SPECIAL RULES FOR THE PROSPECTIVE MOTHER
Suggestions for the diet
There are some specific rules in regard to diet, however, which every mother should observe. The diet should be balanced so as to contain all the needed elements of nourishment in approximately the right proportions. The proportions, however, should differ in many cases from that which she would take if she were in a normal state, especially in regard to starchy foods or calcareous matter. An abundance of green salads, sweet ripe fruits, fresh vegetables in season, eggs, milk, nuts, and not more than two ounces of bread, potatoes, or dried beans should be taken daily. If flesh food or something salty is craved, tender chicken, or fish, may be allowed in small quantities.
Abnormal appetite during pregnancy
It should be borne in mind that I do not advocate the use of flesh foods, but during pregnancy the appetite is varying and sometimes tyrannical, and it has been found better to compromise with this condition than to combat it. The use of a limited quantity of tender meat, or any other article of good food for which there should arise a craving, is therefore advisable.
Flesh of young animals preferred
In the selection of meats, the flesh of young animals is best, for the reason that young animals are more healthy and less liable to contamination by dis-ease. The meat of either fowl or fish is rather appetizing, and often satisfies the craving that many pregnant women have for the heavier meats such as pork or veal, which are, of course, very much more difficult to digest.
There is, notwithstanding the opinion foolishly held by many doctors, no difference in the nutritive qualities of white or dark meat, as either variety is nourished by identically the same blood supply, and contains the same sort of protoplasm.
So it is a mistaken idea to think that there is any appreciable difference in the digestibility of white meat as compared with dark, except as the effect of mental suggestion may be operative. Of course, we know that if you tell a person often enough that a certain thing is true, eventually he will act upon it automatically. And so it is with the white and dark meat fetich.