.
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